Carlie Ideker, Bridger-Teton Organizer, Wyoming Wilderness Association 

Threats to Wilderness often bring to mind physical incursions behind designated boundaries, but in reality, indirect, cumulative actions can be equally harmful to wilderness character. The proposed expansion of the Grand Targhee Master Development Plan into the South Bowl of Teton Canyon represents the latter: a ripple effect of changing land use, displacement, and increased access that endanger the character of the Jedediah Smith Wilderness.

The South Bowl has functioned as sidecountry between the current Grand Targhee footprint and the Jedediah Smith for decades. In those years, its value to and use by the local recreation community has grown significantly. While the 1984 Wyoming Wilderness Act prohibits the deliberate creation of buffer zones around Wilderness areas*, the South Bowl serves as an intermediary between developed and primitive recreation opportunities. In that context, the proposed expansion will impact established community land use patterns. Displaced backcountry enthusiasts will likely seek to replace lost opportunities and experiences within the adjacent Wilderness. In doing so, they will redirect a human presence deeper into federally protected wildlands.

The proposed expansion is projected to double the resort’s daily carrying capacity to over 6,000 guests. The motorized infrastructure, roads, and trail networks needed to service that number of people will also ease access and direct guests towards the Wilderness. Because there are no natural barriers in South Bowl, like the cliff along the backside of the existing resort boundary, resort infrastructure could provide several thousand guests entrance into the Jedediah Smith Wilderness. If that happens, the most durable federal land designation will be reduced to commercial sidecountry, diminishing its purpose and degrading its character. This influx in recreation traffic will concentrate human presence where it was never intended and put new, undue pressure on the Jedediah Smith, as well as the Caribou-Targhee National Forest employees tasked with safeguarding it.

The character of the Jedediah Smith Wilderness area and integrity of the 1984 Wyoming Wilderness Act are preserved as long as Grand Targhee remains within its existing boundaries. Without a robust enforcement and monitoring strategy from the Caribou-Targhee National Forest to mitigate impacts from the South Bowl expansion, our public wildlands will diminish. The economic growth of one private resort should not take priority over the right of the American people to experience and engage in these protected and resilient landscapes now and into the future.

* 1984 Wyoming Wilderness Act, Sec. 504.