Jackson Hole Woman 2025

jackson hole

WOMAN

Enriching lives

Mom calls for assault weapon control, every single day

In effort to prevent more school shooting fatalities, Grace Peck is willing to repeat herself, again and again, with daily calls to her representatives.

Language of the heart

Inspired by personal experience of therapy in her mother tongue, therapist Antuanett Lopez launches a private practice to support healing within the Spanish-speaking community.

Women on the Grand

Two all-women climbing teams — one with Exum, one with The Mountain Guides — met unexpectedly atop the Grand Teton, turning coincidence into a shared moment of history.

The power of women’s voices

As a woman, I am constantly using my voice in a variety of ways — to ask for the one hundredth time not to touch your sister, sit down, please go to bed, are you kidding me?

But seriously, my voice, like so many women’s voices, carries a weight far beyond the walls of my home. It’s a voice that organizes, comforts, questions and sometimes shouts into the wind for change that can feel impossible.

When women speak up — about health care, about parenting, about justice, about art, about science, about pain — the world shifts. The conversation becomes fuller, more complicated and ultimately more honest. That’s not just a feminist ideal; it’s a civic one. A functioning democracy depends on all of us being heard, not just those who have long held the microphone.

And this isn’t about volume. It’s about presence.

Women’s voices don’t need to shout to be powerful — they need to be heard without interruption, without dismissal and without being filtered. These voices rise through the music they make, the art they create, the mountains they move and the examples they set.

I share again an image of my daughter Adeline in this edition of Jackson Hole Women.

Here she stands in front of a piece of art at her school — a project that combines many voices through paint and ink, color and shape — a chorus of expression from young artists inter-

preting the world as they see it. When I look at that piece and at her standing before it, I see what it means to raise a voice — not just with words, but with courage, creativity and conviction.

Adeline’s generation is already learning something many of us had to unlearn: Your voice matters even when it trembles, art is argument, participation is power. The colors she helped paint tell me that the next wave of women won’t ask for permission to speak — they’ll just do it — boldly, imperfectly and together.

— Jeannette Boner

Published by

PUBLISHER

Adam Meyer

EDITOR IN CHIEF

Johanna Love

MANAGING EDITOR

Billy Arnold

SECTION EDITOR

Jeannette Boner

PHOTOGRAPHERS

Bradly J. Boner, Kathryn Ziesig, Pearl Spurlock

EDITORIAL DESIGN

Andy Edwards

CONTRIBUTORS

Jasmine Hall, Tibby Plasse, Charley Sutherland, Alex Viveros, Christina MacIntosh, Kimberly Geil, Katie Klingsporn

COPY EDITING

Sarah Sellergren

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Sarah Wilson

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Karen Brennan

MULTIMEDIA SALES MANAGERS

Tim Walker, Chad Repinski

DIGITAL CAMPAIGN, MULTIMEDIA SALES MANAGER

Tatum Mentzer

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©2025 Teton Media Works

Jackson Hole News&Guide

P.O. Box 7445, 1225 Maple Way, Jackson, WY 83002

Phone: 307-733-2047; Web: JHNewsAndGuide.com

When women summit

A Grand Teton coincidence becomes a climbing milestone.

By Kimberly Geil

Before sunrise on Aug. 24, climbers in the Teton Range tightened their harnesses and switched on headlamps. Hours later, at the top of the Grand Teton, a lone man looked around in astonishment — every other climber on the summit that morning was a woman.

By pure coincidence, two, allwomen teams — one from Exum Mountain Guides and one from The Mountain Guides — had met on the same day at 13,775 feet, rewriting and reimagining what the mountaintop usually looks like.

The man’s reaction, though positive, illustrated the unusual nature of this scenario. A group of men on the Grand Teton? Happens every summer day. A large group of only women climbers and guides? Hardly ever.

A new climb for women

It was partly because of this discrepancy that Exum Mountain Guides initiated its first Grand Teton Women’s Climb in 2023.

Women have climbed as clients from the beginning, but the companies didn’t hire their first full-time female guides until the 1980s.

From 1991 to 2003, Mattie Sheafor ran her Women That Rock program through Exum. It taught women the skills needed to climb independently.

The late Aimee Barnes of The Mountain Guides created the Women’s Network as a resource for women

climbers that continues today.

But it wasn’t until 2023 — the 100th anniversary of Eleanor Davis becoming the first known woman to summit the peak — that a women’s climb of the Grand Teton became a reality.

Finding strength in the group

Now in its third year, the participants on Exum’s Women’s Climb have ranged in age from 23 to 65. They are students, psychologists, filmmakers, scientists and influencers.

Three women — Summeri Bass,

23; Sarah Finlay, 26; and Katia Ryan, 24 — had received scholarships funded by the Teton Climbers Coalition and other partners, giving them the opportunity to challenge themselves in the mountains in a way that, otherwise, would have been financially out of reach.

Except for two childhood friends who were celebrating their 65th birthdays and 54 years of friendship, none of the women knew each other. But all were surprised by how quickly

Calling for gun control, every single day

Wilson mother Grace Peck seeks action from Wyoming federal delegation.

WBy Jasmine Hall

hen Grace Peck woke up the morning after the Annunciation Catholic Church shooting in Minnesota, she reluctantly prepared to drop her own children off at school in Jackson.

The school year had just started at the end of August in Teton County School District. Peck drove her kindergartner and third grader to school and felt how she imagines many parents across the country feel when they part ways with their children at the doors.

“I sat in my car and cried after I dropped them off,” she said.

Minnesota’s mass shooting felt raw, Peck said. Two children, Fletcher Merkel, 8, and Harper Moyski, 10, had been killed Aug. 27 during a schoolwide mass attended by students and faculty at Annunciation Catholic School in a suburb of Minneapolis. Thirty other people, including 26 school children, were injured.

It wasn’t the first time gun violence in America had shaken Peck. Since her first child went to daycare at 10 weeks old and she accepted that she was “releasing him into the universe,” the anxiety has followed her.

“Being an American mother means that this is a fear,” she said.

Personal fear

As the years ticked up toward her son being the age that students were when the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting left 26 people dead, most of them 6- and 7-year-old children, Peck braced herself.

“He’s in third grade now, so I think about him sitting in his school watching a movie,” she said, reflecting on the Uvalde school shooting in Texas three years ago, in which 19 students and two teachers were killed. “That shooter came into the room and asked if all the kids were ready to die.”

She doesn’t even tell her children goodbye anymore at the bus stop or school building.

“I refuse to have my last words to them before they walk in that building to be goodbye,” she said.

She tells them that she loves them and that she will see them later.

But something changed for her on Aug. 28. Peck decided to make three calls. She rang the Cheyenne offices for Sens. Cynthia Lummis and John Barrasso, as well as Rep. Harriet Hageman. The three members of the Wyoming federal delegation are Republicans and staunch Second Amendment supporters. Still, she wanted them to know what she was going through as a mother.

She said she thought she did her due diligence by making the calls, yet relief never came.

“I didn’t sleep that night and I got up the next morning,” she said. “And I just kept seeing that picture of the mom running with her shoes in her hand, barefoot towards the school.”

Peck said Moms Demand Action, a national advocacy group fighting to end gun violence in America and pushing for gun safety measures, posted the photo taken at Annunciation Catholic Church with a quote that said: “This is a mother’s love.” She said it shouldn’t have to be.

