Once Upon A Time in Jackson Hole

Chapter 16 of King Hell Spectacle: A Novel

Me and my dog went ridin' down
South Alberta, Colorado bound
Stopped halfway in ol’ Jackson Hole
Thought’d be good to go for a stroll

I walked with that dog of mine downtown
At the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar, we sat right down
Teton cowgirls they’s all around
With liquor and money, they're loaded down

You know my doggy, he starts to howl
Full moon so bright, he’s on the prowl
One of them cowgirls she starts to smile
Damn pretty sight we had not seen for awhile

She called out to him which he could not ignore
To go and wiggle with her on the dance floor
Then a big fat banker with a big fat pot of gold
Busted through the front door, came in from the cold

That mean old banker, he starts a brawl
Said, “Hey that’s my lady! What’s he doin’ that for?”
Then that mean old banker, he pulled his gun
So I shot him down, was the end of the fun

At the crack of my gun the bar went wild
Me and my dog, we were now reviled 
And in the confusion, I grabbed the banker’s gold
Next thing you know I’m out in the cold

Love those bankers, love their gold
But I Love my dog more, God rest his soul
After the fight, my dog he stayed
With the Teton cowgirl he was unafraid

So alone I gunned it for Colorado
To spend my fortune as a desperado
We’ll meet again my dog and I
No way in hell will that be our final goodbye

The way this story ends is with a trip to Jackson Hole Wyoming. I took Gaspar with me. We were on our way to Aspen Colorado. The reason for an Aspen appearance was that I had been offered a gig to play at a private outdoor party held at a billionaire’s ranch near town. The offer came my way from an executive of a major label that did business with Maurice.

See, Maurice wanted to find me opportunities south of the border to play in front of people. The right kind of people. He was strategic about it. At the party there were supposedly people from all the major streaming platforms. People with the ability to put my forthcoming songs on playlists with very large and influential audiences.

Booking agents for the live music venues and festivals were also supposed to be at the party. Some party, eh? In other words, it was a hell of an opportunity to play to not just Americans but the right Americans.

Though one could make a solid argument that in today’s social media world, it is entirely possible to build an audience from the ground up and without the help of major label marketing muscle. But what did I care? An opportunity is an opportunity is an opportunity.

Jackson Hole Wyoming is halfway between Banff and Aspen. That is where Gaspar and I stopped after driving for twelve straight hours. We stayed in a campground up by Moose. Our timing was perfect, it being mid-September, to go to the summer season finale of the legendary Jackson Hole Hootenanny which takes place at Dornan’s. Dornan’s is located between Grand Teton National Park and the town of Jackson.

But on this final night, they were doing the Hootenanny instead at the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar downtown Jackson. Went there that night at half past six to say hello to the guy who runs it and to put my name on the sheet to play. The Hootenanny is a creation of a man who arrived in Jackson Hole in the late 1950s from Back East. This man’s name is James Aiken. There is a black and white framed photo on the wall of the bar where James Aiken performs every Sunday night (since the 70s). It’s a photo from the 1980s of James Aiken playing his banjo alongside Bob Dylan, who was wearing a black leather jacket and had a mandolin.

James Aiken contains multitudes. His other claim to fame: He was the first person ever to ski down Grand Teton. He did it in June 1971 at the age of 40. James Aiken is considered a father of extreme skiing in North America. In 1958, James Aiken and three of his pals were the first to ever do the 135km Bugaboos to Rogers Pass ski traverse. In 2008, he was inducted into the U.S. National Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame. The Hall said this about him:

“James Aiken is regarded as the father of big mountain skiing in the United States. He was able to imagine and believe it possible to ski in places where no one else had skied before. His first ski descent of Wyoming's Grand Teton on June 15, 1971 is regarded by most as the single crystallizing moment in American big mountain skiing. He also completed the first high ski traverse in the Canadian Rockies and the first modern ski descent of Mount Rainier.”

That night in Jackson Hole at the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar, I had a conversation with James Aiken before a big bar brawl happened which I’ll address after first telling you about who James Aiken is by recounting our conversation.

Where do you start with someone like James Aiken? How about the night he played with Dylan.

"Bob's manager, the late legend Elliot Roberts, got married in LA and they flew out here and did the reception at a lodge on the shores of Jackson Lake. My band was called on to provide the music. We'd heard rumours that Bob would be there, but no one knew for sure.”

Dylan was there. "And he was bored. One of my band members asked him if he wanted to play and he lit up and said, 'Oh yeah, I'd love to!'" James Aiken had an extra mandolin for the instrumentless Dylan. Off they went. Dylan played with the band for three whole sets. "He was delighted to play the mandolin. He was excellent, a great contribution to the band," he said laughing. James Aiken even remembers the song they played when the photo was taken. "We played the Carter Family song Railroading on the Great Divide."

Were there other famous musician encounters?

"In the early 60s, One of my ski clients had a place on the fourth green at Pebble Beach. She invited me down there to play and she hired a musician who, she said, had made 12 grand on her latest record." That musician was Joan Baez. They became friends. "She's the genuine article, such a wonderful performer. It was so natural for her."

James Aiken grew up in Augusta, Maine. His dad owned a Ford dealership and his mom was a schoolteacher. He had an older sister and brother who had polio. There was always music in the house. Through the 40s the family listened to Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey. His mother was a piano teacher. "On occasion she would play a pop tune, but she was only interested in classical music.”

