Those thinking about looking for a place to stay for the eclipse can think again.
Traditional options in the valley have been booked for a while, in many cases for years.
“We’re rented out to a [Pomona College] graduating class from the sixties. They decided to have it as their college reunion,” said Ken Rider, Grand Targhee Resort’s marketing director. “They originally contacted the resort in 2010. These guys were planners.”
Rider added that although the resort’s vacation rentals and mountain lodges were all booked up, they were looking into launching some camping options for the public.
Similarly, the Teton County Fairgrounds has been booked since September, 2015.
“We were contacted a year and half ago by a group of Japanese scientists that wanted to rent out the fairgrounds,” said Fair Board Treasurer Patty Petersen. “They’ve been on top of it. They’re staying in Teton National Park and rented hotels there. There’s about 300 of them. They expect to be there at 5:00 AM.”
Petersen added that the back half of the Fairgrounds was still open, and the board was considering organizing public camping.
“We realize that property would be very useful to the valley,” she said.
Other hotels have reported being booked for a long time.
“We’ve been booked since 2015 for a family reunion,” said Nancy Nielsen, owner of the Pines Motel in Driggs. “I’m not even sure that they knew about the eclipse.”
Other tourist-related industries are beginning to get their plans in place. Some valley restaurants are even forming an association to help prepare for the event.
“We have set up an association to figure out how we’re going to overcome this,” said Ron James, a local caterer. “One of the big challenges is feeding all these people, we’re not going to know how many there will be… We have been working with US Foods, who have agreed to strategically locate trucks with additional products in case we need them.”
James said the fledgling association would be having their next meeting at the new Incubator Kitchen in Driggs March 9, at 2:00 pm.
“We need to come together as a group to plan and strategize on how we are going to handle the influx of visitors that will be in our valley during this time,” James said. “Although it will be a time of testing it will also be a time for us to shine as a food community.”
Alan Allred, the county’s eclipse coordinator, is one of the faces behind the new restaurant association.
“We started at the committee meetings looking at what businesses could do. One of our concerns is how to feed the surge and the role the restaurants were going to play,” he said. “We realized we had no restaurant association. So we thought we’d try to get all the restaurants together to form an association to talk about the eclipse primarily but to have the opportunity for the association to extend beyond the eclipse.”
As part of an outreach effort, the Wildwood Room in Victor has been sponsoring an evening event called Eclipse and Chips. There have been two Eclipse and Chips to date. The next is scheduled for Tuesday, March 14 from 6 to 8 pm.
Although it may seem like all hope is lost for finding anywhere to stay over the Eclipse, new options may soon present themselves—especially since the county has updated its temporary use permit process to make it easier for valley residents to make their own arrangements.
The county now has a general information form that guides event planners through what they need to have in place for their event to be in compliance with local, state and even federal laws.
“There are 10 standards in the ordinance that relate to parking, sanitation, public safety, signage and trash,” explained Teton County Prosecutor Billie Siddoway. “Rather than just asking the applicants to provide a narrative of what they plan to do to cover the ordinance, we’ve gone through and broken the requirements out into 10 questions that are pretty basic.”
The form asks event planners to provide details, such as how many vehicles will be there, what physical structures will be put in place, which neighbors will be impacted, how trash will be stored and removed, and what other permits will be needed.
The form also makes some suggestions—for instance having two uniformed security officers for events handling 100 people or more, and having at least one toilet facility for every 160 guests.
Alan Allred, the county’s eclipse coordinator, this week updated local officials on the problem of sourcing Porta-Potties for the valley.
“The Porta-Potty issue remains to be a critical one because it’s not easy for the community to respond,” he said. “You can’t just reach out and say you want two Porta-Potties. They’ll give you 2,000 or 200—but not two.”
The other main issue is having the facilities cleaned.
“The problem still remains not getting Porta-Potties, but having them serviced,” explained Allred. “Tetonia and Driggs will both refuse Porta-Potty fluid, because they don't like the chemicals in them. They will also shut down the RV cleanouts, because it dumps right into the sewage system. Rexburg is also closing their sewage facilities to RVs, and so is Rigby. The only place will be Idaho Falls, after that you’re going to Utah.”
Allred concluded that he was hoping Porta-Potties could probably be locally sourced and maintained on the basis that the new equipment could pay for itself from just the one eclipse event.
“Our idea now is to just find somebody who will go out and buy Porta-Potties and have them in the county after the event so we don’t have to go out to Rexburg or Idaho Falls,” he said. “That’s being met with a favorable response.”
There are limits to what the county can dictate on the issue of Porta-Potties.
“We don’t have the authority under our current statute to make a hard and fast rule [about Porta-Potties],” Siddoway explained. “I think our primary concern is public safety… and anything that’s going to interfere with vehicular traffic.”