Throughout motherhood and sending her students off to school, she’s had nothing to hold onto but hope. Peck said a religious person might say prayers that her kids would be safe in the classroom. She hoped that her children or any other families never would experience gun violence in America again. But it wasn’t helping, and it didn’t feel good to her anymore to just wish for change.

“What can I do?” she said. “So, I picked up the phone again.”

Daily advocacy

As of Oct. 16, Peck had called her

delegation for 50 days in a row. She has continued to do so every day since then, asking for semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines to be banned at the federal level. She said it’s a class of weapons often called “modern sporting rifles.” She says she supports banning these weapons because they’re reported largely in mass shootings over the last decade.

They fire with high velocity, she said, ensuring “more people, more students, more children are injured.” The alleged shooter at Annunciation Catholic Church was able to fire more than 100 rounds in two minutes, carrying an AR15 semi-automatic rifle, a shotgun and a pistol. She said the church had a policy of locking the door when mass started and she couldn’t imagine the damage that would have been done if the shooter had been able to get inside instead of firing through windows.

“The more I read, the more I am convinced that banning these weapons would save lives,” she said.

These are some of the points Peck makes in her calls to the delegation. She writes a unique script Monday through Friday based on the day’s news, how she’s feeling or what she’s learned about gun violence in America, and calls the Cheyenne offices to talk to staffers or leave a voicemail about the issue. On Saturdays and Sundays, she also leaves a voicemail. Peck shares her scripts with other moms on social media if they would like to call, because it can be intimidating to pick up the phone.

She said the response she’s received from mothers in the community regarding her advocacy has been moving, whether it be on Instagram, at the grocery store or in gymnastics class. It’s clear that she’s not alone, Peck said.

She also knows that not every parent in America feels the way she does or wants the same gun violence solutions.

The News&Guide reached out to Teton County School District, the Teton County GOP, gun advocacy organizations and a Teton County shooting club looking for a parent on the opposite side of the issue as Peck.

No one was identified for the story and TCSD said it received no public comment or support for guns in schools over the summer when drafting a policy that allows educators, volunteers and visitors to carry concealed weapons in TCSD facilities.

Peck grew up with guns in her home, her husband is a hunter, and she worked on a dude ranch for four years when she first moved to Wyoming in 2010.

“I’ve shot an AR-15,” she said. “I know what that feels like in my hands

Speaking to, and from, the heart in Spanish

By Alex Viveros

Antuanett Lopez is one of the few therapists in Wyoming, let alone in Jackson, who offers bilingual services. Providing therapy in Spanish allows her to break through the barrier of misunderstanding with clients.

But beyond that, speaking to someone in the language they grew up with may help unpack emotions from decades ago. As someone who moved from Peru to the United States as a teenager, Lopez noticed as much when she herself opened up in therapy.

“When I’m talking about my emotions in English, I’m talking about myself now,” Lopez said. “But when I’m talking in Spanish, I can go back and relate to how I felt as an inner child.”

The same holds true for other people, she noticed. Talking and communicating in Spanish, as an adult, could help people speak from their inner child.

“When I’m talking about my family, my life, I love to talk about it in Spanish, because it brings more emotion, more passion in the way that I speak about it,” Lopez said. “And my clients feel the same thing.”

Last winter, Lopez launched her own private practice, called Reconciliation Health Therapy. She offers services in both Spanish and English for clients from Wyoming and Idaho, and works with children and adults. Her mission is to create healthier generations through mental health care, education and connection, which she does in part by inviting parents to sessions.

“I’m not only helping the kid or the client, but I’m also helping their support system,” she said.

“Whoever comes to the office and sits on that sofa, I’m not just talking to them,” she added. “I’m also talking to the people who have come before them and who will come after them.”

Lopez was first exposed to therapy as a young girl in Peru. Her mother had traveled to the United States, and upon returning about half a decade later, found her daughter to be a “rebel,” Lopez said.

Lopez’ mother sent her to a therapist who made the young girl feel heard, respected and cared for.

“I really liked the space, and I really loved her nurturing characteristics,” Lopez said.

When Lopez moved to the United States as a 13-year-old, her mother pushed her to do well in school

and pursue higher education. Lopez thought back to the impact of her counseling in Peru.

“I had like five sessions with her, and they were so caring, so warming, so nurturing,” Lopez said. She thought, “maybe I want to do the same thing with people here in the U.S.”

Lopez moved to Jackson in 2020, where she picked up work as a receptionist at Snow King while finishing up her Master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health and Rehabilitation Services. She decided to stay, opting to do her degree-required internship at Teton Behavior Therapy.

she started a podcast called “Cultivos de Sabiduria” — Crops of Wisdom in English — in which she discusses topics about mental health, families, finances, sex and more for Latinos in mountain areas.

“I’m blessed and grateful and also humbled to have this business to help the Latino community.”

Antuanett Lopez

PROPRIETOR , RECONCILIATION HEALTH THERAPY

She stayed at the practice for a few years after her internship, leading group therapy sessions and working to obtain her license. In 2024,

“I love having another level of accessibility for that community,” Lopez said. In December 2024, Lopez opened her own private practice. It has been a dream of hers come true. She hails from a family that ran their own successful business in Peru and has long hoped she could do the same.

“But it is so different to have a business in Peru than to have a business here in the U.S.,” Lopez said.

Managing the business side of therapy was stressful, especially navigat -

ing complicated health insurance systems in the United States. She cried during the first four months, wondering what she was doing and whether it would have been easier to remain a part of the group practice.

“Just because someone sees your potential doesn’t mean that it’s going to be easy. But then that’s the challenge that you take,” Lopez said. “Once you accomplish that battle or challenge, you have more authority in your life.”

Almost a year in, Lopez already is thinking of expanding Reconciliation Health Therapy to bring more access to mental health care for me mbers of the Latino community. The goal, she said, is to “continue making a collaborative impact and breaking the cycle of trauma.”

“I am blessed and grateful and also humbled to have this business to help the Latino community,” Lopez said. “I’m able to plant my seed of gratitude and use my profession to help others.”

Contact Alex Viveros at 307-732-5909 or alexv@jhnewsandguide.com.

At Game and Fish, things get Western

Wildlife biologist Aly Courtemanch encounters it all — life and death, blood and guts, mentorship and bias.

By Christina MacIntosh

For Alyson Courtemanch, riding in a helicopter, digging through snow to reach a radio collar, or dissecting a moose deep in bear country is just another day at work.

The Wyoming Game and Fish wildlife biologist has built a career with grit and curiosity — qualities that have carried her through long days in the backcountry, and sometimes longer meetings, in a field where women remain the exception rather than the rule.

And on a late August morning, Courtemanch and Briana Agenbroad, a wildlife technician with the department, embarked on a dead moose reconnaissance mission on Togwotee Pass.

The night before, Courtemanch had received an alert that the collar had stopped moving, meaning she would have to go find the carcass to perform a necropsy for a study on causes of death for Jackson moose.

Courtemanch and Agenbroad were off-trailing on the side of the pass, following the collar on a map. They had bear spray at the ready and periodically called out “hey bear.” Before the final approach to the carcass, Agenbroad fired a blank round to ward off any forest friends.

The two spent the next four hours hacking up the moose to get organ samples, getting covered in blood and stomach bile along the way.

