JH Underground – news, sports and music blog from Jackson Hole, Wyoming news, sports and music blog from Jackson Hole, Wyoming

The season’s first significant snowfall triggered the usual flurry of status updates and text messages. Undoubtedly, most in this ski-crazy community are excited for the coming winter. Another day or two of snow, and the race will be on to make first tracks.

Long before Teton Gravity Research premieres, the early ski pioneers in Jackson Hole were just as enthusiastic. They recorded the joy of winter’s arrival in journals slightly more poetic than today’s spraying.

While researching a story on historic winters for the upcoming Jackson Hole magazine, I came across a few of these accounts. Here’s an excerpt from Doris Platts’ book Wilson, Wyoming: Hoorah!, written by the late Virginia Huidekoper in her column “The Corral” for the Jackson’s Hole Courier on Nov. 15, 1945:

The skiing season was officially opened … by a mixed group of eager Idahoans and Wyomingites who gathered on Teton Pass and gave vent to pent-up desires which had accumulated during the dry months. Three feet of powdered satin on Telemark Hill gave semblance to a winter battlefield by evening. Criss-crossed and pock-marked, the slope was initiated in true fashion by weak-kneed christies and first-of-the-season egg beaters.

In spite of near-blizzard conditions, the initial ski outing was hailed as a good beginning to what looks like a long and promising winter.

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Posted under Sports, Weather, Wyoming

Tags: history, powder, skiing, teton pass, writing

A few weeks ago I stopped in at Teton Village and noticed a change. The “Jackson Hole Ski Resort” sign had been removed from the old entrance road.

Call me a stodgy traditionalist, but I always use the old road to enter the village. And there was something welcoming about that wooden sign, a throwback to another era when ski resorts were guests on public land.

After some investigating, I found that the sign was removed at the behest of the Forest Service, whose new supervisor, Jacque Buchanan, reportedly felt it was out of date. “It was not good representation of the forest,” Bridger-Teton spokeswoman Mary Cernicek said. “It was in a pretty poor state.”

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Posted under Environment, Ski Resorts, Sports

Tags: history, jhmr, national forest, skiing, teton village

For a community that venerates its mountaineering heritage, surprisingly little attention is given to the history of running the Snake River.

That will change Saturday at Summit on the Snake, when longtime guide and outfitter Wayne Johnson gives a presentation on early attempts to navigate the Snake, including the first descent of the entire river by adventurer Amos Burg in 1925.

Put on by the Snake River Fund and now in its 14th year, the summit is a daylong educational symposium dedicated to the wildlife, history and ecology of the Snake. Speakers will give presentations on Yellowstone Lake and Flat Creek, risk management and in-depth looks at beavers and raptors. A complete schedule is posted on the Snake River Fund website.

The event is open to casual river enthusiasts but is especially valuable for fishing, whitewater and scenic float guides, who can pass on knowledge to their clients. Cost is $30, which includes light breakfast and lunch. There will be a raffle for river gear and other prizes. Afterward, The Mountain Pulse is throwing a Guides ‘n’ Gapers party at The Bird.

Breakfast and registration begin at 8 a.m. Speakers start at 9. Register at the door or by calling the fund at 307-734-6773.

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Posted under Environment, Sports

Tags: eagles, fishing, history, river running, snake river, wildlife

Last we left off with filmmaker Jen Tennican, she had embarked on a documentary about the Stagecoach Bar in Wilson, using the cherished watering hole as a prism to view 70 years of Western history.

Since then she won the Wyoming Short Film Contest with a spinoff comedy and netted $25,000 for the project. Now, nearing her fund-raising goal, she has received a $5,000 grant from a local foundation and is appealing to us, the masses on the Interwebs, to match.

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Posted under Entertainment, Music, Sports

Tags: films, history, mountain biking

In what could be hailed as the second coming of LeJay’s, Bubba’s Bar-B-Que will be open 24 hours a day on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, beginning tomorrow.

The popular eatery will serve from a “graveyard menu,” composed of breakfast, lunch and dinner items, our waitress, Stacy, explained this morning. Half the dining room will be closed off, and there will be no late-night salad bar.

“We’re going to see how it goes,” she said, a little leery.

Jackson has lacked a 24-hour eatery since the closing of LeJay’s Sportsmen’s Cafe, now home to The Garage, in 2003. LeJay’s was a classic hangout known for the Rogues Gallery, a collection of paintings on the wall, and Larry Turner Special, an omelette with just about everything you can imagine, smothered with chili.

Earlier, Jackson had The Elkhorn, which the late Bill Warren operated from roughly 1972 to 1989 on West Broadway.

Posted under Business, Food

Tags: coffee, history, restaurants