“There’s this constant ebb and flow of balance between summer and winter, and the summer is crushing the winter right now,” says Kirk Ryder, a wildlife biologist guide at EcoTour Adventures in Wyoming. On my right, the Grand Tetons rise up against the blue sky while remnants of the season’s first snowfall blanket the ground. “But 700 years ago, when these glaciers formed, the winter was beating the summer. This most recent period has been accelerated by human-led activities.”
I arrived in Jackson Hole a few days earlier in yoga pants, a tee shirt, and a puffy jacket, with little recollection of what winter weather outside of San Diego is like. With a high of 40 degrees during the day and a low of seven at night, the early winter temperatures were already threatening to send me back to California.
Soon, Snow King Mountain, Jackson Hole Mountain, and Grand Targhee resorts will be in full swing for the season. Snow bunnies looking for fresh powder will hit the 2,500-plus acres of skiable terrain. But for now, the town is quiet. A few of the more popular establishments, like the iconic Million Dollar Cowboy bar, are closed. Those that remain open are filled with more locals than tourists.
The lobby at The Cloudveil hotel features Southwestern décor, cozy couches, and a large fireplace to counter the winter chill.
“Quiet,” however, is exactly what I’m looking for—I know that much, even if I’m unsure of what to expect from the town’s “in-between” season. My home for the week is The Cloudveil, a hotel which sits in the center of the town and, thankfully, features gas fireplaces in all of its guest rooms—a win for the weather-averse.
Around the property, guests have access to a swimming pool and hot tub, a Parisian-style bistro for all-day dining (get the French onion soup), a fitness center, and a rooftop deck. Each floor also features a snack station filled daily with complimentary items like chips, trail mix, fruit leather, hot cocoa, and sparkling water.
Guestrooms at The Cloudveil are adorned with mountain-inspired artwork by local artists and custom leather and wood furnishings.
As part of their stay, visitors can book seasonal experiences through the resort’s Pathfinders program. During winter months, that includes activities like snowmobiling, dog sledding, snowshoeing, guided backcountry ski tours, sleigh rides, and a wildlife safari—the latter of which introduced me to Ryder.
From May through December each year, Ryder runs eco tours in the area before heading to South America for the rest of the winter to lead fly-fishing excursions. Today, he’s taking me on a private tour of the region inside a 4×4 safari-style Jeep while educating me about the challenges the area and its wildlife residents have faced over the decades.
During the winter months, visitors to Jackson Hole can spot moose at lower elevations, where food is more accessible.
As we drive through Grand Teton National Park and the National Elk Refuge, we keep our eyes out for elk, bison, moose, bighorn sheep, and other animals scattered throughout the park. “Very soon, we’ll see an elk migration come down here, maybe as many as 8,000. And it really fills up the refuge,” Ryder says, pointing out at the landscapes in the distance. “It will be groups by the hundreds. This part of the valley gets the least amount of snow in Jackson Hole. It’s the easiest place to spend the winter.”
Today, Wyoming is one of the last true vestiges of America’s “Old West.” The state’s Indigenous culture, cowboys, cattle ranching, and vast open spaces (which remain largely untouched) are all a part of what makes this place so special. But ensuring it stays this way hasn’t been easy, Ryder tells me.
In the winter months, as many as 8,000 elk migrate to lower elevations.
“One hundred years ago, there were no wolves and very few grizzlies,” he says as we rattle over snow-covered landscapes. “This place was on the brink of just falling off a cliff, but with the environmental awakening of the 1960s and ’70s, the greater Yellowstone area was one of the first to say, ‘Hey, let’s restore this to the way that Mother Nature had it before we got here.’ So, today, we have all the original species.”
Among those efforts was an initiative to bring back wolf populations to the state. It is estimated that around 250,000 to two million gray wolves were once abundant throughout all of North America.
But, by the 1800s, when European-American settlers and their livestock moved west, wolves were viewed as a threat to ranching efforts. In 1945, they were eradicated from the Northern Rockies and were listed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service as endangered in 1974. The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem became designated as a recovery area.
