Recreation Planning & Implementation in Southern Teton Valley, Idaho

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By Brittany Skelton

Teton Valley is located adjacent to the western, less-developed and less-trafficked slope of the Teton Range.  The Valley offers challenging, but scenically rewarding, terrain for recreation enthusiasts of all stripes. Until a few years ago the natural surface trails traversing the Caribou-Targhee National Forest and Jedediah Smith Wilderness were best suited for human-powered recreationists hungry for a challenge, or equestrians and motorized users (where permitted) who didn’t rely solely on the power of their own two feet. Most of the trails proximate to the City of Victor, the valley’s southernmost population center, could be described only as grueling by beginners of all ages, and were a guaranteed way to instill a loathe for hiking in young children. One can view Trail Forks to see the lengthy, steep, black (advanced) and blue (intermediate) trails that dominate southern Teton Valley. Challenging trails exist throughout the valley as do trail and pathway building efforts (a shout-out to the City of Driggs and Teton County, ID is deserved).  However, this article focuses on the south valley, the terrain most familiar to the author. 

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Over the past two and a half decades a vision to provide low-angle beginner and intermediate trails and pathways and easy access to them throughout the valley has percolated to include three southern valley noteworthy efforts over the past ten years: 1. The hillside trail network in the Mountainside Village neighborhood, 2. The funding and imminent construction of segments of the Teton Centennial Trail and, 3. A decade-in-the-making Southern Valley Trails/Mike Harris trail network. 

This trail-and-pathway building force has been grassroots, sustained over the years by a variety of local trail advocates.  These advocates include citizen trail users at large, citizens who ran for and won seats in local government, and non-profit organizations representing trail users. For example, Teton Valley Trails and Pathways, the valley’s trails and pathways non-profit, was formed in 1998. At that time, Teton Valley’s population was merely 6,000 residents, compared to approximately 11,600 today.  In the public sector the sustained support over the years has provided the political capital necessary to devote scarce resources to trail planning and trail building.  In the non-profit sector it has allowed Teton Valley Trails and Pathways’ programs to grow with the population to include grant seeking, provision of local matches (in-kind and cash), grant reporting, and hundreds of on-the-ground person hours to build and maintain trails. 

The three examples detailed below represent communities investing in outdoor resources citizens value.  The two latter projects exemplify cross-jurisdictional collaboration spanning federal, state, and local government agencies and public-private-non-profit partnerships. These two examples also illustrate successful plan implementation.


Mountainside Village Trails

Mountainside Village is a master-planned, traditional-style neighborhood located adjacent to the rolling foothills of the west-side of the Teton range.  Mountainside Village is the only residential development certified under the Greater Yellowstone Framework for Sustainable Development (GY Framework). The GY Framework instituted sustainable construction requirements.  These requirements coupled with master planned covenants and restrictions were the foundation for the neighborhood’s beginning. Quality of life elements incorporated into this community include pedestrian-scale connected blocks, tree-lined boulevards, village greens, a pond, a neighborhood organic farm, and a mixed-use village center and a variety of residential lot sizes and types, including the valley’s first cottage-court development pattern. A critical mass of neighbors and the community’s developer and architect, Larry Thal, worked to construct the network of trails once Phases 1 and 2 were platted and under construction. The first trail to be completed was the AJ Trail, named for neighborhood resident AJ Linnell who loved the outdoors and loved  “Playing with Gravity.” 


Southern Valley Trails

The City of Victor is located at the southern end of Teton Valley where “Idaho and Wyoming Join hands,” decided to initiate the Southern Valley Trails Project (SVTP) to formally study the demand for trail access in 2009. The SVTP study was inclusive of a cross-section of trail users, landowners, and land managers.  The many participants in the study represented - grazing permit holders, cattle ranchers and shepherds, motorized trail users, equestrians, hikers and trail runners, bikers of all seasons (mountain bikers and winter fat-tire bikers), skiers and snowmobilers. 