“In this job, you have to be a jack of all trades,” Courtemanch said. “We’re flying in helicopters, driving snowmobiles, riding horses, cutting up dead animals and doing statistics.”

“There’s a whole spectrum from the nerdy science stuff all the way to blood and guts.”

Courtemanch is often working by herself in remote areas, way out of cell service. If something went wrong, it would be a long time before help arrived. She has had to jump on live animals and posthole through snow while chasing after a tranquilized moose.

“Things can get a little Western,” she said. “It’s that element of adventure that makes things fun and interesting.”

Courtemanch, who has been with the department fulltime since 2011, grew up on old farmland in rural Maine.

Courtemanch was interested in wildlife and the sciences growing up, but she was also interested in the humanities. She went to St. Lawrence University in upstate New York thinking that she would major in International Studies.

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nity in southern Kenya. She spent the month living in a tent in the bush, working with the community to figure out how to help humans, livestock and wildlife coexist on the landscape.

The experience made Courtemanch interested in wildlife conservation and human-wildlife coexistence. She ended up majoring in biology and hoping to work with big charismatic animals on a large landscape.

She came to Jackson in 2005 for an internship working on a bison project in Grand Teton National Park. The team was almost all women.

“It was very unique in a lot of ways to be surrounded by career wildlife biologist women,” Courtemanch said. “That definitely solidified my feeling that that was what I wanted to do.”

That was the summer she met Jill Randall, the Game and Fish feedground biologist at the time, through her softball league. She stayed that winter to work with Randall on vaccinating elk on the refuge for brucellosis.

Courtemanch eventually went to the University of Wyoming to pursue a master’s degree in Fish and Wildlife Research, where she studied the impact of backcountry skiing on bighorn sheep in Grand Teton National Park for her thesis.

She worked closely with Steve Kilpatrick, Game and Fish’s Jackson habitat biologist at the time. Kilpatrick was getting ready to retire and encouraged Courtemanch to apply for his position. She was the first woman to be hired as a Game and Fish wildlife biologist in the Jackson office.

“He was just a fantastic mentor,” Courtemanch said. “He taught me tons of stuff, like how to ride horses. He never saw gender as a barrier. He was just a fantastic supporter and champion.”

The job is physical and field-oriented.

“You have to be very tough,” Courtemanch said. “You’re out in the cold, in the snow, working very long days, working in remote areas — a lot of times by yourself.”

In the male-dominated field, there are assumptions that women aren’t up to the challenge.

“We have to be extra tough and prove ourselves even more,” Courtemanch said.

But the people-management side of the position proved to be even more challenging.

“A lot of our key constituents and stakeholders are men,” she said. “There was a lot of judgment right away. Things were pretty tough the first few years.”

Public meetings were especially difficult and Courtemanch said she often felt that she was not respected. That has improved in the years since, as she has gotten to know stakeholders.

“It’s an added challenge and emotional burden that women have to deal with that a lot of times men don’t have to deal with,” she said. “It did weigh on me a lot.”

There are more women in the department now, but

when Courtemanch first started it was common for her to be the only woman in a meeting of 20 to 30 employees.

“The career field in general was very macho,” Courtemanch said. “It was hard to fit in as a woman or as a certain type of woman.”

The phenomenon is reportedly true across the field of wildlife management, not just in Game and Fish. The situation has improved over the last 15 years.

“Now maybe there’s a few of us,” Courtemanch said. “It’s slowly changing, but it’s definitely not where it needs to be.”

Knowing that there are many qualified women in the field, Courtemanch wonders where they are, why they may not be hired or why they choose to leave. Some call this the “leaky pipeline,” in which women are lost

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at various stages of their careers leading to underrepresentation overall. This could be because it’s a tough job to have a family or achieve work-life balance.

“We work really long days,” Courtemanch said. “A lot of times we work off hours.”

Courtemanch sees more women joining the agency and wants to do her best to support them.

“I feel like supporting younger women... is part of my job too, now that I’ve been here a while,” she said.

In the future, Courtemanch hopes to see more diversity in the wildlife field across the board, not just more women.

Contact Christina MacIntosh at 307-732-5911 or environmental@jhnewsandguide.com.

WOMEN ON TOP

A tribute to the creative forces behind Jackson Hole’s leading galleries.

Diehl Gallery was founded in 2001 and offers fine art as well as professional art collecting services for new and established collectors, both private and corporate. We specialize in the acquisition and sale of contemporary art. The Gallery works with architects, art consultants and interior designers on project-specific installations and provides collection development services.

With projects ranging from high-end residential homes, to corporate offices, to development properties and hotels, Diehl Gallery places the greatest importance on honesty, discretion, integrity and resourcefulness. Our ability to address our clients’ needs has enabled us to create and maintain long-lasting, productive relationships with clients as well as with other individuals in the industry

Diehl Gallery has commissioned artists to create site-specific projects, such as the massive 30-foot long installation by Richard Painter at the Jackson Hole Airport and the newly installed mixed media piece by Kate Hunt at the luxurious One & Only resort in Big Sky, Montana.

The artists represented at Diehl Gallery have exhibited at or had their works included in the permanent collections of museums and institutions nationally and internationally.

Horizon Fine Art, located just off the Town Square on King St., is a celebrated gallery known for its diverse and dynamic collection. The space features a rich blend of Western, contemporary, and international art, including paintings, sculpture, jewelry, ceramics, woodwork, and fine furnishings. With works that reflect both local landscapes and global influences, Horizon offers something for every art collector.

Founded in 1998 by Barbara Nowak, the gallery is a reflection of her passion for art and connection to the Jackson community. Known for her warm, approachable style, Nowak carefully curates the gallery by cultivating relationships with both emerging and established artists. She is often found welcoming guests personally, offering insights and guidance whether they are seasoned collectors or first-time visitors. Under her direction, Horizon Fine Art continues to be a vibrant and welcoming destination in the heart of Jackson Hole.

Shari Brownfield has spent more than three decades immersed in the art world; from packing crates and selling museum shop postcards, to directing blue-chip galleries across North America. Today, she brings that experience to her work as an independent art advisor and appraiser based in Jackson Hole.

Operating out of a century-old log cabin in downtown Jackson, Shari helps collectors build thoughtful, distinctive collections with a strong emphasis on championing women artists, both past and present. Her approach is anything but cookie-cutter: part sleuth, part storyteller, and fully devoted to the art and artists that deserve more of the spotlight.

Shari Brownfield Fine Art has had a hand in important client acquisitions, including works by Simone Leigh, Robert Motherwell, Helen Frankenthaler, among many others. She has also been called on to appraise major private family office estates, to space-flown artworks. A proud advocate for the arts in her community, Shari currently serves on the board of the Center for the Arts.

From incapacitating grief to growth

By Jeannette Boner

On a weekday morning, Nicole Gaitan Felton laughs about the chaos: traffic in town, spilled paint on her laptop and her microphone propped up in a corner of her house.

This kind of chaos is almost welcome after years of navigating some of life’s more challenging paths — including the medical journey that she and her family shouldered following her daughter Parker’s cancer diagnosis two years ago.

Now, as the warm fall sun hits the windows in her home studio, Gaitan takes a deeper, steadier breath. She’s reimagining each day, starting with her newest venture — a podcast called “Glow Wild.”

For Gaitan, the podcast is more than a creative project. It’s a full circle.

The long silence

The seed for the show was planted years ago, back when she was a personal trainer tossing out easy encouragement to clients: “You’ve got this.”

