Don't Shred On Them: A Young Star Skier Speaks Up For Bighorns
Hadley Hammer, who learned to carve turns in the Tetons, says recreationists need to consider their growing impacts on sensitive wildlife. Her essay is one well worth reading
A bighorn (wild mountain sheep) ram in the Rockies. Photo courtesy C. Adams/NPS
EDITOR'S NOTE: The mighty Tetons, defining skyward emblem of Jackson Hole and straddling the boundary of western Wyoming and eastern Idaho, are one of the most visually stunning mountain ranges in the world. Outdoor recreationists fawn over the prospects of climbing, skiing, hiking and mountain biking them, often historically with little reflection given to the fact that they are also entering the home of sensitive wildlife. In recent years scientists have raised concerns about survival of a remnant population of bighorn (wild mountain) sheep threatened by an invasion of mountain goats and recreationists, namely skiers and snowboarders heading off-piste and displacing sheep. Recreationists also displace rare wolverine and other animals that have a difficult time trying to make a living in winter when access to natural food can be difficult. The impacts of more recreationists pouring into wildlands and in some cases making backcountry feel like front country is now facing a reckoning for its impacts on wildlife in Greater Yellowstone, which still holds the most diverse assemblage of native mammals in the Lower 48. Mountain Journal is sharing this fine and incredibly insightful essay from noted Jackson Hole extreme skier Hadley Hammer, a young writer and member of North Face's global athlete team. An emerging thought leader, she emphasizes personal responsibility. We applaud her. The piece first appeared in WildSnow and is used here with Hammer's permission.
by Hadley Hammer
There’s been considerable noise concerning the native bighorn sheep population in Grand Teton National Park in the last few years, and it hit a crescendo in 2021. The Teton Sheep Working Group recently released its proposed expansion of protected areas for the sheep, recommendations they came to after several years of research—recommendations that would close off backcountry skiing terrain.
Starting with biologist Michael Whitfield’s comprehensive study of the Teton sheep back in 1983—the first to document their winter range—as well as the rest of their distribution and life cycles and including research from the ground surveys by the National Park Service done almost every year for several decades and aerial surveys almost every winter. (Notably, Whitfield today is an elected commissioner in Teton County, Idaho).
There have been genetic studies done the bighorns as well. The experts know definitively where the sheep winter, where they summer, where they go in the spring, and where they go during the rut. They know how many there are, or pretty close. Mixed in with the research was significant contributions from the local population in an unprecedented move to include the communities' input.
A note about the sheep: these herds stopped wintering in the Teton Valley around the 1950s, retreating away from development, livestock, goats, and humans. They now winter at roughly 10,000 feet in Grand Teton National Park.
I crave skiing at high elevations, but I definitely have no interest in a five-month open bivy at 10,000 feet, which is what the sheep face. There’s no amount of down, gore-tex, or nylon that would make me want their life. The resilience of these two herds, one occupying the southern Teton Range and the other the northern, is damn impressive. While most of the focus on the closures has been centered around the skiers, I would be remiss not to put my initial focus on these animals. In a world where 65 to 70 percent of wildlife populations have declined in the last fifty years, our bighorn sheep stir a deep wonder and awe for their abilities to stay alive for over 6000 years.
But this problem, like most of the national park's history, is often indifferent to the nature found within its boundaries. In Jackson this makes sense as it's not just the sheep that have been pushed out of the valleys; part of the community has too.
I don’t need to waste words on the economic difficulties of living in Jackson Hole or any ski town. I've left home, as have my two brothers. Nearly everyone we grew up with was unable to return after college, and most of my friends from my time there in my twenties and early thirties, have migrated away.
