After my visit at the San Bruno NARA facilities (last post), I’m off to Jackson Wyoming, known to most as Jackson Hole, to commence rewriting my book. First thing I did, was to tear up last winter’s draft and start combing through the 1000 scans of the San Bruno findings. Everything I found is now spread upon my kitchen table. A copy machine, a scanner, 25′ of a butcher-paper timeline, and dozens of yellow post-its.
I start over and so does Teton County. Teton County, which is where Jackson resides, is now the wealthiest county in the US topping Manhattan. Yes it’s true. Every time I pull into town, it’s whole different place–they rebuild over and above a year earlier. Land greed fuels this frenzy–where will it end?
This time I am greeted with four huge steel cranes building skyward. Two red ones, one Blue/Yellow one and a smaller gray one at the “Y” just south of town.
From the road up to my house you might be able to make out other cranes. The Hilton-Doubletree lies at the entrance of my road now. Sheesh.
Gaudy teeshirt shops now occupy three of the four corners of the town intersection of Cache and Broadway. The fourth corner? The iconic elk-antler arches which I won’t bore you with here.
The mega-markets. We now have a Smiths, Albertson’s and several boutique markets, including Whole Foods, Natural Foods, etc. A far cry from the old B & W and Fred’s (now Sotheby’s Real Estate building). You can’t afford this firewood.
And as a dentist (retired), we’ve also lost the nutrition battle here. Well, l digress…. I was meaning to comment on the price of firewood–and it’s not cut and bundled by rugged cowboys; nope, it’s likely trucked in from somewhere else by “foreign” workers; namely hard-working Mexican laborers who keep Jackson running. Jackson reminds me of Istanbul—all the foreign languages you could possibly hear at the supermarket. My plumber is from Moldava; his helper, Russian. You can’t afford a cord of this wood (for city slickers–a cord of wood is a tight-stacked pile measuring 4′ X 4′ X 8′). I’ve cut and stacked many cords of wood and it’s a bit of work. To wit:
Back in my day (don’t I sound like an old f*rt?) I bought 83 cabin logs from Laurance Rockefeller, his-self, for a mere $98.40; rented a horse; bought a chainsaw for $135; and built me a cabin in the woods. I later met Laurance and shook his hand and thanked him for the logs (he was thinning out of the JY Ranch on Phelps Lake due to bug-kill. While everyone was logging as far south as Bondurant, I got my logs right out of the heart of Grand Teton National Park–in Wister Draw–where Owen Wister’s built his cabin. This cabin-wood cost less than a cord of wood today–minus some hard work. Harrumph!!
Here it is today (well in the summertime anyway). I’ve probably mentioned this before, but the cost of just the permit to build a larger house on this same property cost more than it did to build this cabin……and the cost of the two acres of land. Think about that.
Let’s drive up the Butte and look East out over the National Elk Refuge. First established in 1912 to manage a dwindling elk herd, the government hired Olas and Adolph Murie to do the science. As the town of Jackson grew, it plugged up traditional migration routes for the elk and they began a feast & famine cycle of die-offs; numbering in the thousands in bad years. The Muries work was contemporaneous with the establishment of Grand Teton National Park in 1929. Today the refuge sustains about 7500 elk down from historic herds of 25,000. Sleeping Indian is in the distance–I once climbed this peak (the summit is the Indian’s belly). In 1996, a C-130 crashed near the summit; part of President Bill Clinton’s Secret Service–nine people were killed.
Lots of snow during December, then practically none. Here is an honest 2′ and a shovel to prove it.
While I’m shoveling, a helicopter buzzes the house–and this is about the fifth time I’ve seen this–skimming through the notch. Opps! that was the Learjet–here is the helicopter. This is worse than Vietnam! With the book taking all my time, I haven’t put on skis yet, so aircraft monitoring and this snow removal is my exercise; this and walking up the Butte.
On one of my many hikes up the Butte, the Jackson Hole Airport can be seen off to the right. I’ve posted many times about this airport and, yes, like the town, it has grown into a small town unto itself. I counted one flight every 5 minutes on this walk–when I was a ranger, there were three flights a week, I recall. Five years ago in one of my posts, I noted 125 flight events and today it number several hundred; counting the helicopters buzzing the house. Boeing 757s approach over the Moose Post Office (Zipcode 83012) and rattle the valley constantly. Something must be done with a long term plan to remove this airport from within a national park; perhaps in Idaho with a bored tunnel under Rendezvous Mountain. It can be done.
The only immediate solution I can think of is to make one of my famous lasagnas. Living at Lupine Meadows when a ranger, I had quite the reputation for my lasagnas and it’s time to get back into the routine. This is from the Seattle Times and uses a béchamel sauce instead of ricotta cheese. I substituted bison for beef, of course. Next try, I’ll bump up the diced tomatoes & paste. Delicious. Here is the recipe.
After dinner I sit in the front window and watch the sunset on the Grand Teton. I had many good years as a ranger and am lucky to have visited each and every year except one since 1967. Glad I bought those logs from Laurance.
Along with WPA posters, the park would toss all these old signs into the dump and I would rescue them and dutifully restore them–great fireplace kitsch. This sign (built of redwood) was 1.7 miles south of Granite Canyon at the park boundary adjacent to the Jackson Hole Resort. Bearpaw Lake was the last mountain lake before encountering Jackson Lake in the north half of the park. A good day’s hike, I might add.
Here’s the original cabin I built in 1973-75–the one on the left in the woods. Reminds you of Robert Frost, doesn’t it?
I wonder what Jackson Hole will be like in another 50 years. How many more jets will rattle the mountains? I counted well over 100 cars in the Taggart Creek Parking Lot the other day; on weekends, they’re lined up down to Beaver Creek a half mile south. I’m glad Rockefeller had the vision to buy up this “ranch” land and donate it for a national park (he actually traded this land for southern Wyoming oil leases). Today a groomed track is maintained twice weekly–many of the rangers that patrol this area are volunteers–thank you guys! Let’s fund our parks!