Tetons to Tucson

For most anyone drawn to knee-deep powder, abundant wildlife populations, and a laid-back rural mountain lifestyle, Teton Valley is one of the easiest places to choose to move to … or, in our case, move back to.

My future wife, Nancy, and I met the winter of 1973–74 at Grand Targhee Resort. I was fresh out of the University of Wyoming, and she was taking a break from junior college in her hometown of Bellevue, Washington. Somehow, we had both landed ski-bum jobs at the fledgling resort for its fifth winter season.

I fell into my role as “chef” of the dinner restaurant (think grilled steaks, baked potatoes, and tossed iceberg lettuce) at an October 1973 mini-job fair Targhee hosted at the American Legion building in Driggs. When my boss-to-be learned about my then-footloose lifestyle (I was camping out of my VW bug at a friend’s unfinished cabin up Fox Creek), he said, “You’re my man! My new night cook!”

It didn’t seem to faze him when I admitted the only dish I had ever prepared was a Bisquick-powered cherry cobbler to earn my Boy Scout cooking merit badge.

Nancy, meanwhile, started out in housekeeping but was soon promoted to B.A., or broiler assistant. Which, in hindsight, is ludicrous because she is, and was, an amazing cook, while I have yet to perfect that cherry cobbler.

We stayed together after that winter, enjoying a chain of adventures, from bicycling across the country to conducting archaeological surveys in Wyoming and eastern Montana. We settled in Missoula, Montana, in the late seventies, but always kept Teton Valley in mind as that special place to visit, revisit, and dream of one day calling home.

We t

ook a major step toward fulfilling that dream in 1993 by purchasing property up Henderson Canyon in the foothills of the Big Hole Range. We managed to make the full-time break two years later, building a timber-frame home and bringing jobs with us from Missoula.

One of our main reasons for moving was for the skiing; for the winters that tended to be anemic in Missoula but profoundly snow-filled in the Tetons. Another was to reside in a community small enough, yet dynamic enough, where we felt we could help effect positive change.

We wanted snow … and boy did we get it. We quickly learned that Henderson Canyon is one of the snowiest locales in and around this very snowy valley. And we feel we fulfilled our other mission as well, through my role as a founding board member of Teton Valley Trails and Pathways, and Nancy’s numerous volunteer posts, including eight years on the Teton Valley Hospital Board of Trustees. And also through our positions as publisher (Nancy) and editor (me) of this very magazine.

Yep, Teton Valley was easy to move to, fun and rewarding to reside in … and tough to move away from. Tears were involved.

But after more than a quarter century of six-month-long winters, by then mostly retired, we began suspecting we’d had enough snow—somewhere around the time we realized we were spending more time managing the white stuff around the house than skiing in it on the slopes and Nordic trails. (And for me, at least, reflecting on the head-on collision in which I totaled my Tacoma on Cedron Road during a March 2017 whiteout blizzard did little to suppress that notion.)

As we attempted to realistically face the future, we understood that the isolation (exacerbated during the COVID epidemic), the long winters, and a home with three levels comprising thirty-three stairs where we lived wouldn’t get any easier as time marched on.

I also found myself grumbling about the growing traffic and other signs of change in the valley. Admittedly, we were part of the change, becoming (second-time) newcomers in 1995. But things truly were a lot quieter twenty-five, and fifty, years ago. Neither of us wanted to chance becoming that old fogy who growls about the “way things used to be.”

That’s because Teton Valley was, is, and, I believe, always will be a great place. Just not the same place it once was … but where is this not true?

The allure of an easier place to live had entered the picture earlier, as we’d begun spending time in the spring months camping at points south. One day while hiking on a trail outside Tucson in 2022, I looked westward to see all of these cool-looking red-roofed houses. I said, “Let’s drive over there and check it out,” which we did.

Northerners to the core, neither of us had spent a winter where it wasn’t cold and snowy or rainy. Being in Arizona in early spring made me realize I’d been cold for at least half of my life. The saguaros and tacos of Tucson (okay, maybe not the rattlesnakes) became a siren song of the Sonoran Desert.

We decided before Christmas of 2022 that we would indeed set the wheels in motion to make the move away from our beloved Teton Valley to warmer climes, where snow and ice are uncommon, and into a smaller, one-level house.

We opted to spend a week in March of 2023 in Oro Valley, northwest of Tucson, at a VRBO to get to know the area better. We found we really did like a lot of things about it, including the incredible hiking and mountain-biking trails and the 130-mile system of paved bikeways surrounding the city. Well beyond the qualifying age, we checked out the area’s adult over-fifty-five communities. Places with social clubs, swimming pools, restaurants, golf courses, billiards tables. “Well, these are pretty nifty,” we agreed. (One must be over fifty-five to say “nifty.”)

And so here we are.

Compared to life in Teton Valley, we deal with more people and traffic in and around Tucson, obviously, but the location is considerably more convenient to shopping, specialty health care, and air travel. Not to mention the abundance of live-music venues and unbeatable south-of-the-border fare.

Now, as much as I miss our friends and other things Teton Valley—the Music on Mains, the microbreweries, the neighborhood bonfires in Syringa Park—I’m surprised to find what I miss most is my backyard of more than a quarter century: Henderson Canyon, with its ankle-twisting trails, aspen groves of shimmering foliage that whispers in the breeze, and aromatic patches of lip-smacking huckleberries.

I hope that ancient, massive Douglas fir at the pinnacle of what we called the Cistern Loop can withstand the heavy snows and brutal winds of another ten, twenty, thirty winters without toppling. I hope no one else experiences the terror I faced when what I thought to be the bawling of a Bagley calf turned out to be the roar of a grizzly bear I had apparently awakened from his nap in the cool waters of Henderson Creek as I jogged by one hot July morning. (I did what you’re not supposed to do and ran like hell. Luckily the bear, now standing upright, did not follow suit.) I hope the secluded spot where we deposited the ashes of our beloved black Lab Lulu and field spaniel Eddie—no doubt counter to Forest Service regulations—remains undisturbed by the critters and other elements.

And yes, Tucson is too hot in the summer, which is why we intend to continue pointing our camper van’s compass north during those blistering months. We were back in Teton Valley last summer, and plan to be back again. And again. And probably to other northern places, from Minnesota to Washington state; Nova Scotia to British Columbia.

But, come January, we’ll be barbecuing in the backyard, hugging our outdoor fire ring while watching the setting sun turn the skies over the desert mountainscape a million shades of red, yellow, and orange.

And missing the skiing? Well, maybe. The jury is still out on that. But definitely not the shoveling.