Back then, she hadn’t lived through anything earth-shattering; she just wanted to inspire. But life soon delivered the unthinkable.

Parker’s cancer diagnosis drew her into months spent in Salt Lake hospitals and a blur of waiting rooms. Gaitan describes herself during that time as a shell.

“I didn’t cry during treatment,” she said of Parker’s chemotherapy. “I just moved through it on autopilot. I had to be strong in front of Parker.”

When treatment ended and Parker rang the bell signaling her remission, the feelings arrived all at once. She collapsed into a depression — spending days on the couch with Netflix on loop.

“On Instagram, it looked like I was

Artist Nicole Gaitan Felton finds her voice again.

functioning,” she said. “But inside, I was numb. I told myself I deserved to be depressed.”

A shift in the story

The turning point came unexpectedly, with a Tony Robbins livestream her friend invited her to join.

Gaitan had read his books before, but this time the words hit differently: “Your story is what you tell yourself. You can change your story anytime.”

“It sounds simple, but it cracked something open,” she said. “I realized I didn’t want to keep telling myself the same story.”

She decided to reclaim her voice.

‘Glow Wild’

Nothing about “Glow Wild” looks

like a glossy studio production. Gaitan records where she can — sometimes in a foam-lined box in the basement, sometimes at her paint-stained desk. She edits herself via iMovie and QuickTime, replaying entire episodes to cut out “ums,” gaps, and background noise.

“It’s very DIY,” she said. “But I like that. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be done.”

Launched earlier this year, “Glow Wild” now counts 25 episodes and more than 3,000 downloads. Some conversations spike to over 1,000 listens, while others hover closer to 80 — but Gaitan shrugs off the swings.

“If it reaches one person, that’s enough,” she said.

Guests range from longtime friends to complete strangers who said yes after

20 YEARS

receiving one of Gaitan’s cold emails. A radiologist in her 80s broke down on air recalling the day her father told her she had to be brilliant. A friend spoke bluntly about addiction. Another mother, whose own child was named Parker, shared intimate details of her grief.

Not every episode is seamless. Once, Zoom cut off a guest mid-sob, leaving Gaitan scrambling to upgrade her account. Another time, she accidentally left in background noise. But those imperfections became part of the ethos.

Podcasting has led Gaitan into new territory: life coaching. She enrolled in Jay Shetty’s coaching program, logging 20 hours of practice sessions with people who found her through Instagram.

“It makes me a better listener,” she said. “And it’s the same as the podcast — it’s about helping people reframe their story.”

Moving forward

Gaitan doesn’t pretend she’s left depression behind for good. There are still days she wants to stay on the couch. But after an interview, she feels electric — rushing to edit and eager to release the conversation.

The podcast may be small by industry standards, but for Gaitan, the measure isn’t downloads. It’s persistence — showing up, refusing to go silent again.

“Titles don’t define purpose,” she said. “How we show up does.”

And for now, she’s showing up with a microphone, a handful of imperfect edits, thousands of downloads, and a voice she refuses to lose again.

Her podcast: GlowWildPodcast.com.

Contact Jeannette Boner at 307-7325901 or courts@jhnewsandguide.com.

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From horns to healing

Amber Mouton, accomplished French horn player, finds her voice.

YOGA PILATES CAFE INVERSION

By Tibby Plasse

It might seem strange that a French horn player would claim “Within You Without You” by the Beatles as a favorite song.

But a few minutes into speaking with Amber Mouton, the lyrics of George Harrison’s multidimensional Hinduleaning meditation on universal love couldn’t be tattooed on the back of a more fitting pioneer of self-awareness.

Mouton is a Louisiana native with a grand lineage of musicianship behind her — her grandfather, Aldus Mouton, was a famous Zydeco and Cajun accordionist. And then there’s band culture, a serious business in Louisiana, performing for national audiences in bowl games and parades. At an early age, she was “mouthpiece tested” in her school, “as they do,” she said.

“It’s a pretty common practice and it’s how they assign instruments, I was the only one in my grade who could buzz on a French horn mouthpiece,” said Mouton. And her destiny changed.

The thirty-six-year-old has called Jackson home since the pandemic — a fluke decision to hit reset while going through a divorce and the world regrouped. Mouton took a job managing a lodge in West Yellowstone for the summer after struggling to keep gigs going in New Orleans.

“The world shut down with COVID on March 17 in New Orleans, and it was

pretty scary at that point,” she said.

“I went from playing six nights a week to having no gigs for the foreseeable future. At that time I did do some recordings with my band, and we did some music videos, and a lot of writing, but I was antsy.”

Her capacity for brassy resonance took Mouton from being a high schooler with an academic focus to sounding support for boogie-woogie pianist Marica Ball, whom she accompanied on the road and then at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival for a few years.

“Her maiden name is Mouton,” you could hear Mouton smiling over the phone. “I could be playing classic rock on Bourbon Street or a metal band or in a polka band on any given night.”

When she left the Crescent City, it wasn’t the first time Mouton had headed to the Rockies. She said that she took her audition process very seriously as a college applicant.

“My family couldn’t help me with college, so if I wanted to do something, I needed to do it on my own,” she said. “I auditioned all over the country, trying to see what scholarship opportunities were there. I did not realize how cool it was to be from Louisiana and to grow up in Louisiana — I was definitely trying to get as far away as possible.”

Mouton headed to the University of Denver where she ended up discovering that the academic path was not what

ZIESIG / NEWS&GUIDE

“There are no coincidences” is one of Elaine Luton’s signature sayings. Luton, 93, is a resident at Sage Living and has been working on this art piece with Amber Mouton, a life enrichment manager as well as a French horn player, for a few weeks, taking turns adding more to the canvas.

she was interested in pursuing.

“Once I got into school, I was really interested in pushing the Jazz button and moved to New Orleans in 2011 and was just really set on proving everyone wrong, and that I could do whatever I wanted to do as a French horn player.”

While Mouton spent time recharging in the West, she discovered that her ability to shift perspective on how the horn is perceived could also be applied to education, elder care and autism studies.

“I had worked in some very parttime advocacy roles and then in an autism clinic in New Orleans and I felt pretty connected to that work.”

Mouton returned to school and accepted a job sight unseen in Jackson as a one-on-one caregiver for a teenager with autism. She completed two degrees in three and a half years, earning a Master’s in Autism Studies and Applied Behavior Analysis with a certificate in Autism Spectrum Disorders from Mary Baldwin University. This month, Mouton passed her professional exam to become a BCBA, board certified behavior analyst.

“I think a lot about accessibility and ways where I innately have been drawn to making things accessible for all sorts of people, and I think this was sort of like a speakerphone on that,” she said.

Mouton’s youngest brother is on the autism spectrum, and she said that recently, she’s been diagnosed as being on the spectrum as well.

“I think now I sort of understand why I see the world the way that I do,

and it helps me to connect more clearly with myself and to understand how to connect in a different way with other people,” she said.

Mouton has been the Life Enrichment manager at Sage Living for a little over a year now and she says music is slowly coming back into her life. She’ll join Cache Funk every now and then or collaborate with Teton Music School, and even did a stint as co-director at the Jackson Hole Jazz Foundation. But right now she’s focuse d on her work at the hospital with adults in longterm care. Mouton’s husband, Tom Goicoechea, a Board Certified Music Therapist, also works at Teton Music School. The two were married in 2024, a week after Cache Funk played Music on Main. Working closely with creative collaborator and board certified neurologic music therapist Hilary Camino, Mouton is striving to create opportunities that drive home that the creati ve arts “are the gateway to everything,” which included her recent presentation at the Center for Innovation.

