This story originally appeared in the 2026 Locals’ Guidebook featuring the Best of Jackson Hole, on newsstands now. Pick up a copy today!
JACKSON, Wyo. — Ever heard of the game Cowboy or Tourist? To play: Look around for folks in cowboy boots on Jackson’s Town Square and opine whether or not they are a visitor or a true-to-life cowboy. What makes the game possible? The unspoken uniform is an art, as true in Jackson Hole as it would be in New York City. Every activity and every lifestyle has its own implicit dress code.
In the summer of 2016, I got a job at a whitewater rafting company as a guide. After weeks of training, I entered my rookie season and unwittingly donned my first-ever Jackson Hole Uniform.
The uniform is not supplied by any purveyor of formal apparel. Instead, prior to my first day, I wandered into Skinny Skis and purchased a pair of Patagonia Baggies shorts and a long-sleeved Simms sun hoodie with a coral-and-beige geometric pattern. I tied my hair in a braid, donned an old hat I had acquired in college, put on my Smith sunglasses, and slipped into my toe-strap Chacos.
On my first day of work, the four of us arrived at the boat ramp — three guides and our shuttle driver — and rolled out of the truck to prepare for our first guests.
My gaze swept around the boat ramp, taking in what would be my surroundings for nearly 10 hours a day for the next three months. I saw rubber boats of all different colors, U.S. Forest Service employees, tourists looking lost and wandering aimlessly, and five to seven other women dressed exactly like me. Like, down to the brand. And thus was my introduction to the Jackson Uniform.
Similarly, I noticed the men on the boat ramp to be dressed almost identically with longer shorts inseams. They wore the same sun hoodie (or no shirt at all), Smith sunglasses, swim trunks, and Chacos. Sometimes they wore Bedrock single-strap sandals, but those were more for hard-boaters (which colloquially means whitewater kayakers).
All guides, regardless of gender, wore Astral lifejackets (likely sourced from Rendezvous River Sports — extra street cred to the ones that were more faded) or, if they were a kayaker prior to their rafting career, they likely owned a Stohlquist personal floatation device.
Conformity can be intentional or not, but it is human nature. In Jackson, every activity or lifestyle determines the uniform in which you live your days. The way one chooses to adorn their body is how they can express themselves, divulge which band they love, tell the story of the kinds of events they’ve attended (Old Bill’s Fun Run, anyone?), or show whether or not they’ve actually ever ridden a horse.
Here in Jackson, the uniform is about signaling authenticity within your chosen lifestyle. A ski goggle tan can indicate an avid skier; Costa sunglasses suggest the wearer may be a devoted fisherman; and clean blue jeans would signal the wearer is likely not a cowboy.
The uniform isn’t limited to clothes. It could be the VelociRAX bike rack on a tow hitch coveted by downhill mountain bikers or a collection of stickers on a car bumper (some say things like “Just say NO to Aspen Hole” or “IKON’t ski” as a callout to the IKON pass adding Jackson Hole to its collective pass in 2018).
The Jackson Uniform is assembled piece by piece, year after year, and is earned through time and commitment, until eventually the wearer doesn’t even realize the performance: The act has ended and life has begun.
So, readers, don your chosen Jackson Uniform and release yourself to Jackson Hole, the Last of the Old West. Will you be deemed Cowboy or Tourist?
