On the evening of Friday, Feb. 9, a young man and his friends decided they wanted to drive up the groomed Teton Canyon trail. Disregarding the road closure signs, they made it as far as Reunion Flat Campground near Alta, Wyoming, almost two miles in, before getting stranded. The driver was unsuccessful in getting help from any friends to tow his Ford Explorer out.
Law enforcement officers were authorized by the forest service to go in and attempt to extract the vehicle on Saturday, but their truck got stuck as well. An attempt to recover that vehicle was successful but the SUV is still there.
District Ranger Jay Pence said that the driver will receive violation notices, fines, and will have to pay for the expensive recovery attempts. The forest service will be hiring a contractor to tow out the SUV.
“It’s a violation of Idaho, Wyoming and federal law, plus a very rude thing to do,” Pence said. “It’s very hard without specialized grooming equipment to buff out those ruts.”
Many of the trail users in Teton Canyon pay for the privilege, whether through snowmobile registrations or donations to Teton Valley Trails and Pathways’ grooming program. According to TVTAP’s grooming report, most of the damage from the two vehicles was repaired by Tuesday morning.
Pence said that every winter, the forest service sees a couple of stranded vehicles on closed roads, but that it’s a more frequent occurrence in the Big Holes. This year the Teton side of the valley has seen several wayward cars —there are currently two up Darby Canyon in the same situation, one with Minnesota license plates.
“When it gets nice people tend to think they can treat groomed trails as plowed roads,” Pence said. “Then they hit a soft spot.”
He advised that all users check online or at the district office about road closures before they go on federal lands.