The wildness of Greater Yellowstone and Jackson Hole left an imprint on Hadley Hammer early in her life and in recent years her thinking has evolved about how the wild essence of the backcountry can still be saved in the face of swelling numbers of human users. Her conclusion today: humans need to become more respectful and knowledgable about the needs of wildlife and where necessary limit our intrusion into the last vestiges of great habitat. She is emerging as a young thought leader and what she is saying is rapidly gaining traction and earning her respect. Photo courtesy Hadley Hammer
For many who have remained, the Tetons' embrace is the reason they have stayed. What they experience in the Tetons is the justification for enduring the struggle for housing, high food costs, and required tolerance for traffic both on roads, resorts, rivers, and trailheads. As the population of the valley begins to look to the park for backcountry skiing, many locals have pushed further deeper into the canyons. This has benefits including finding new lines and solace from the crowds, but also exposes the skier/rider to a higher risk and higher chances of disturbing the sheep.
And while I disagree with what I saw and read from many of my peers about the proposed closures, I can’t disagree with the weight of a Teton experience. I can’t disagree with the importance of finding pockets of joy in times like these. And I can begin to understand their uproar.
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We are at a new crossroads. The question I’m asking of myself and others is this: do we love the wilderness or do we love recreating in the wilderness? And what does it mean when you respond yes to both? To complicate matters further, what happens when the backdrop of this paradox is a national park?
In pondering the morass, I turned to a book I either borrowed or stole from my dad—Joseph Sax’s Mountains without Handrails. Published in 1980, Sax who is largely responsible for the foundations of environmental law and coined the idea of "the public trust," delves into the “bitter battles over recreational use of our national parklands.”
Despite being nearly 40 years old, the book reads as if it was written yesterday. Sax delves into the conflicts between those “soulful” park tourists, who see the national grounds through hiking versus the “mobile” tourists who largely view the landscape through their cars, or at most out the window of a park concession. It looks at leisure recreation versus reflective recreation versus challenging recreation. It observes topics including access despite experience all the way to landscaping around public areas such as sidewalks versus letting them grow “wild."
What Sax makes clear from the beginning, is that it is not truly known why parks were created to begin with. For the preservation of the wild, or “fragile museums of nature”? For the preservation of recreation- and what kind? Or, if one digs deeper into the history, you can find a more disheartening story—that parks were created as a commodity to make money from-, such as Yellowstone being a suggestion of A.B. Nettelton, an agent for the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, a company that quickly became the park's first concessioner.
But in the Tetons, it’s not just the commercial tourist doing the harm, but the reflective recreationist whose footprints previously left no trace. And now we have to ask ourselves again: “For whom and for what are the parks most important? Which of the faithful national park constituencies will have to be disappointed so that the parks can serve their “true” purpose?
"If backcountry skiers, proclaimed lovers of nature and conservation, aren’t willing to sacrifice for the sake of wildlife, it makes me think that all flora and fauna is doomed. If we aren’t willing to take a gamble on science that of course isn’t perfect, doesn’t include some major players, but does stand on years of research, then what other groups will?" —Hadley Hammer
The adverse impact on natural resources generated by increased numbers is only the most visible sign of a cleavage that goes much deeper. The preservationist constituency is distrubed not only, and not even most importantly, by the physical deterioration of the parks, but by a sense that the style of modern tourism is depriving the parks of their central symbolism, their message about the relationship between man and nature, and man and industrial society. “
I’ve been skiing mostly in Austria the last two years. Here and across much of the alps, there is little wildlife left in the popular backcountry skiing zones. I would hesitate to call the places I go skiing, wilderness. In most of the popular ski touring valleys you can find traces of human infrastructure nearly everywhere.
There is a native animal population, but you can definitely leave your bear spray at home. There of course is benefits to this-mountain huts filled with cakes instead of rock hard energy bars, chairlifts that would take you to the equivalent of the top of 25 short, and easier access to rescue services.
The easy approaches make the hills and mountains more accessible to a wider range of age and abilities. A lot of positives. But I do greatly miss the feelings I get when I’m in the Tetons. What I gain in the remoteness is probably the source of the passion I have for skiing.
Skiing in nature without wilderness (as defined by where certain wild creatures can still persist) is a whole different experience, and is closer to taking a lap on Glory Bowl in the southern Tetons than a long walk up Cascade Canyon. My steep lines in the Tetons have had a different feel than steep lines at its neighboring ski resort, even if the slope degree was equal.
