I 'spose they could fund it like a toll bridge...

Now if you really really really want to go the top, you have to cough it up!

Buy a ski mountain, build condos, open very expensive hotel, tear down the most famous lift. Cry that you can't afford to build another lift. Something doesn't seem right.

I'm glad I got to Jackson Hole before all this started.

Yeah really!

Of course I only know anecdotally what JH *used* to be like. I was there 2-3 yrs ago. We stayed in a condo although they were just beginning to build a new hotel right at the bottom of the lift area. Even then there was talk of "Hostel X" being torn down ... I think this has come to pass?

To be honest, I don't know old, old Jackson Hole. I was there for the first time about 5-6 years ago. However, the Ritz or Palm or whatever that big hotel was hadn't been put in yet so it still felt like the old stories to me.

Grand Targhee anyone?

I'd like to go sometime but my friends say its got nothing on JH terrain-wise.

You know, Jackson surrounding supposedly has one of the costliest zip-codes to live in in the country.

I was talking to a local last time I was out there, she said that most regular folks can't afford to live around JH the resort, its been taken over by outsiders who have come in, bought up the older ranches and rebuilt on them...

Just playing back the tape, I don't really know myself.

I first went to Jackson many (>15) years ago. Back then the resort facilities were pretty slim (except for the purple moose, the word sleepy comes to mind). Most of the action was in town. I went back in March 2005. The build out in the base area dwarfed my memories of the place. The vast sums of money were plainly visible (high rises and spread out private developments on former ranch property). The prices of real estate were visibly "feelable" and easily checked in the windows of real estate offices in town. Yet there are still "cheap" hotel rooms available in town (relative to other resorts - my room was about $50/night). Driving south from JH to SLC, you don't have to go too far to see the fall off in real estate pricing (relative to the kind of commuting we have here in DC). My guess is that outside of 30 minutes from the resort/town is where the pricing starts to fall off dramatically. With all of the land out there you can see why the old timers would whine about it. But compared to the DC area, it seems like a ho hum topic to me. It's also comparable to the Ocean City experience too.

A lot of where the high average comes from is the sale of the ranches. Harrison Ford, Dick Cheney and others own ranches. Much of this land backs up to Elk Reserves so it makes the prices higher.

I've looked at prices before and yes, outside of 30 minutes prices drop dramatically. On good snow years, it does make commuting difficult.