Southern Valley Trails proposal map. Source: USFS

Southern Valley Trails proposal map. Source: USFS

The final study report noted easy to mid-grade multi-use trails with access points close to city limits were deemed desirable by a variety of trail user groups. The final report was adopted by City Council in early 2012 and was intended to be used as the guiding document for trail development.  Mayor Scott Fitzgerald was in office during the study report adoption.  Mayor Fitzgerald was the founder and then-owner of Fitzgerald’s Bicycles, the community bicycle shop of the Tetons. However, it took the leadership of the succeeding mayor, Zach Smith, and support of first-term Councilpersons AJ Linnell and Molly Absolon, to direct city staff to pick up the plan and use it in 2014. Mayor Zach had served on the SVTP committee while a City Councilman and he and newly elected Councilpersons AJ Linnell and Molly Absolon campaigned on similar platforms including the importance of embracing and growing trails and pathways. 

Southern Valley Trails public input workshop. Photo: Brittany Skelton

Southern Valley Trails public input workshop. Photo: Brittany Skelton

By the end of 2014, the city had reconvened a stakeholder group representing trail users of all inclinations and put pencil to a map to lay out several options for new beginner and intermediate trails on Caribou-Targhee National Forest land in the vicinity of the Mike Harris Campground. The stakeholder group then worked in partnership with the Teton Area Advisory Forum (TAAF) to host a series of public workshops.  During the workshops citizens gave input and expressed their preferences for several trail network alternatives. TAAF aggregated these preferences and the Teton County GIS department created a set of proposal maps which culminated in a request to the Teton Basin Ranger District to amend the travel plan for the area in consideration of the new proposed trail network. Once the formal review process was completed, which included the federally-required NEPA review, the network of new trails was approved in 2017. The community rallied quickly to begin trail construction and is on track to complete the trail network by the fall of 2020.  Plans to reroute an existing and popular Rush Hour trail are intended to occur after the Teton Centennial Trail, discussed in the next section, is complete. A new bicycle and pedestrian bridge spanning Trail Creek, made possible by a grant to Mountain Bike the Tetons, is also slated to be constructed and will provide additional connectivity within the new trail network.

Teton Valley Trails and Pathways, Mountain Bike the Tetons, Teton Bain Ranger District, Skyliners Motor Club and Fitzgerald’s Bicycles staff have been integral to implementation and stewardship of the trails.  These advocates support construction, fundraise, help purchase trail building machinery, and contribute to trail crew pay.  Summer and winter maintenance, including winter grooming operations, and wintertime plowing of the trailhead parking lot, along with the promotion of use and stewardship of the trails are all accomplished through their combined efforts, support and activism.  




Teton Centennial Trail

The City of Victor and Teton Valley Trails and Pathways collaborated on, and were awarded, a Federal Lands Access Program (FLAP) grant in 2013.  The scope of the grant has evolved over time and construction of the grant-funded project components is scheduled to begin in 2021. The grant includes three components to support connectivity and maintain sections of the Teton Centennial Trail.  The first will replace an aging, undersized bridge over Moose Creek.  The second will improve a trailhead parking area.  The third will connect the Old Jackson Highway shared-use road’s terminus, which is parallel to ID Highway 33, to the Idaho/Wyoming state line via a new paved 2.6-mile multi-use path. The new pathway will be located on the east side of ID Highway 33 and will run parallel to the highway and the existing multi-use, natural-surface Rush Hour trail.  This new pathway will serve as one of the many links needed to give paved pathway connectivity between the communities on both the eastern and western slopes of the Teton Range.