Despite being within the same range, sharing the same rocks and snow, the experience you have skiing Teton Pass—"the Pass," the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, and Grand Teton Park are all different, and could be linked to how each area is managed.
Sax points out that in 1916, when the National Park Service was organized, “the adverse effects tourism might have were long viewed as trivial." Skiers didn’t cause the sheep’s problem. And the science isn’t perfect on what our effect is on not only the sheep but any of the wildlife in the park.
But as backcountry skiing crowds grow, just like the automobile industry did after 1916, we can’t kid ourselves that we have no impact. There was a time when the Grand Teton was skied at most a handful of seasons, there are weeks when it’s now skied a handful of times a day. We don’t know what will come as the science of avalanches increases, as gear becomes faster and lighter, and as the valley becomes even more crowded.
Top: Hadley Hammer descends a steep in the Tetons. Above: bighorn rams battle for standing in the herd though the most formidable challengers sometimes are people displacing them from habitat. Photo of bighorns courtesy of Josh Metten, a Jackson Hole wildlife safari guide, photographer and conservationists. To see more of Josh's amazing work go to facebook.com/joshmettenphotography
To me, it starts with compromise, balancing my love for recreating and my love for the flora and fauna found in these places. It continues with trusting the scientists who have spent part of if not most of their lives dedicated to these incredible creatures. It reminds me to keep in check the idea that skiing in the park is not only about skiing extreme lines and hold true to the fact that I’ve had great memories in the park doing all kinds of activities. It finishes with the idea my parents instilled in me as I fought my brothers' for the contents of our fridge-that I have to learn to share.
To me, it seems like compromise is what came out of the working group’s proposals—ones they seem willing to refine here and there. We should take them as good faith actors. They also suffer the same existence struggle in the valleys as the skiers and I can’t compare my own passion of skiing against their passion in protecting biodiversity. I’m stuck finding a precedent of any other government process involving wildlife and recreation closures, so inclusive of public concern.
This process may, in fact, become a model of listening and compromise moving forward. I hope we can show sheep advocates the same grace and respect they showed us-we need these inclusive processes to continue in the Tetons and become a standard of wildlife/recreation balance for mountain towns around the world.
For as many closed signs I see, I know there are a lot of open ones left. It has been a privilege to access and ski the Park, but the sweet would turn sour if that privilege led to, even if it wasn’t the root cause, of the extinction of a local animal population.
“The Parks promote intensive experience, rather than intensive use,” says Sax, and maybe our free reign of Grand Teton Park for skiing is trending towards the latter. There is no recreation group in the Tetons that has had unrestricted access like backcountry skiers.
In the winter, there are no trails to stick to, no lines to stand in to wait for camping permits, and most skiers inevitably avoid any entrance fees given the required alpine start times are earlier than the entrance booths; operating hours. I believe we aren’t being asked to compromise, rather being treated like every other recreation group who have always had limited and shared access. Just ask the snowmobile and mountain bike communities.
The same regulating body that creates these closures, also closed it to the development of chairlifts, concessions, and excessive private homes. And while I don’t love rules or having someone tell me where I can and cannot go, I’m glad in the case of the Tetons that somebody did.
I’ve spent 35 years in the Tetons. It started when I was impatiently waiting in my mothers stomach weeks before my birth as legendary climber Chuck Pratt fashioned a harness for her at the base of the practice rocks near hidden falls.
My parents brought us to the park consistently, ignoring our childish grumbles. I can still remember the day my brothers and I were awarded ice cream after we had walked complaint-free around Jenny Lake. In my youth, I found independence in the Park while hiking with friends. I also found my body's ability to sprint down mountain trails when I would inevitably be late for a serving shift at Calico Pizza.
I’ve cross country skied in the valley floor, and taken my face to the surface of Jackson Lake, a consequence of misguided confidence in my water skiing abilities. Of those 35 years, maybe only 10 have been spent skiing in Grand Teton Park. And those memories of hard earned turns, whether they were powdery or sastrugi-y, are rich.
