Jackson Hole Summer Travel & River Trip Blog

As a West Coast kid who grew up pearl jam grunge in Seattle with jeans and flannel shirts lining the drawers, I chuckled as I read the New York Times article entitled “Dress for Success, Again,” which profiled these young 20-somethings who are ramping up the office dress code: “Today the well-off 55-year-old is likely to be the worst-dressed man in the room, wearing a saggy T-shirt and jeans. The cash-poor 25-year-old is in a natty sport coat and skinny tie bought at Topman for a song. Young men are embracing the “Mad Men” elements of style in a way that the older men never did, still don’t and just won’t.”

The article went on and on describing the younger generation that wants to revitalize fashion and bring back the suit and tie. Poor saps, I thought.  Thank goodness Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where everybody walks around in fleece and gore-tex, doesn’t hold true to the hoity-toity urban style.  Thank goodness we work in a place where the ski-bums can sit right next to the millionaires at the Brew Pub and you would never know who is who.  Anybody in a suit in this town immediately elicits the response, “Well, what’s with him?” 

Multiply that by a power of 100 at our Dave Hansen Whitewater office where we’re thrilled when guides show up with clothes that don’t smell like wet dog.  Standard uniform includes chacos, DH hat, board shorts, and a shirt that you bet your lifevest was sniffed that morning before deemed wearable.  About the most GQ we get around here is when our fashionable van driver matches his visor with his t-shirt, which guaranteed, gets an ooooh and ahhhh from the office staff. 

This suits my husband and I just fine.  I mean heck, Bud has such an aversion to formality that when he was in furniture sales, he would visit with major buyers wearing his suit and green Tevas on his feet.  No Gucci kicks for this kid. I remember one day when I was a teacher, I was so tired of wearing professional clothes, that when I played volleyball with the staff before school one morning, I pretended I forgot my dress clothes at home.  “Shucks, I’ll have to wear my sweats and tenneys to class today. Hehe”

The Crew Socks Don't Look That Bad, Do They?

So I read all this New York Times hoopla with smug indifference.  I was haughty, in fact, sighing in superiority as I gazed over at my husband and caught my breath. Not because he’s a 35 year-old hunk who benched 225 yesterday—but because he had on his Target river shorts and white crew socks…. Which suddenly reminded me: Wait, didn’t all those young 20-somethings smirk at his get-ups? Didn’t the office crew chortle when Bud would walk in with yet another mis-matched shirt and short combo? In fact, their regard for Bud’s style of riverguide clothes was so bad that they all pitched in for an end of the season present: new, stylish board shorts. Even a remote outdoor playground has its dress code standards.  The younger generation has spoken.

There are plenty of things one associates with the Fourth of July in Jackson Hole: hot dogs, fireworks, missing fingers, that Proud to be an American song… After going several years without celebrating the Fourth of July (naturally the 4^th doesn’t hold the same weight in Scotland as in does in the USA) I was excited to see what this year’s celebration of American Independence at Dave Hansen Whitewater in Jackson would bring.

Celebration Item # 1: Leo Bridges (our fierce kickball pitcher and beloved bus driver) arrives on the scene bright and early wearing a blue t-shirt and a giant Dr. Seuss like hat bedazzled with the stars and the stripes. He eagerly greets each guest with a robust “Happy Fourth of July!”

Celebration Item #2: Liz walks into the office with hot dogs and corn for the staff and river guests, Alyssa brings over a grill, and Kyle and Will spend a good half hour trying to get the propane tank to fit on the grill properly.

Celebration Item #3: Guests arrive back from the whitewater trips with enormous grins on their faces. A big group of them gather around, thrust their hands into the air, and yell “Paddles up!”…the mantra of one of our river guides, Will “the thrill” Pasquill. Another group of them gather around our computers wanting to look at their Floatograph pictures, claiming that they swear Willie Nelson guides for Dave Hansen.

After pulling up the pictures from the 11:15 trip this is what we saw:

Fourth of July with Dave Hansen Whitewater

Fourth of July with Dave Hansen Whitewater

Apparently in addition to the flag rigged to the stern of his boat, Tyler “T-Bone” Babcock played several patriotic tunes on his harmonica. Too bad he didn’t have a rendition of “On the Road Again” ready for guests.

Check out this pic and more of Tyler and the other guides Fourth of July fun at Floatographs!

Raft on guys - Em

There are many reasons why I love Jackson Wyoming.The first is that though it sees a ton of people coming through the area each year, it never feels like a tourist town.  (Okay, so maybe it feels a little like a tourist town when you’re standing around town square.  But who stands around town square when there are rapids to run?)  The second is that even on dreary rainy days, I still feel like I dropped in on an oil painting.  I may or may not have told the guide I was training with yesterday that I felt like I was in the movie The Notebook.  (I know… I’m a sap.  But how he cued the pelicans to fly overhead just as our group was going by is beyond me.)   The third reason that I love Jackson is that you find family here.

One of my evenings this past week was spent in town square with a random assortment of people playing musical instruments (my instrument was a pair of tap shoes).   A father and his daughter were lingering nearby listening to us when suddenly I recognized them.  They went down on our scenic trip the day before.  They quickly recognized some of us as Dave Hansen-ites.  As it turns out the daughter, Laci, was a fiddle player.  And to top it off they had her fiddle in their car.  So little Laci, who just celebrated her sixth birthday, whipped out Bile Them Cabbage Down with her dad accompanying on guitar.  (Dad just learned guitar this year.)  Laci continued to play for us for another half hour.

