“We’re just drowning in good footage.”

So says Teton Gravity Research senior editor Tate MacDowell, who recently put together the above teaser for Under the Influence, the upcoming TGR ski opus, and is currently eyeballs-deep in 27 hours of 16-millimeter film footage, four hours of Super-8 film footage, and more than 100 hours of digital high definition tape. “We’re kind of wondering, what are we going to do with all this footage?”

Of course, that’s a rhetorical question. Before the film’s premier on September 20th, MacDowell, his assistants, the athletes, and supervising producer Josh Nielsen are going to boil down all that film to one hour of hardcore heli-assisted ski action, sync it to a thumping soundtrack, and inject it, seemingly, with as much testosterone as they can wring out of their polypro. It’s the tried and true TGR formula, which founders Todd and Steve Jones, Corey Gavitt, and Dirk Collins (no longer with TGR) refined over 12 years, 23 films, and more than 50 half-hours of TV programming, and for their customary audience of young, (red) bullish ski fetishists, it’s a formula that works.

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Words and images by Geneva Chong

My friends all know I am a “foodie.” I love baking, sautéing, grilling—even flambéing from time to time. From beets to bacon, I eat it all, especially if it’s local. As a founding member of Slow Food in the Tetons, I dedicate myself to eating locally grown organic food. I buy shares from Cosmic Apple and grill Beyond Organic Beef, but I still ain’t got nothin’ on Newman.

Newman is an Elkhound. Newman is a hunter. Newman loves local food. Given the opportunity, she catches, prepares and eats her own locally grown, organic food and enjoys every second of it.

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It’s less than 250,000 minutes until the new Aerial Tram opens at the Vill on December 20, 2008.

Notwithstanding previous snarky comments about the progress of the new tram, it looks like construction is ticking along like a Swiss watch.

This video is the first of four that we’re making to celebrate the transformation from old tram to new tram, as part of JHMR’s campaign to give away two spots on First Box, as in . . . first first first Box.

That’s right — you can be on the first tram, legally, legitimately, without having to pull some sort of lame and transparent “I’m with the Media” angle, like, say, by promising to broadcast a live web video from the very first tram.

Seeing as how there’s not exactly a Wi-fi hotspot covering the 4,139 vertical feet of Rendezvous Mountain, I have no idea how to pull that one off. We may need a miracle. Might need to go talk to the Swissy Dopplemeisters about it.

Thanks to Steam Powered Airplane for the music, Wink, Inc. for the (sniff) old tram footy and to Peter “Kubrick of the Cable” Pilafian for the construction footy, and thanks to Lynsey Dyer for production assistance.

Words and images by Scotty Craighead

Looking out over Phelps Lake and the majestic Tetons, I crouch down next to Matthieu Ricard, dubbed the “Happiest Man Alive” by Time Magazine. It’s my first close encounter with a Buddhist monk; what to talk about? Fortunately, Ricard soon comes up with a conversational subject — mirror shake.

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Trying to figure out what climbing conditions are like in the park has always required sleuthing, networking, or guesswork. If you wanted to know if Wall Street (the ramp leading to the Grand’s Upper Exum Ridge) was dry, or if the rockfall on the North Face was particularly bad, you had to corner an Exum guide at the Brew Pub, ask around at the climbing gym (or if you’re from out of town, at the Climbers’ Ranch), or head to Jenny Lake to the ranger station and ask there. If you were cobbling together some last minute climbing plans late in the evening, you were basically S.O.L., and would probably spend the rest of the evening combing through the guidebook trying to extrapolate current conditions from prose written years ago.

Now, up-to-date GTNP climbing info is available 24-7, and is as far away as your laptop, Crackberry or iPhone, thanks to tetonclimbing.blogspot.com, a site assembled by Kimberly Finch of Grand Teton National Park and updated by the Jenny Lake climbing rangers.

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