There was a time when I would have agreed with a staunch preservationist that even the paved surfaces in the valley floor are abhorrent and inappropriate, that is until the paved surfaces were the last remaining access for my father to visit the park that brought him to Jackson 45 years ago. He’s not able to go much further due to his own health, yet those small walks, even when just a few steps away from the car or even merely to the bar at Dornans, with Chuck’s face looking back at us, are worth to me the same if not more than any ski line I’ve done in the Tetons.
The Tetons are only so big. As Sax points out, “The scarcity of resources in trying to meet such recreational demand is as much a psychological as a physical problem. No matter how much land we have, more will always be demanded because the object is itself more. This is what the Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset called “the psychology of the spoiled child” who is insatiable because his object is not some particular thing, but a larger share.”
"The Tetons are only so big. As Sax points out, 'The scarcity of resources in trying to meet such recreational demand is as much a psychological as a physical problem.' No matter how much land we have, more will always be demanded because the object is itself more. This is what the Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset called 'the psychology of the spoiled child' who is insatiable 'because his object is not some particular thing, but a larger share.'”
One needs just to fly into the controversial Jackson Hole commercial airport that sits in the national park, to see how much skiing there is in the Jackson Hole valley. The Tetons are certainly not the only access to good skiing, wild skiing, or quiet skiing. Could you argue that they hold the best terrain that’s coupled with relatively easy access? Yes, but this coincidence is more unfortunate for the sheep than skiers.
As Sax said, ”So long as we continue to believe in the principle of increase as the measure of satisfaction of our desires, we will never be satisfied and will never avoid scarcity. The parks themselves, however they are used, will never constitute more than a small fraction of all our recreational resources." We as skiers have options, the sheep do not.
“Our interest in preserving natural systems is not merely sentimental; it rests on preservation of nothing less than an enormous knowledge base that we have no capacity to replicate," Sax wrote. Human constructs, like closures, are not permanent, but extinction of a native gene pool is. Even thinking of that extinction causes a particularly deep heartbreak.
If backcountry skiers, proclaimed lovers of nature and conservation, aren’t willing to sacrifice for the sake of wildlife, it makes me think that all flora and fauna is doomed. If “we” aren’t willing to take a gamble on science that of course isn’t perfect, doesn’t include some major players, but does stand on years of research, then what other groups will? If we only associate responsibility to causality, if we spend our time blaming instead of taking action, and refuse to share, we might as well get in line behind the sheep for extincion.
In my humble, and maybe irrelevant opinion, I think the parks can have a little bit for everyone, with emphasis on the little. I’m sure they sheep also want more, but unfortunately, no sheep were available for comment.
MOJO POSTNOTE: Mountain Journal welcomes readers comments. The growing impacts of backcountry recreation on wildlife have been known for some time. Only recently has the outdoor recreation industry, land management agencies and even traditional conservation organizations in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosyste—and beyond— begun to acknowledge it as a serious issue. MoJo, which reveres the positive benefits of humans recreating in the great outdoors, has devoted more virtual ink to the issue than any other conservation journalism publication in America. We would like to hear your thoughts, whether in response to Hadley Hammer's piece or more generationally. Send them to us by clicking here. Be respectful and cite evidence if possible. We are also sharing, below, a fine short video produced by Orijin Media and featuring ski mountaineer and guide Kim Havel.
About Hadley Hammer
Hadley Hammer is a skier renowned for her agile abilities on-piste and off. From growing up at the base of the Tetons in Jackson Hole, Wyoming to becoming a pro, she prefers to explore the mountains with skis on her feet. Since she debuted in the Freeride World Tour at age 25—considered ‘old’ compared to most competitors—she’s gone on to star regularly in ski films—descending mountain faces, all the while representing companies including The North Face on their global athlete team. While her sommelier degree, love for literature, and soft spoken nature don’t quite match the industry stereotype, Hadley has proved capable of carrying the paradox of grit and grace to the steep faces of the mountains-embracing the duality as she ascends and descends. The 35-year old lives in the Alps and Tetons. Hammer expresses herself on mountains and translates the thoughts behind those experiences onto paper.