The timing of the original FLAP grant award preceded the visioning and construction of the new Southern Valley Trails (SVT) network accessed from the existing Mike Harris trailhead and campground located on the west side of ID Highway 33. As SVT took shape stakeholders and the community also envisioned an east-side to west-side connecting pathway to provide access between both recreational amenities. Safety concerns needed to be addressed to mitigate fearless trail users darting across the highway’s two travel lanes.  The community’s vision for a safe connection prompted the planning team to incorporate a tunnel under the highway that would accommodate safe bicycle and pedestrian passage. The Idaho Transportation Department partially owns the right-of-way where the pathway would be located. The Department championed safety as well, knowing up to 16,000 average daily trips occur on the highway, where vehicles travel 50 – 60 m.ph.  The Department stepped forward and agreed to construct an underpass. 

Crew surveying the Teton Centennial Trail route in 2015. Photo: Brittany Skelton

Crew surveying the Teton Centennial Trail route in 2015. Photo: Brittany Skelton

Teton County, Wyoming and the non-profit Wyoming Pathways were advancing efforts to continue filling in the gaps of the paved pathway envisioned to connect Teton Valley and Jackson Hole during this same time period. Teton County and Wyoming Pathways collaborated on a Federal Lands Access Program grant to construct an additional 0.25-mile pathway beginning at the ID/WY state line to connect to Victor’s FLAP-funded pathway.  These completed pathway sections would terminate and connect to the Trail Creek Campground on the west side of the highway. Safety factors again arose as a second highway crossing came into play along with the option to connect to dirt trails associated with the Southern Valley Trails network.   A FLAP grant awarded to the State of Wyoming included construction for the second highway underpass. 

Construction of the pathways on both sides of the state lines, both underpasses, and the bicycle-pedestrian bridge over the highway are slated to begin in 2021, seven years after the initial FLAP grant award. The delay in construction of the original project was at times a source of great frustration.  However, the community’s perseverance and ability to leverage subsequent planning efforts, and see new opportunities will ultimately result in more dynamic project. 

Implementation of regional planning: What’s Next?

Before discussing what’s next, a look back to a critical planning document and its impetus will shed additional light on how planning becomes reality. A four-county region nestled in the heart of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, Teton County, Wyoming and Teton, Fremont, and Madison counties in Idaho were awarded a $1.5 million-dollar regional planning grant from the Obama-administration’s U.S. DOT, EPA, and HUD Partnership for Sustainable Communities in 2011. All municipalities in the four-county region signed on to the grant, federal land management agencies participated, as did an array of stakeholder groups. The planning effort culminated in the 2015 Teton View Regional Plan.  This Regional Plan was a conglomeration of more than 20 smaller plans, studies, and research initiatives.  These various documents ran the gamut from regional recycling, to creation of a Model Form Based Code tailored to the northern Rocky Mountains, to regional transportation planning.

One flagship initiative, the Greater Yellowstone Trail Concept Plan, defined the vision for a non-vehicular pathway system.  The system would include many separate trails and connections. The Teton Centennial Trail would connect from Grand Teton National Park and Jackson, WY, up and over Teton Pass into Teton Valley, Idaho, and north through Fremont County to the gates of Yellowstone’s west entrance in West Yellowstone, MT. Trail and pathways users and advocates were well aware of the existing sections and fragments.   However, never had one regional document cataloged existing segments and missing links. Alta Planning + Design worked with regional stakeholders, and partner entities including the City of Victor and Wyoming Pathways, to produce the plan which is continuously referenced.  This regional plan sees significant use as the local government entities and non-profit trail and pathway organizations seek, and are awarded, grand funding for further study and implementation.

Most recently, Teton Counties WY and ID, Town of Jackson, WY, City of Driggs, ID, Southern Teton Area Rapid Transit (START) and the Idaho Transportation Department partnered to submit a $21.3 million dollar grant application to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s BUILD (Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development). The proposal includes further implementation of the Teton Centennial Trail as well as a series of on-road multi-modal transportation enhancements.



About the author: Brittany Skelton is Senior Planner and Floodplain Manager for the City of Ketchum in Idaho’s Wood River Valley but a large part of her heart will always be in the Tetons, where she lived and worked as the City of Victor’s Planning Administrator from 2013-2016. Learn more at her website www.communityandplace.com.

Paul Moberly