VICTOR — Four of the five cooperating agencies on the Grand Targhee expansion asked the Forest Service on Thursday to take South Bowl out of the project. More than two dozen objectors followed, and most asked for the same thing.
South Bowl is undeveloped ground in Teton Canyon outside the resort's current permit boundary, reached on foot from the resort's gates, and it carries the winter range of the Teton Range bighorn herd. The expansion would bring it inside the boundary and run a lift into it.
The Sept. 24 meeting was at the Wildwood Room in Victor, and the only gathering the Caribou-Targhee National Forest noticed in the objection process for its 694-acre expansion approval. Facilitator Kari Anderson set the terms before anyone spoke. Objectors would name actions they wanted the Forest Service to take, within the agency's authority. "This meeting is not a restatement of objections."
Chris Colligan of Teton County, Wyoming opened for the five. "Each of these agencies reviewed the final EIS and the record of decision through its own responsibilities," he said. "For most of us, it was the first time we've ever filed an objection. ... Something about this process missed the mark for cooperating agencies."
Teton County, Idaho Commission Chairman Brad Wolfe built his remedies around the construction implementation plan, which the Forest Service must authorize before work proceeds. He asked that each season's approval be conditioned on "clear, enforceable benchmarks that protect our shared watershed, our infrastructure, and local residents."
"The road access, emergency dispatch, solid waste processing, and workforce housing for Grand Targhee flow through Teton County, Idaho," Wolfe said. "Yet none of the resort's property, sales or lodging tax revenues accrue to our county." Doubling resort visitation, he said, "will accelerate Teton County's road reconstruction cycle on Ski Hill Road, East 2500 North, and East 2000 South from 10 years down to seven, adding $187,000 in annual maintenance alongside $12 million in one-time costs." In 2025, Teton County 911 "handled 281 emergency calls originating from Wyoming, the majority from Grand Targhee Resort."
Driggs Mayor August Christensen narrowed the city's objection to two items, South Bowl and the restaurant proposed for the summit of Fred's Mountain. The city "finds the justification for a mountaintop restaurant on Fred's Mountain to be inadequate," she told reviewing officer Kristin Bail. "The 150,000 square feet of approved private base area development just 10 minutes from ... the top of Fred's Mountain, in addition to the Sacajawea on-mountain restaurant, are more than adequate to serve the dining needs of resort guests."
Habitat protection biologist Ross Crandall said Wyoming Game and Fish had looked for "mitigation options that would effectively reduce the impacts" of an expansion into South Bowl, "and at the end of the day, there's not. So the only resolution that we can offer is to avoid a SUP expansion in South Bowl."