Get Out: Far out: Buttes offer perspective

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

By Henry Sweets

???Are you a Teton guy, or a Butte guy?”
– Tyler

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-This Sunday, I rode my bike to High School Butte, and hiked up with a friend.

The afternoon was cold and gray, but as the clouds poured over the Tetons, the occasional ray of sunshine broke through. A couple of paragliders swirled above.
When I first moved to Jackson, I didn’t hike in local mountain ranges. I didn’t ride a bicycle, and I barely went canoeing. I spent my time on the buttes.

I would wake up in employee housing at the Jackson Hole Lodge, grab a notepad and some colored sharpies, and wander up a butte, wearing nothing but linen shorts and a worn out shirt from Browse-n-Buy. The Jackson air was plasma, and through it, traveled good vibrations.

Having just learned how to think in geologic time (a self-taught form of meditation), I found that the buttes were a good place  to listen to the wind, feel the air and hear with my “inner ear” about processes that play out in deep time.
Did I mention I had just written a thesis on Henry David Thoreau?

They were, and still are, millions of years older than the young, brash-feeling Tetons. And from the buttes, I could watch and see how my new town interacted with its environment.

On some of those butte-walks, I listened to a CD by Pharoah Sanders, a free jazz saxophone composer, and daydreamed about making a kung fu movie where I levitated in the butte folds, suspended by a spectrum of vibrational energy created by the plants that thrive there. In the movie, everyone drove white Cadillacs, wore polyester suits, levitated and fought each other in slow motion.

After taking an Art Association  drawing class, I began drawing buttes with treasure chests, jewels and candy in place of the few lone trees and shrubs that survived on their dry, windswept faces.

When I saw ski tracks down Taco Bell Couloir for the first time, I was offended that someone would mar what I thought was Jackson’s grandest public sculpture.
While it’s mud season, take a little time to go hiking on a butte. Soak in the air, soak in the sky, and see if you can’  soak in some age-old truth. Also, check out the political themes of Jackson, as they play out visually in town.

On this last hike, my friend and I pondered the wildlife/housing conflict in Jackson Hole. I had spent all day thinking about the Comp Plan, and we were looking down on South Park and the “Y” (the narrow Y-shaped corridor between Snow King Mountain, High School Butte and East Gros Ventre Butte.) I could see, physically, how certain developments were pinching off critical wildlife habitat.

“We just want to be in the same places [the wildlife] do,” she said, pointing to town. “That’s the driest, the warmest, and the least wind – right there. It’s just a little easier of a place to eke out an existence.”

On my way down, a hawk hovered in a thermal, barely shifting his weight over the valley, just as the paragliders had.

I tried to take photographs of a beautiful sunset peaking through the clouds, but my batteries were dead.

I?took a mental picture, hiked down to my bike, and rode home in the dark. PJH
On May 1, Forest Service wildlife closures lift. Crystal Butte will be open to hikers, but other early season hikes are still buried in quite a bit of snow. Forest Service officials warn that using trials too early can cause damage to trails that is expensive to fix. PJH


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Get Out: Far out: Buttes offer perspective | Planet JH News Article: Sports & Recreation

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