Yesterday they swung by the office to say goodbye and we invited them to join some of us for one last musical hoorah up at the Hootenanny.  For those of you unfamiliar with Jackson Hole’s Hootenanny, it is an open mic night that has been going on for twenty years every night at Dornan’s in Moose, Wyoming.  Apparently, the event has even been dropped in on by Dylan and the likes.  Sure enough Laci and her family showed up at the Hoot and favored us with some more fantastic fiddling.  Looking around the crowd-spotting friends old and new-I couldn’t help but feel for the first time since leaving Pennsylvania that this was home.

-Em

First trip of the year for me was June 5^th and with the water a refreshing 39 degrees, I had no qualms about wiggling my way into that wetsuit.  Even when I tried to zip it up and gracefully caught the zipper on my belly, I didn’t even curse.  Just sucked it in and gave a thumbs up to my husband Bud.  Seeing as how it was the first trip of the year, I could not stop smiling.   Yep, onto the bus, into my life-jacket, hop in the boat, listen to our head guide Arne’s safety speech, chat with some German folks and a couple of stalwart 10 year-old rafters, and I am still grinning.  Half way through the trip we float into Gauging Straits, a calm section where people like to swim when the water is warmer (note: much warmer).  One adventurous customer (some might say ‘crazy’) decides to jump in the water by doing a back flip off the bow of the boat.  So I clap and whoop and holler just like the other rafters until somebody yells out, “Your turn, Kelly!”  Haha.  But I have a sure-thing ready that will save me from the freshly melted snow that is the Snake River: Everyone knows guides hate to get wet (I know—it’s weird), so I yell out, “If Arne jumps in, I’ll jump in!” Now see this is where I am reminded that Dave Hansen guides are not just any guides.  It took about .5 seconds after I smugly pronounced my dare for Arne to hop up on the tube, give a little bounce and back he flips right into that 40 degree water.  Say what?!   Nothing left to do but slip off the sunglasses, take a deep breath, and flip myself into the river for the first swim of the year.  Even though I might have screamed once or twice to get back in, it was so awesome I am still smiling just thinking about it two weeks later.  Love the river, no matter how cold it is.

It’s hard not to feel incredibly lucky living alongside the Snake River.  I love Jackson and will always consider it a second home.  But meeting our guests from all over the world, has got me up and wanting to travel again.  Call it the Burnworth wanderlust, but I’m always jazzed about hearing new places to travel to.  Today was no exception.  An awesome group from Washington state came in to talk about their Jackson Hole Whitewater Trip (Yowzers Lunch Counter is huge right now! :)  ) and they thought I was a girl they served on the Peace Corps with.

Turns out they worked in education and wrote proposals to help build the technology and general maintenance of the schools in South Africa.  Pretty cool.  Coincidentally the girl they knew was named Emmy.  (Mine name is Emily.)  No such luck, I was not Emmy.  And, I have not been in the Peace Corps or lived in South Africa.  Though check in a few years and maybe I will be.

Has a crew ever looked so good in wetsuits?

Pradeep and his crew breaking through the waves of Lunch Counter

The whitewater tripshave been spectacular.  The warm weather during the day and the cool nights have started a gradual snow melt and the river level has been inching up, giving our guides new waves to play with everyday.  We took down a great group of family and friends yesterday.  All styled out in wetsuits and splash gear, Pradeep and his crew crashed through the waves at Station Creek, S-Turns, Cutbanks, and skirted around 3-Oar Deal (Class VI hydraulic…definitely one you want to skirt).  And this was just the first half of the trip!  “You mean they get bigger!” Everyone said with a laugh floating through gauging straights as Kyle was giving everyone ready for the second half of the trip.   They blasted through Lunch Counter and Ropes.  Went down the slide at Champagne and finished off strong in the playground of waves through the 3/4 mile stretch of Cottonwoods.

The water this season is going to be ideal.  The snow melt has been steady and the weather level is going to stay up at some fun levels that we typically do not get a chance to see for a long time.  It will then settle down into its great normal level all the way through September.  We are looking forward to having a great season getting people soaked!

Can you believe Mary gave up going to Italy for the summer just to work at DHWW again? Well, maybe she likes Jackson Hole too

Spring has sprung in Jackson…finally!  The leaves are turning green, the birds are chirping, there hasn’t been any threat of snow for at least four days…and the tour buses are rollin’ in.  We’re all pretty psyched in the office to chat with customers- we’ve run out of things to say to ole’ Jason “chatter-box” Crockett. 

I’m pumped for my 5^th season at DHWW!  This season promises to be totally awesome with high water, great guides, even better office staff, and some hacky sack session outside the DHWW office!

With the change in the weather comes a change in my routine.  This week I’ve been busy exploring the hikes that are clear- High School Butte is still kicking my tush, but the views are great.  Josie’s Ridge and the ever-popular Snow King trek are also finally clear and beautiful as always. 

I’ve also been busy “exploring” (and by exploring I mean chowing down) at the local restaurants that have just re-opened.  My old standbys are still making my tummy smile- fajita plates at the Merry Piglets, massive B-B-Q sandwiches at Bubbas, and tasty burgers at Billy’s.  I’m excited to check out the new summer menus at Trio and The Bistro- my fingers are crossed for a mean elk dish and some creative use of rhubarb.  Top Chef, look out!       

Raft On,  Mary G

OK…is it fair that Dave Hansen Whitewater’s first big group of the year on the whitewater section could also be our best group of the year?  Not only was the average age of this group 68 years old.  Not only did this group of adventurous seniors want to go on a whitewater trip rather than a scenic float trip.  But they wanted to go on a whitewater trip that left town at 8am…when the temperature in the morning was 32 degrees and the high for the day was going to be 42 degrees!   We were half expecting a call at 7:15 from the group leader after they stepped out of their hotel that they had decided to switch to a scenic trip.