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.

Read More…

Posted under Sports, Weather, Wyoming

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

When Blitzen Trapper takes the stage Sunday night at the Pink Garter, Marty Marquis will feel right at home.

Marquis, red-haired guitarist and keyboardist for the Portland-based quintet, used to hitchhike a lot when he was younger. He made a point of choosing a route that took him through Jackson and the national parks.

“I love the Tetons, love Yellowstone, and the folks that I met around there were always really friendly,” he said Thursday from Salt Lake City, where the band was performing. “It seemed like I got offered a job every time I came through there.” Also, the parks and surrounding area were “some of the historical trappers’ favorite places to hang out.”

Expect Marquis and his bandmates to share a few stories, theirs mixed with historical tales, during the show. Blitzen Trapper’s songs are steeped in Western imagery, telling of wandering and adventures, outlaws and wolves.

Read More…

Posted under Environment, Music

Tags: jackson hole community radio, pink garter, rock, wolves, writing

A wave came crashing like a fist to the jaw
Delivered him wings, ‘Hey, look at me now’
~ Pearl Jam, Given to Fly

A public memorial service for ski mountaineers Steve Romeo and Chris Onufer will be held at 6 p.m. Tuesday in the outdoor plaza at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. A reception will follow afterward at the Mangy Moose.

Romeo, 40, and Onufer, 42, died in an avalanche March 7 in Grand Teton National Park. They were ascending Ranger Peak when the slide occurred.

So much has been written about these two in recent days, and the loss so devastating, that it’s hard for me to add much. I had known both since we worked on the mountain at JHMR in the mid-1990s, me as a photographer and them running the lifts. When I started guiding whitewater on the Snake, Steve was a photographer in the canyon before joining the staff of Skinny Skis.

Read More…

Posted under Deaths, Media, Sports

Tags: avalanches, backcountry, ppp, skiing, writing

Five years ago this month, I began wading into the world of css and html, WordPress and DreamHost, cobbling together thoughts into an online journal. After several all-night sessions of trial and error, with much guidance and encouragement from DG at The Snaz, JH Underground was born.

Some 900 posts, 4,100 comments and 2 million page views later, I am still astonished at the response. To thank readers, celebrate the five-year anniversary and spread some holiday cheer, JH Underground is teaming with Snake River Brewing Co. to host a Beer Summit on Thursday. From 5 to 7 p.m. upstairs at the brew pub, we’ll have pitchers and pizzas and talk about the issues we often debate on these pages.

Read More…

Posted under From the Publisher, Holidays, Media, Politics

Tags: barack obama, beer, writing

Gus, the fly-casting protagonist of David James Duncan‘s coming-of-age novel The River Why, first loses then finds himself in fishing. He sits and listens to the stream, grappling with weighty environmental and philosophical questions more than trout:

No, it wasn’t simply the death of the fish that bothered me. The thing I found offensive, the thing I hated about Mohican-mountain-makers, gill-netters, poachers, whalehunters, strip-miners, herbicide spewers, dam-erectors, nuclear-reactor builders or anyone who lusted after flesh, meat, mineral, tree, pelt and dollar — including, first and foremost, myself — was the smug ingratitude, the attitude that assumed the world and its creatures owed us everything we could catch, shoot, tear out, alter, plunder, devour … and we owed the world nothing in return.

As this trailer attests, the movie adaptation drifts more into romance than philosophy. But who doesn’t want to land a mermaid?

Tonight at Center for the Arts, Patagonia presents a special screening of the film to benefit the Snake River Fund. Tickets are $15, available online or at the box office. Showtime is 7:30 p.m., and doors open at 6:30 for refreshments.

The film only has been screened a few times after making the rounds on the festival circuit last year.

Duncan, the author, grew up in Oregon and has been a passionate advocate for restoration of Snake/Columbia River salmon. His soulful novel is worth a read.

Read More…

Posted under Art, Entertainment, Environment, Sports

Tags: conservation, films, fishing, nonprofits, river running, snake river, writing