On any given day, programming includes a songwriting group, an art history discussion or a visit from Dancers’ Workshop.

“We’ve had residents who wrote and illustrated a children’s book this year— this is not what people think of when they think of elder care, even when we exercise like today, we are exercising to Afro Cuban Latin rhythms.”

Contact Tibby Plasse via 307-732-5901 or courts@jhnewsandguide.com.

WHEN

they bonded.

Sarah Hinkson, 35, thought it would just be about the climb, but, “It became so much more about the shared moments of lifting one another up.”

“We were encouraging each other through moments of anxiety and fear.”

Finlay added that “the trust and encouragement felt natural, and it carried me through the toughest sections.”

Training, trust and the summit

The Exum team spent two days training on rope systems, rappelling and climbing techniques.

“When you’re with women, you can totally be brave enough to fail—there’s not the pressure of messing up because you’re a woman or because you’re not strong enough,” Ryan said. “You’re messing up because you’re trying something new and you’re experimenting,” with the full support of the group.

On the third day, they hiked up to Exum’s high camp on the Lower Saddle — at approximately 11,600 feet — where a “Celebrate” sign was swinging inside the hut. Guide Aili Farquhar led a small group in yoga poses as the sun sank on the Idaho side of the peak and the sky morphed into streaks of orange, pink and red.

After a few hours of fitful sleep and with anticipation rising, they left the hut at 4 a.m. in groups of two climbers, headlights bobbing, each with one of Exum’s women guides. By mid-morning eight of the 10 climbers had summited the Grand Teton via the OwenSpalding route, and the remaining two had reached the Enclosure, a secondary summit of the Grand.

“It’s so easy to get caught up in how far you still have to go, or to let your thoughts spiral around the what-ifs,” Hinkson said.

When she shifted into a mindset of noticing the feel of the rock under her fingers, sometimes jagged and at other times smooth, and the colors shifting in the sky as the sun came up, “The climb stopped feeling overwhelming and started feeling grounding, almost meditative,” she said.

The Poppy Team parallel

As luck would have it, another group of women was preparing to climb the Grand at the same time. The idea had taken root at Poppy, a women’s coworking space in Jackson, when several members realized that they all wanted to attempt the Grand but had never taken the time to do it.

They decided to stop making excuses and called up The Mountain Guides to book a trip. Heather Smith, 42, and founder of Popp y, felt a sense of power from reserving that time, especially since she and other women often set aside their own personal goals in favor of more urgent or p ractical commitments.

Ranging in age from 29 to 65, the group included professionals from a variety of fields — marketing directors to legal analysts to entrepreneurs.

The first day of their trip was spent hiking to The Mountain Guides’ high camp at 11,200 feet where they would spend three nights. Day two was the first time clim bing for almost all of them, and those initial experiences with exposure brought up trepidation and excitement. The gravity of what they were attempting hit home, but Smith found reassurance in the trust she had in the guides and the systems they were learning.

At the top together

All eight of the Poppy team reached the summit of the Grand Teton via the Pownall-Gilkey route. As Smith rounded the last bend, tears welled in her eyes from the physical effort itself, and the high-fives and cheers from friends in the group ahead of her. She still gets chills thinking about how

every time someone reached the top, it would be another woman, whether it was from the Poppy group or the Exum team.

Two days earlier, Connie Kemmerer and Kay Wilson, both 81, had just become the oldest know n people to climb the Grand — regardless of gender — and Jane Maus, 30, had set a new fastest time record for women (see story, page 14). Maus had run

past the Poppy group as they hiked to high camp, and they stepped aside to cheer her on. Smith said it “felt very full circle – women supporting women, and how much power and strength is on this mountain just now.”

Passing it on

Smith and Maria Ellis shared how their climb impacted their daughters. Smith’s 10-year-old daughter was “su -

per stoked” that her mom had climbed the Grand and assumes her mom will do it again. Smith herself said the climb ignited an interest in the sport that hadn’t been there previously and is flattered that her grown daughters now consider her a “badass.”

The women said their biggest takeaways rev olved around the support of their team members, the guides, and their com munities, and how the experience changed their own perceptions.

“The climb showed me that we never achieve alone; each step is built on those who came before us,” Finlay said.

“Every step I took [to reach the summit] was part of a much larger legacy of resilience and breaking barriers,” Ryan said. “I still often fail to identify myself as a hiker or athlete. Climbing the Grand really created a new baseline for me of what I think is possible.”

The power of all-women spaces

The climbs highlight both the gains and how far the guiding community still has to go. The Ex um Women’s Climb is the only opportunity during the summer season for all the female guides to guide together.

Exum had to add a male guide to their 2023 trip, and the Poppy group had a male guide this year. But the male guides proved to be just as caring and supportive as their female colleagues . Perhaps it’s more about intention when it comes to empowering all people, regardless of gender, to experience the outdoors.

Nevertheless, as guide Rebecca Yaguda said, “When women climb with wo men, the most supportive, encouraging environment is naturally fostered, and this inspires women to try hard things that they never thought were possible.”

Hinkson summed up the experience: “It’s ch allenging, yes, but it’s also joyful, empowering, and deeply rewarding. If you’re even a little curious, I’d say go for it! You will learn just how strong and resilient you really are.”

Writer Kimberly Geil, Ph.D., manages the office of Exum Mountain Guides and is the founder of the Exum History Project. She is the third generation of her family to work at Exum and completed her seventh summit of the

“Every step I took was part of a much larger legacy of resilience and breaking barriers.”

Katia Ryan

A record with no fanfare, no shortcuts

Jane Maus earns fastest known time for women up and down Grand Teton.

TBy Katie Klingsporn WyoFile.com

here’s been a lot of hubbub over the past year surrounding the Grand Teton speed record attempt. Runner Michelino Sunseri’s now-infamous 2024 shortcut set off a national debate and courtroom saga over outdoor ethics, the responsibilities of professional athletes with thousands of followers, and hefty penalties for trail transgressions.

Amid all of this, a professional runner from Boulder, Colorado, quietly set her sights on the vaunted peak herself. Jane Maus temporarily relocated to the Tetons in August, scouted the Grand a few times and began her own journey toward breaking the female speed record.

With very little fanfare and zero shortcuts, Maus did just that on Aug. 22. She ran the 13.2-mile out-andback route — with its sections of technical scrambling and some 7,000 feet of elevation gain — in a blistering 3:45:34. That put Maus more than 20 minutes faster than the previous fastest known time, or FKT, which had been set just three days earlier by Canadian runner Jazmine Lowther.

It was, by all accounts, a stunning physical accomplishment. Maus had gone into the Aug. 22 attempt thinking more about it as another opportunity to hone her route than to set the record. She was unaccompanied. There was no cameraman to pho tograph her, no social media buzz building excitement. But it all fell into place.

When she ran back into the parking lot and realized what she had accom -

plished, she said, there wasn’t even anyone to high five. She’d finished so early that her partner hadn’t arri ved yet to pick her up.

“It still feels kind of surreal,” she told WyoFile weeks later.