“It took decades to bring the wolves back because they are so controversial,” Ryder says. “It was in 1995 that they first brought them back, and that was the final piece of the puzzle to complete this ecosystem. It saved everything.”
The wolves’ presence helps maintain healthy prey populations, reduce infectious and genetic diseases in prey, and improve habitats for other species. They indirectly impact plant life by changing foraging patterns that lead to the regeneration of trees and other vegetation.
When 41 wolves from Canada and northwest Montana were released into Yellowstone National Park in the ’90s, 26 years passed before they were delisted from the endangered species list. Today, Wyoming is home to around 350 wolves and 43 packs.
But the wolves alone aren’t enough to protect Wyoming’s wild spaces from the ravages of human activity. Climate change has hit the state hard. According to Ryder, harsh weather, rising temperatures, limited water, and poor soils have threatened the region’s ecosystem in a number of ways.
“In the past, these changes would happen much more slowly, and plants and animals and the timing of things could adjust and move,” Ryder says. “If it happens too fast, then these adjustments can’t be made, and you’ll see extinctions.”
Today, Yellowstone preserves the most important bison herd in the nation.
With temps increasing each year, melting the snow more quickly, recent droughts have dried out soil, killing many trees while also upping the risk of forest fires. The changing climate is expected to decrease the availability of water in Wyoming in the coming decades as well, affecting agricultural yields and further fueling potential wildfires. It’s why people like Ryder and local conservationists are so passionate about spreading awareness of the state’s ecology.
“This is the last fully intact ecosystem of the lower 48. It’s the last vignette of primitive America,” Ryder says. “That’s the valuable thing about this place—acknowledging that the interplay of all these things is happening all the time.”
Back at the resort, dressed in a white robe and sipping wine, it’d be easy to forget about that fragile equilibrium.
Easy to take this place and its beauty for granted. Earlier in the week, at The Kitchen restaurant, I dined on Asian-inspired fare like duck breast with smoked miso, corn, crispy tofu, cucumber salad, and Thai basil alongside local flavors like bison tartare. As I think about today’s adventure and about that meal, I hear Ryder’s voice.
“Around the 1860s, the population of animals [was declining] so rapidly that [Wyoming’s] once American Serengeti–type landscape was reduced to nothing. [Before,] there were maybe 30 million bison, 50,000 grizzly bears, millions of pronghorn, millions of elk,” he’d explained. “And by the 1900s, that bustling Serengeti was silent, with almost no wildlife to speak of. People didn’t know if there were any wild bison left.”
Conservation efforts have brought native bison back to Jackson Hole after homesteaders wiped out the area’s once-massive population.
Native to this area, bison were wiped out when homesteaders arrived in the Jackson Valley. The western United States, once flush with North America’s largest land mammal, was reduced to only a comparative handful of animals living in Yellowstone National Park. Efforts from 1948 until now have finally allowed for a resurgence of these native creatures. Today, Yellowstone preserves the most important bison herd in the nation and is the only place in the lower 48 states to have a continuously free-ranging bison population since prehistoric times.
Soon, I’ll head to dinner at Code Red, a taqueria known for its pozoles and unique taco selections like elk carne asada. I’ll drink local beer from Snake River Brewing and shop for turquoise jewelry made by local Navajo, Hopi, and Zuni nations. And I’ll be surrounded by residents gearing up for the start of the snow season before the crowds shuffle in.
It’s the ebb and flow, the delicate balance between keeping Wyoming as unspoiled as possible and bringing it into a new, more modern era. But maybe that’s the point of visiting a place like Jackson Hole. You don’t change it; you don’t mess with its ecosystem. You soak it in, learn about what keeps it wild, and leave it better than when you arrived.
“I think, if anything, it’s kind of cool to see that continuity here, where nothing has changed. Like Triangle X dude ranch has the same view that they had 100 years ago,” Ryder says. If we do things right, another century from now, someone—another wildlife biologist, another rancher, maybe another writer like me—will be able to gaze out at the very same sight.
