Year in Review: Buckrail’s top stories of 2023

Teton County saw its coldest winter in decades, with record-breaking snowfall in the area continuing late into the season.

Rendezvous Bowl Plot received more than 590 inches of snow, setting a new record for the mountain, and the Town of Jackson saw more than 110 inches of snow. Temperatures were below average every month from November to March.

Rainfall was heavier and more consistent than usual in Jackson Hole and the Tetons this summer.

In fact, the Town of Jackson received more rain from June through August in 2023 than in any other June-August period since 1998: 6.19 inches.

Jackson experienced three consecutive La Niña winters, but current weather is indicating a “strong” El Niño phase, which tips the odds in favor of a warmer and drier winter compared to average in the Tetons.

Compared with a rather snowy November in 2022, blue skies and dry grounds were the norm this November.

Visitation to the National Parks—Grand Teton and Yellowstone — saw a significant jump compared to 2022’s numbers. By October, YNP reported an increase of 37% over 2022’s year-to-date visits and a 12% increase over pre-pandemic 2019’s visits. The jump in visitation could mostly be attributed to the 2022 flooding event that limited park access for a number of months. While visitation in Jackson measured below average for the winter months, the summer tourist season was off to a strong start. Occupancy rates in May came in slightly higher compared to 2022.

Every fall, the Chamber tracks pre-booked rooms 60 days in advance across a number of lodging properties. In mid-October, pre-bookings for early winter outpaced 2022. The data for December 2023 occupancy has yet to be released but the lack of snow could certainly be a factor in lower occupancy trends as winter kicks off. 

In May, the tourist season kicked off with a man charged for handling wildlife. A Yellowstone tourist pulled a bison calf out of the water at the confluence of the Lamar River and Soda Butte Creek, resulting in park rangers euthanizing the calf after it was “abandoned by the herd and causing a hazardous situation by approaching cars and people along the roadway.”  

In June and July, it became an everyday occurrence for people to test the waters or in this case, Yellowstone’s boiling hot springs.

In June, two people disregarded a Yellowstone National Park (YNP) rule to stay on park boardwalks and attempted to touch Silex Spring, a nearly 175 degree thermal pool. Later that same week, two men illegally left the boardwalk and walked across Grand Prismatic Spring, disrupting thermal features. In July, a person gave an example of what not to do by bringing their dog on a Yellowstone boardwalk right next to hot thermal features.

Wolverines finally received their long-awaited federal protection under the Endangered Species Act. The Center for Biological Diversity estimated that only 300 wild wolverines remain in the United States. Climate change, increasing human presence and habitat degradation and fragmentation threaten the isolated population located throughout Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. 

Currently, the U.S. FWS is seeking public input until Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2024 on the wolverine’s conservation needs.

Everyone’s favorite grizzly bear, 399, set a new record this year when she emerged from hibernation with a single cub, becoming the oldest monitored grizzly bear in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem to give birth. The 27-year-old has mothered eight litters. 

One of her offspring, Grizzly 610, also made news this year, but for more concerning reasons. A grizzly was struck by a car in Grand Teton National Park in October, and park officials were nearly certain it was 610. The bear was spotted lying by the side of the road for hours, but appeared to survive the attack, as she ambled away with her cubs and was spotted “looking fine” the following morning. The apparent hit-and-run served as a reminder that vehicle traffic through GTNP this summer was more dangerous than usual for the park’s animals this year.

By the park’s count, at least six black bears and one grizzly were hit by cars in 2023; GTNP confirmed that two of those black bears were killed, and they suspect an additional bear died from its injuries.

The winter of 2023 brought deep, bottom-heavy snowpack which lingered long into spring across Wyoming, and as a result pronghorn herds died by the thousands.

Real-time mortality information through GPS-collared animals showed about half of the adult pronghorn between Rock Springs and Pinedale had succumbed to winter and a pneumonia-causing bacterial infection.

As a response, the state agency proposed changes to the 2023 fall hunting seasons. Some doe and fawn pronghorn hunts were canceled and Type 1 “any antelope” tags typically used on bucks were vastly reduced. 

