Teton Pass is Closed- How Does it Affect the 'Wydaho' Community?

Early in the morning of June 8th, a section of Wyoming Highway 22 on Teton Pass catastrophically failed in a large landslide, forcing a complete closure of the highway connecting Jackson Hole and the communities of Victor and Driggs, Idaho.

Two days earlier, a crack started to develop in the road at milepost 12.8, causing a motorcyclist to crash and closing the highway for a short time for a temporary repair. The road then re-opened later that day, only to close again after a separate mudslide at milepost 15 covered the road with debris.

Then, residents on both sides of the pass awoke to news Saturday morning that the road catastrophically failed overnight, destroying the only direct link between Jackson and the Idaho communities where a significant portion of its workforce lives.

Idaho residents that commute to work in Jackson will now have to drive an additional 1.5-2 hours each way via US Highways 26, 89, and 191 through the already congested Snake River Canyon to reach their jobs. From Victor, that’s now a nearly 200-mile round trip commute.

The Wyoming Department of Transportation has no estimate of when the Teton Pass road will be fully repaired and reopened, originally stating on Sunday that they will likely not be able to pursue a temporary fix due to the nature of the collapse.

On Monday morning, speaking to a Jackson Town Council meeting via video call, WYDOT director Darin Westby reversed course, stating that the agency had figured out a solution with the US Forest Service to build a temporary two-lane roadway through National Forest land around the collapse site. The temporary workaround would be in place in a matter of weeks, not months, as many residents feared.

Additionally, Wyoming’s governor Mark Gordon issued an executive order authorizing emergency resources to deal with the landslide, and Teton County has set up an emergency operations center to help residents affected by the catastrophe. Local residents on both sides of the Pass have taken to social media to offer help to folks in search of a place to stay or offering carpools.

Losing access to Teton Pass is about much more than just losing access to backcountry skiing, mountain biking, and other recreation opportunities. The Pass is the main transportation artery connecting the town of Jackson to its satellite communities of Victor and Driggs.

The current state of the greater Jackson Hole community is perhaps the pinnacle of the mountain town housing problem faced by much of the American West, and the indefinite closure of the link between the two communities will almost certainly have a long-term impact on the local economy.

That economy is already stretched thin, relying heavily on a workforce unable to afford living in Jackson itself due to astronomical rent and home prices, and a lack of housing overall. According to ShelterJH and the Teton County Housing Department, the local housing advocacy group, nearly 40 percent of the workforce lives outside Jackson and commutes to work.

For Jackson, the closure means a significant portion of their workforce will now have an extra 3-4 hours of commuting to do, something many businesses that are already short-staffed will struggle to absorb.

For the commuting workforce, consequences potentially include losing jobs, the elimination of easy access to healthcare (Jackson has the area’s only major hospital), and challenges to reach their schools, and other basic necessities. Currently, Teton Valley, Idaho has two grocery stores, one of which is closed on Sundays.

Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, one of the largest employers in the area, plans to open all summer operations as planned this Friday. A statement from the resort reads:

"We were made aware of the landslide and road closure on Teton Pass early Saturday morning, and we’ve spent the past three days assessing how the road closure will impact employees, their families, and guests. Ultimately, we determined that the incident will not delay the Resort’s opening day on June 15, but we have made adjustments to assist some staff members with housing options at the resort and are exploring additional opportunities. The Jackson Hole community is incredibly resilient, and it’s times like these that our community comes together and supports one another, visiting guests, and our local businesses. We believe that commitment and cooperation will be on full display when we welcome guests this weekend.”

I spoke with several Victor, Idaho residents, including POWDER contributor and ShelterJH board member Ariel Kazunas, AMGA mountain guide Pete Stone, and professional skier Griffin Post to hear more about their perspective on the matter.

Griffin Post:

“I know it’s been thrown a lot as a joke, but I’m serious - It’s time to consider a tunnel! If this was Europe we would have had one 40–50 years ago. Whatever solution they come up with for now will likely continue to expose us to hazards like avalanches, feisty weather, and now landslides.

My opinion is that the permanent solution needs to be a tunnel. It would be a bummer to potentially lose access to skiing on the pass, but the bottom line is that the road exists to provide transport between the two states and communities.”

“As an eternal optimist, I expect the pass to open by the time the snow starts falling. But, if it doesn’t I’m excited and motivated to explore new-to-me skiing on the west side of the pass–there’s a lifetime’s worth of skiing in the Snake River and Palisades Ranges, and the west side of the Tetons.

Really, I feel bad for my friends in Jackson that can’t come to enjoy the goods over here. But all jokes aside, travel and access are one thing, but we just created a pretty serious physical barrier that’s splitting two valleys that are highly intertwined, and I think that’s going to create some unfortunate social strains on our beloved communities.”

Ariel Kazunas:

"The problem isn’t the road, the Teton Pass failure highlights our failure as a community. This isn’t just a workforce issue, this will touch the 1% that also calls the area home.

As someone who’s lived in Jackson for 10 years and recently moved to Idaho, my biggest frustration is that this isn’t a unique situation we find ourselves in. In winter 2017, we had the blowdown that shut down everything, and we immediately saw that the emergency workers, teachers, nurses etc. couldn't get to work for a week, which caused some serious issues. Then the pandemic hit, and we still didn't learn, especially with people who came from outside, not as local workers and all of a sudden the locals couldn’t afford to be local anymore.

Now it's 2024, and the vital artery is once again cut off, and sadly, the conversation has largely been the same: let’s go on with business as usual and implement temporary fixes. Rather than talking about long term cures, we’re talking about short term bandaids. People who live here are tired of being told, “we’ll just figure it out, that’s mountain town resiliency.” Locals can’t live locally here and that impacts how healthy that community is."

"Most of us who put up with the trials and tribulations of living in the mountains do it because we love the whole package–the community, the friends, and the outdoor access, but every year in a place like this shows that it’s becoming harder and harder to sustain.

If you don’t set up the community past the 21-year-old who’s willing to work for cheap for a few months and live in a bunkroom before heading elsewhere, there’s no future. Investing in a long-term community takes a whole lot more than that, a community this vibrant needs more than temporary seasonal workers to function.

If folks like the tram mechanics, the hospital technicians, the ski patrollers, mountain guides, and avalanche forecasters can’t make it to work, nobody gets to play.

Personally, I’m sad, but I’m already eternally grateful to see the workforce already stepping up to help each other.

I’d love to see some help from local businesses (the people who are here making money off the folks bearing the burden of the catastrophe) in whatever way they can - gas stipends, shorter work hours, extra benefits."

Peter Stone:

"The reality is that a lot of mountain guides live in Idaho and it’s going to be really tough for those of us who have families, kids, and want to have a normal life outside of work guiding on the Pass and in the National Park.

From a skier’s perspective, if the road isn’t open, there’s no incentive to plow it so we likely won’t have access to the trailheads at the top of the Pass. If that were to happen, it would heavily change my income structure in the winter as a ski guide. For the guides and patrollers working at Jackson Hole who live in Teton Valley, I can’t see a good solution right now.

Perhaps we’ll see more visitors coming to Teton Valley as a tourist destination on its own–there’s plenty of good adventure skiing to be had over here, but the bottom line is that the ski guiding community is about to take a pretty big hit."

Related: Jackson Hole To Open for Summer Operations Despite Highway Collapse

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