Along with setting new benchmarks, Maus and Lowther’s feats also signify a new fidelity to what are considered authorized routes in the niche world of high-alpine speed records. Both women followed what is known as the “Modern Route.”

Fastest Known Time, the organi -

zation that tracks these records, recently updated the language in its Grand Teton entry page to note that the Modern Route differs from the Historical Route. That latter includes the shortcut that landed Sunseri in hot water. Previous Historical Route record holders include Kilian Jornet and Jen Day Denton.

“The [Grand Teton National park] Jenny Lake Rangers now prefer that runners stick to designated and maintained trails (where available), which aligns with this Modern Route,” the

page reads. “FastestKnownTime indicated it will not accept future submissions using the Historical Route, though it remains an integral part of the mount ain’s history and lore.”

For Maus, the old route with the shortcut was never an option.

“With everything that had happened, and now moving forward, it’s not acceptable to cut the switchback,” she said. “That never crossed my mind.”

Super daunting

Before this season, Maus wasn’t a household name. The 30-year-old dietician grew up in the Salt Lake Valley, where she developed comfort with scrambling through the mountains. She played college-level soccer. A passion for trail running and rock climbing eventually led to endurance runs and a La Sportiva sponsorship.

Maus’ coach first urged her to attempt the Grand Teton FKT this spring, saying it would fit in well with her skillset of climbing and running.

“I was like, ‘that’s absolutely crazy,’” she said.

But after a couple more people brought it up to her, she started considering it more seriously. Sinc e she works remotely, she had the flexibility. She decided to at least spend some time on the mountain, though she didn’t presume she was going to break the record, she said.

“I just kind of committed to trying it out,” she said. “I really had no idea what to expect. But I was like, ‘I have the time. It seems like a really cool objective. I’m just gonna go for it.’”

JACKSON OFFICE PICTURED FRONT ROW, LEFT TO RIGHT:

Ann Schroeder, Delaney Voigt, Heather Schmillen, Emily Rankin, Alicia Evans, Kris Batchelder

BACK ROW LEFT TO RIGHT: Michelle Gress, Dana Woods, Annaliese Fleck, Kristeen Hand, Catherine DiSanto NOT PICTURED:

Katina Macfarlane, Elizabeth Richards, Donna Barrett

CASPER OFFICE:

Emily Madden, Jennifer Lira, Manion Keith Candace Adamson, Mariah Sharkey

NEW MEXICO OFFICE: Amy Winn

Maus first climbed the mountain on Aug. 2, alongside her partner, who had climbed it before. They took their time figuring out the route. The technical section was actually not as difficult as she had expected, but still. The whole thing took nearly seven hours.

The notion of cutting the entire ordeal to under Denton’s record time of 4:15, Maus said, was “super daunting.”

“When it took us almost seven hours, I was like, ‘absolutely not. That’s so much time to cut off,’” she said.

Training

Maus climbed the Grand four more times over the next three weeks, each time learning more of the route’s nuances and how to better move through it, she said. But every summit also brought more doubt about running up and down in four hours.

At the same time, there was another athlete gunning for the Grand speed record. Lowther, a runner who has been notching FKTs and top race results in recent years, was in the area with Sunseri, her coach and partner, with her eyes on the Grand as well.

Maus bumped into Lowther on that first climb up the mountain. On Aug. 11, Lowther notched the fastest known time in the supported category, which basically means a crew or person is there to help with things like route finding and water carrying. In this case, Sunseri ran with her through the technical terrain, and she finished with a time of 3:51:12.

“It was a full circle moment for the duo, setting the first GPX-verified FKT on the modern route,” according to an Instagram post from Lowther’s sponsor, Arc’teryx.

Eight days later, Lowther returned to run the mountain alone for the first time. She claimed the unsupported FKT with a time of 4:06:58.

Lowther’s achievements unnerved

Maus, she said. Maus had by then done the Grand four times and began doubting that she could nab a speed record in the rapidly closing weather window.

On Friday, Aug. 22, she got dropped off in the Lupine Meadows parking lot a little before 8 a.m. to do her fifth climb.

“But I did not feel ready to go for the FKT, by any means,” she said. Instead, her main goal of the day was to better figure out the technical section up top.

The morning

She had Lowther’s unsupported time of 4:06 in her mind, however, and felt nervous like she does on race mornings. She decided to just try her hardest, no expectations.

She shot out of the parking lot. The weather was perfect. Getting up to the boulder field, she realized she was ahead of her previous pace. But in the boulders, her legs felt trashed, and she worried that she would bonk. Despite that, she moved efficiently. She

began to pick up steam in the fourthclass scrambling between the lower and upper saddles.

When she hit the summit, she was surprised to find she’d climbed it 10 minutes faster than ever before, she said.

“That’s really when I turned it on,” Maus said. “I’m not the strongest descender … but I kind of shut off my brain and went into race mode, and the descent is where I gained most of my time.”

In an attempt like this, the smallest setback can make or break it. But Maus’ descent, like her climb, was smooth. She sprinted into the parking lot that marked the end point. No one was there.

She looked at her watch, saw that she was 20 minutes faster than the record, and had a moment of disbelief, she said. She wondered briefly if she unwittingly cut a section. She checked her route again, and texted her coach.

It took a moment for reality to set in, she said, but when her partner arrived, they spent about an hour at

the trailhead, celebrating her achievement and reflecting.

Maus’ accomplishment sets a new standard in mountain running. She still seems a little surprised by it all.

“I had so ma ny people around me that believed I could do this, but I truly did not believe in myself,” she wrote in an Instagram post. “Now I believe them a little bit more.”

She was also humble about the mantle, saying she doesn’t expect to hold onto it.

“I am confident the strong women in this sport will bring this time way down, and I am so excited that I get to be a part of the story of the Grand Teton,” she wro te. “I truly feel so, so lucky right now.”

Katie Klingsporn reports on outdoor recreation, public lands, education and general news for WyoFile WyoFile is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy.

Training the lens on a shadowy cat

Savannah Rose finds her wild focus pursuing mountain lion photography.

JBy Charley Sutherland

ackson wildlife photographer Savannah Rose has built her career around one of the most mysterious animals in the West: the mountain lion.

Her lifelong fascination with the elusive cats has taken her from classrooms and documentaries to creek beds and frozen ridgelines. Now she’s turning that passion into a documentary film that explores the lives of mountain lions — and the humans who follow them.

“I’ve always had this mystique with them,” Rose said. “It’s just kind of been a lifelong obsession.”

Her obsession might have remained only a dream if not for personal loss. When Rose’s father died, she says she was swallowed by what she called an “earth-shattering depression.”

Searching for meaning in her grief, she turned again to the wild cats she’d always admired.

“To track a lion, you have to be an athlete,” Rose said. “They really are the super athletes of the animal kingdom.”

She wasn’t ready at that time, physically or mentally, and illness forced her to quit early. But the mountains waited, and so did the lions.

In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, Rose met Jeff Hogan who filmed “Big Cats in High Places.” The two hit it off. Hogan taught Rose the ropes of mountain lion photography and the two tracked cats through the winter. Rose was getting stronger and her mental health was improving.

Mountain lions’ lives are constantly “on the fringe,” Rose said. She watched the cats live and die, and it helped her process death in a way that she found more digestible, even beautiful.

Mountain lion photographers will often set up motion sensor lights around a lion’s kill.

And then they wait. As often as not,

in the dark and cold of winter.