Game and Fish departments across the mountain west were busy trucking grizzly bears all over the place this summer and fall. Grizzly relocations were frequent in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho in 2023, usually for behavioral purposes. Some bears were deemed too dangerous for relocations and were euthanized. 

One bear was put down after DNA testing linked her to the death of a hiker in West Yellowstone. A man in Big Sky lost his lower jaw to a grizzly mauling this year, too. 

Similarly, a woman visiting Yellowstone sustained serious injuries when a bison charged her. She survived the attack, and along with a health update shared the happy news that her partner proposed to her while she was recovering in the hospital.

In August, Joaquin the llama went missing in Yellowstone while toting packs for campers after getting spooked by rutting bison. He was found in the park after surviving for more than two weeks alone in the wilderness.

Tragedy struck a household in Victor, Idaho, in November, when a pregnant woman was found slain in her home. Her husband, Jeremy Best, has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of Kali Best, her unborn child and her 10-month-old son, Zeke.

Best will be tried in Teton County, Idaho, after his psychological evaluation is complete.

In late August, residents were startled by an emergency alert that an active shooter had closed down Spring Gulch Road.

What began as a domestic dispute escalated into a standoff that ensued for two hours and 17 minutes. Law enforcement officers negotiated with the man, who reportedly threatened to kill himself repeatedly and “discharged his two guns numerous times into the hillside.”

Jackson resident Charlie Lucas faces charges of attempted murder, false imprisonment, reckless endangerment and property destruction.

A four-month airport shuttle pilot program began in December as a data-gathering period for the Jackson Hole Airport and START teams, who hope to eventually implement a more permanent version of the shuttle.

Over Thanksgiving, holiday travelers filled up the parking lot at the Jackson Hole Airport, according to the airport website’s parking capacity status. The shuttle is designed to help alleviate these capacity problems. During a Nov. press conference at the airport, representatives from the Jackson Hole Airport and START Bus emphasized the need for locals to make use of the shuttle if they want to see it succeed.

It was a long summer of construction on the WY22/WY390 corridor.

Multiple projects were underway, often simultaneously, on the highway and pathway systems, including the Wilson Bridge replacement project and intersection realignment and the Wilson to Stilson pathway, along with two pedestrian underpasses.

All of the construction led to extra traffic in the area, which some locals handled better than others. One of the construction crews had to ask the public to stop hurling profanities at them as they drove past.

There’s a new red bird in the sky this winter.

Teton County Search & Rescue Foundation’s new year-round helicopter arrived in Teton County on Oct. 14, ahead of the winter rescue season. The single-engine H125 aircraft was built by the France-based Airbus and then customized as a rescue ship by Kansas-based EuroTec.

The new heli was specially painted with a red exterior and a mountainscape based on TCSAR’s new logo. This is the first time TCSAR will have a dedicated helicopter for year-round rescues. Previously TCSAR contracted a helicopter from Oct. 1 through May 31.

The Targhee Bluegrass festival came singing back to the mountain after a COVID hiatus. Skipping 2020, 2021 and 2022, the festival was back in full swing this past August, with campers and locals enjoying performances by the Infamous Stringdusters, Sam Bush Band, Greensky Bluegrass and more.

The first-ever Jackson Hole International Film Festival unspooled at the National Museum of Wildlife Art in December, featuring Oscar-hopeful films and Q&As with visiting filmmakers.

Eight films were screened in one weekend, including “American Fiction,” “Society of the Snow” and “A Taste of Things.”

The night skies didn’t disappoint with dazzling displays this year. In April, the Northern Lights made an appearance as curtains of colored light in the night sky.

The annual Perseid meteor shower peaked in mid August creating streaks of light that were the result of dust trains from the Swift-Tuttle comet crossing Earth’s orbit. 

A rare super blue moon graced the skies over the Tetons at the end of August. It was the third of four supermoons of 2023, meaning the moon is near its closest point to Earth at the same time it is full. It was also the second full moon in a single month, making it a “monthly” Blue moon and also causing there to be 13 full moons in 2023. Finally, in October, an annular solar eclipse was partially visible from Jackson, which looked like roughly two-thirds of the solar disk being covered by the moon.