And then — sometimes — the lights unexpectedly come on.

“All of a sudden, the lights come

on and there’s just a cougar and her kittens on a kill,” Rose said. “It’s just absolutely spectacular.”

“You just stop breathing. Everything freezes,” she said. “It’s picturesque.”

Rose’s obsession grew and then culminated. The goal: A full frame face-toface photo of a cougar in the daylight.

Rose was walking along a creek bed, tracking a cougar. She found a “bizarre kill” — a waterlogged elk that was half buried in the creek that the cat couldn’t get out of the water.

She returned early the next morning.

As the sun came up, a “massive tom” emerged standing on top of the elk, she said.

“He was so busy trying to get [the elk] out of the water that he didn’t mind my presence,” Rose said. “He looked at me twice and one of those times I got these great portraits of him.”

Now Rose and Hogan are making a documentary. The film is partially inspired by old documentaries about people photographing snow leopards. Mountain lions are similar. Jackson Hole has its own “shadowy, mysterious big cat that lives up in the snowy mountains,” Rose said.

The documentary will be a story about recovery, about redemption and a story about processing death, Rose said.

She’s planning to work on it this winter and doesn’t know yet when it will come out.

Cougars are widely misunderstood, Rose said.

They are stealthy more than they are dangerous. They want to be left alone and they are around, even though people don’t see them. Wolverines and lynx are extremely rare in western Wyoming. Mountain lions aren’t, Rose said.

“Lions are not rare. They’re around. You just do not see them,” she said.

Part of what is leading to mountain lion misconceptions is unethical mountain lion photography.

Many mountain lion photos are of

“animal actors.” At game farms, people raise and breed mountain lions in captivity. Photographers can pay to have a lion taken out on public land. Someone who works with the lion has the cougar jump from canyon to canyon or pose and roar.

The pictures are “campy” and the animals live in “horrific conditions,” Rose said.

“It’s such a dirty little secret,” she said of the practice.

Photographers can also hire a houndsman to chase a cougar up into a tree. Mountain lions don’t just go up into trees unless they are scared. Lions are often hissing and growling when treed, Rose said. They’re unhappy and not in their element.

“It doesn’t highlight the secret life of the cougar,” Rose said.

Getting the real thing takes a lot more work.

Contact Charley Sutherland at 307-7327066 or county@jhnewsandguide.com

I know how it feels to pull that trigger.”

But she said there’s a difference between using guns as “tools versus toys.” Delegation response

Peck has yet to have a call with any of the delegation members, but she has developed meaningful relationships with the staffers in the Lummis office. She said she’s received “form letters” about the issue from Barrasso and Lummis.

“Do I think that my calls are going to result in federal changes?” she said. “No. I don’t think that is going to happen because I’m picking up the phone every day. But is it what I would like to see happen? Yes.”

Laura Mengelkamp, Barrasso’s communications director, said in an email that the senator has received the messages from Peck and responded in a letter on Sept. 11. He makes it a priority to respond to everyone in Wyoming who calls or writes in with questions, concerns or comments, she said.

“Everyone agrees that we must take steps to control violent crime and keep guns out of the hands of violent criminals and the mentally ill,” Barrasso said in a statement, “I believe we can keep America safe while protecting our constitutional freedoms, including an individual’s Second Amendment right to bear arms, and enforcing the laws already in place.”

Lummis also responded with a letter on Sept. 11. Her office provided the News&Guide with the letter she sent to Peck.

“I am an avid defender of the Second Amendment,” she wrote. “I value the constitutional right of American citizens to own, carry, and use guns. I am skeptical of any attempts to place overburdensome regulation s on gun owners, and I do not support stricter

gun control measures.”

Lummis said the Assault Weapons Ban of 2025, supported by Peck and introduced by Sen. Adam Schiff, DCalif., represented a “direct infringement on this constitutional right.” It seeks to “ban the sale, manufacture, transfer, and importation of over 200 commonly-owned firearms, which the authors of the bill refer to as assault weapons. Additionally, this legislation would prohibit standard-capacity magazines used by responsible gun

owners across Wyoming and the nation.”

She said she will oppose it if it comes out of the Judiciary Committee to the Senate floor.

Lummis cited gun ownership in Wyoming and low rates of violent crime, saying that those who follow the law should not be punished.

“With that said, I remain committed to finding solutions that will actually prevent violence while protecting Constitutional freedoms,” Lummis

wrote. “Rather than restricting Constitutional rights, we should focus on enforcing existing laws, improving mental health services, enhancing school security, and addressing the cultural factors that contribute to violence. Violence in any form is never acceptable.”

Hageman had not written a letter to Peck as of Oct. 6, nor did she respond to questions about whether she planned to speak with Peck or her sys -

We are proud to support the women who contribute to the creativity and success of businesses in our community.

tem for responding to constituents.

“Our Second Amendment rights are absolute and key to protecting the rest of the many rights we enjoy in our nation,” Hageman said in an emailed statement to the News&Guide. “I will continue defending law-abiding gun owners as I have throughout my time in Congress.”

Peck said the only way to make headway on this issue is to stop politicizing it and start talking it about as human beings: the fear and the love. Although she recognizes that the tools to make big changes are often political.

“We all want the same thing at the end of the day,” she said. “Our kids to come home from school.”

What’s next

Peck has focused her energy entirely on the federal delegation, but she is aware of the new gun laws at the state level.

House Bill 172 went into effect on July 1. The new state law repeals gunfree zones in many public spaces, including any K-12 school, university, authorized public building or meeting, as well as any public school or college athletic event that does not sell alcoholic beverages. Lawmakers provided a few exceptions, such as allowing private property owners to restrict firearms on their own property or government entities to ban the open carrying of a gun in their facilities.

She remembered watching the law pass and said she felt it was inevitable.

But she’s also considering addressing state lawmakers, while also recognizing she only has so much bandwidth as an artist, teacher, full time mother, wife and community member. However, at the start of October she started drafting a script to call her state representatives and senators.

“It takes a lot of energy and it takes a

lot of time to advocate in what I think is the right way, which is being informed and understanding what’s going on,” she said.

Sometimes when she ends a call, she doesn’t know how emotionally sustainable it is. Diving into how it feels for a parent to lose a kid or what doctors who are treating children with gun wounds are witnessing takes a toll.

But she’s still feeling empowered. “I hope no other families ever have to go through something like that,” she said. “I can’t imagine how I would feel to know that other mamas had my back. That other mamas were putting themselves in my shoes and trying to understand how I was putting one foot in front of the other every single day after losing a kid or having a kid critically

Recognizing the women of CLB Architects

Anne-Marie Bailey, Danielle Carozza, Holly Catalina, Halie Dedering, Megan Dunham, Rebecca Elroy, Libby Erker, Olivia Flake, Anna Foster, Maya Gamble, Gabbie Goetz, Erica Hawley, Paige Hobson, Abigail Horton, Jaye Infanger, Maria James, Lori Kaczmarek, Sarah Kennedy, MacKenzie Krall, Kristina Lawson, Rachel Mansun, Genessa McVay, Darcey Prichard, Mica Ratzlaff, Jessi Ruscetta, Ramsey Skrepenski, Ashley Wilga, Stephanie Wright, Not Pictured: Alyssa Levesque

injured.

“That keeps me going.”

She said she’s ready for another 50 days.

“To keep reminding them that I haven’t forgotten, and that our kids –all kids – deserve so much more.”

Contact Jasmine Hall at 307-732-7063 or state@jhnewsandguide.com.

Making a Splash for Breast Cancer Awareness

This October, St. John's Health and Astoria Hot Springs are giving away the ultimate reward for taking charge of your health: free soaks.

Here's how: Watch a brief video, complete a short quiz, and earn your free pass to use during the month of October. It's that simple. Take the Quiz & Claim Your Pass: Scan QR code or visit stjohns.health/bcam

Questions? Contact Astoria Park Conservancy at: 307.201.5925 or hotsprings@astoriapark.org

45 years ago

• Becky Griffin, public information specialist in Grand Teton National Park, was named Jackson’s 1980 Young Career Woman by the local Business and Professional Women’s Club.

• Leslie Petersen was elected Teton County Democratic Party chairman.

• Charlene Rawls, a skier from Wilson, won four events at the National Handicap Championships in Winter Park, Colorado.

• The Jackson Hole News profiled Jean VanVleck Stewart, who in 1936, at the age of 17, founded Jackson’s first Brownie troop. She’d been a member of Jackson’s first Girl Scout troop, which started in 1932.

• Gail Sadler single-handedly ran the Jackson Northwestern Wyoming Com-

munity Action Program, a family planning clinic.

• Carol Lewis was selected to manage Jackson Hole Airport.

• As Rocky Mountain regional director of the National Park Service, Lorraine Mintzmyer was the only woman to head a regional department in the Department of the Interior.

• At the Wyoming State Fair in Douglas, Jackson’s Wendy Hamilton was crowned Miss Rodeo Wyoming.

• Robin Madsen reigned as queen over Jackson Hole High School’s homecoming weekend.

• The new school board elected Betty Lucas chairman, Jean Jorgensen vice chairman, Toni Wright clerk and Clarene Law treasurer.

• Mary Kay Turner was named the

LOOKING BACK

Business and Professional Women’s Club of Jackson’s Woman of the Year.

• The National Audubon Society awarded Mardy Murie its highest honor, the Audubon Medal.

• Tracey Albrecht was crowned Jackson’s Junior Miss for 1981.

• 1980 was the first time the U.S. had a women’s biathlon team, and two Jackson women, Pam Weiss and Betty Stroock, were on it.

30 years ago

• Eleanor Onyon celebrated the 25th anniversary of Here and Now Natural Foods, Jackson’s first health food store.

• Musher Maria Hayashida won Montana’s 500-mile Race to the Sky sled dog race.

• The Teton County school board hired Sarah Smith to be superintendent.

• Vanessa Garnick won the title of 1996 Jackson Junior Miss.

• Sandra Key became the first woman supervisor of the Bridger-Teton National Forest.

• Heidi Harrison opened Jackson Hole’s first spa, The Body Sage, in The Rusty Parrot Lodge.

• On vacation in Jackson Hole with her husband and daughter, first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke at Jackson Lake Lodge at an event commemorating the 75th anniversary of women’s suffrage.

• Dr. Martha Stearn published a second medical mystery, “Deadly Diagnosis.”

• Vanessa Garnick was Jackson Hole High School’s homecoming queen.

• Business and Professional Women of Jackson Hole selected Jackson Police investigation supervisor Peggy Parker as Woman of the Year.

• Jackson Hole’s Senior of the Year was Roberta Seaton

• Pam Maples, administrator and CEO of St. John’s Hospital for nine years, resigned to take a position with the American Hospital Association.

15 years ago

• Alta resident and 2004 U.S. Olympian Barb Lindquist was inducted into the Triathlon Hall of Fame.

• The justices of the Wyoming Supreme Court selected Marilyn Kite to be chief justice.

• Sofie Wilcox was crowned queen at the Jackson Hole High School prom.

• The Broncs girls’ soccer team won a third straight Wyoming title.

• Lisa Smith-Batchen ran 50 miles in 50 states over 62 days as a fundraiser to benefit orphans.

• Mary Erickson was ordained as a priest in the Episcopal Church.

• State Democrats picked Leslie Petersen as their candidate for governor.

• At 99, Elizabeth McCabe, co-publisher of the Jackson Hole News&Guide, was the oldest competitor in the Jackson Hole One Fly in the event’s 25 years. She finished 57th out of more than 170 anglers.

• The community mourned Virginia Huidekoper, who made her mark as a skier, equestrian, journalist, author, photographer, politician, mother and more.

• The Broncs’ homecoming queen was Karen Ford

• Judy Basye, director of the oncology department at St. John’s Medical Center, was Senior of the Year.

• Jacque Buchanan was named the new supervisor of the Bridger-Teton National Forest.

• The Broncs girls’ swim and dive team won the state 3A championship for the fourth time in four years.

• Voters chose Republican Ruth Ann Petroff to succeed retiring lawmaker Pete Jorgensen as the representative for Wyoming House District 16.

• Sandy Anderson hiked Snow King 290 times over the summer, the most of any of the 727 people participants in the Climb the King fundraiser benefitting the Jackson Hole Community Counseling Center. — Compiled by Jennifer Dorsey

Dr. Travis Riddell,

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From ski camps to small-business meetups, winter in the Tetons brings plenty of ways for women to connect, learn and play. Whether you’re chasing powder, building leadership skills, or looking for a night out with friends, here are some of the region’s upcoming women-specific and women-led events.

NOVEMBER

Nov. 6–7 (Thu.–Fri.)

Womentum: Teton Leadership Summit — Center for the Arts, Jackson Hole

This two-day leadership conference featuring workshops, speakers, and networking. Presented with Teton Leadership Center and Central Wyoming College. WomentumWy.org.

STRONG

CALENDAR

Nov. 10 (Mon.), Dec. 1 (Mon.)

Young Women’s Cancer Support Group (hybrid, free) — 1–2 p.m., St. John’s Health. Facilitated space for women under 50 at any stage of cancer treatment or recovery. StJohns.health.

DECEMBER

Dec. 8 (Sun.)

Women & Femmes Climb Night — Rec Center climbing gym in Jackson: Community climb hosted by the Teton Climbers’ Coalition. Open to all women and femmes, from beginners to pros. TetonClimbers.com.

JANUARY

Jan. 13–16 (Tue–Fri)

Elevate Women’s Ski Camp — Jackson Hole Mountain Resort: Four-day coaching intensive for intermediate to expert skiers, led by an all-women coaching team. JacksonHole.com.

Jan. 22–25 (Thu–Sun)

Girl Get After It: Women’s Ski & Snowmobile Retreat — Jackson: Wellness, fitness, and riding retreat for women; locals pass available. GirlGetAfterIt.com.

Jan. 31–Feb. 1 (Fri–Sat)

Mammut “Beyond the Boundaries” Women’s Backcountry Camp — Jackson Hole Mountain Resort: Two-day introduction to backcountry riding for advanced and expert resort riders new to touring. JacksonHole.com.

JANUARY–MARCH (EVENINGS)

SheJumps × Teton Nordic Ski School: Women’s Nordic Series — Teton Valley: Social ski meetups and technique clinics under the stars at Grand Targhee Resort. GrandTarghee.com.

Saturdays, January–February

Women’s Fat-Bike Group Rides — Victor area: Casual group rides organized by Wheel Wranglers and Women in the Tetons. WestsideSkiAndCycle.com.

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