Come the 50s, James Aiken became interested in hillbilly music. "My family didn't really approve of it, but I loved it." And he was an exceptional student. "My parents asked me where I would like to attend prep school. I told them I wanted the best, so they suggested Exeter." Phillips Exeter Academy is an elite, all-boys boarding school in New Hampshire that's been around since the 1700s.

"My dad and I went over for an admission interview and it was obvious that the guy recruiting thought I would be a great fit. He picked up that I was an independent thinker right away and told me he thought I would be a good contribution to all the others who came from the city.”

It was his English teacher at Exeter who introduced James Aiken to mountaineering.

"Bob Bates was his name. He was a remarkable guy. His favourite thing to do was climbing. He'd been to K2 in Nepal twice and I thought the guy was just amazing.”

Bates had a climbing club. James Aiken joined, learned all about mountaineering and even how to sing. "We would be out on a climb and he would have us singing! We would then sing to the rest of our classmate's songs like Tavern in the Town in the auditorium. Bob Bates was what I wanted to be.”

After Exeter, James Aiken attended Dartmouth College as a pre-med student. "I only went to Dartmouth to ski," he said. And to play music with his roommates. "It was at Dartmouth I first picked up a guitar." It was clear to James Aiken his heart was not in medicine. All he wanted to do was climb and ski and play music. "I was kicked out in junior year," he said, laughing. "And chose those three things as the three things I would do in life.”

In the spring of 1952, James Aiken and some of his ski pals from

Dartmouth road-tripped west. They were on their way to ski Sun Valley, but they never made it. That's because a place called Jackson Hole got in their way. "We came to the top of Togwotee Pass and from there, we saw for the first time the Tetons. When we left, we stopped the car at the top of Teton Pass and all of us said: 'I'm going to live there someday.’" James Aiken was the only one who kept his promise.

But he didn't move to Jackson permanently until 1965. "I'd come out here during the summers before then, but not until Teton Village was developed in '65 was there enough year-round work.”

What was Jackson like back then? "Pioneering. There was one guy that made up the entire police force. Gambling was wide open. The roads weren't paved and a dust cloud hung over town in the summer.”

James Aiken made his living as a ski instructor in the winter and a summer climbing guide. In between being kicked out of Dartmouth and moving to Jackson, he first lived and worked at Cannon Mountain, then became the ski school director at Sugarloaf, then owned his own ski school at the Suicide Six ski area in Woodstock, Vermont, then moved out west to manage the ski school at Sugarbowl.

And what about the Bugs to Rogers traverse?

In June 1958, James Aiken, Neilson Billy, Cameron Bitchwick, and Kevin Hogan did the first ever ski traverse from the Bugaboos to Rogers Pass.

Bitchwick, by the way, one of James Aiken’s oldest/best friends, is the guy who said: "That'll be skied one day" while looking up at a couloir while helping to scout the location of present day Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. Yes, that's how Bitch’s Couloir got its name.

James Aiken first heard of the Bugaboos after reading about Conrad Kain. The previous two summers, James Aiken organized summer climbing trips into the Bugs and on his last trip, he got the idea to try a ski traverse.

James Aiken organized everything. He picked the time, the route, and the food, which was mostly dehydrated stuff. He made sure everyone had no more than 40lb bags with only the essentials packed. "The one extra item we brought was a harmonica." There were no maps. He did route research using aerial photography from the Canadian Military. That was it for information back then. "And I have no idea how I found those aerials," he laughed.

They drove up from the States in James Aiken's Volkswagen bus. Once in the Purcells, they had to build bridges over creeks to get to the end of the road. A friend who tagged along drove the bus back and left it in a parking lot in Golden. The road through Rogers Pass had yet to be built (not completed until 1962), but a train line went through.

They had to bushwhack with skis on their backs from where they dropped off before reaching the alpine. "Besides that, we had ten days of perfect weather. Everything went right on that trip. Bitchwick said it was his second-best adventure after his Everest attempt.”

When they got to the end, the next thing they had to figure out was getting to Golden. "We didn't have any money. So we tracked down a station master and he said a freight train was coming through. It came at the exact right time. It was an open boxcar. We ran alongside it, threw our skis in, and jumped in. It was a brand new wood-panelled boxcar, a great ride down to Golden. We jumped out and my bus was right there. I'll tell ya, the number of things that went right on that trip. One after the next…”

Was it his number one adventure?

"No. The first descent of Grand Teton was for me.”

"I remember saying to myself that day it was now or never. Everything came together. The snow, weather, people, planning. I'd started twice before, but bad weather got in my way. Neilson Billy was going to film it, but our original dates rained, so we postponed a couple of weeks, and by then, he had filming commitments down in Baja.”

Does he still ski? Yes, with his only son (James Aiken was married twice). Which begged the question of what he attributes his health and vitality to. For James Aiken, it's about knowing how to remove "mental blocks." When asked to explain that, he told me a story that revealed a whole other side of him.

In 1961, he had to get his hip fused. Occupational hazard. He went to a surgeon in Manhattan's Greenwich Village. He brought his banjo along. "I went to Gerde's Folk City one night and played my banjo. There was nobody there that night. Everyone was down the street listening to a young guy named Bob Dylan play."

While staying in the village, a mysterious young woman sought him out. A Dartmouth classmate had told this young girl about James Aiken and somehow, she found him. At this juncture, James Aiken was in a self-professed mental funk. She suggested he come to a meeting of this new organization she'd recently joined, that it might help. "I stumbled into what I thought was an amusing organization. I thought it was fly by night outfit. But it had the basic stuff that I was looking for. I soon realized this was the real thing, and it was just starting up."

The organization provided me with the bases to do all these wild adventures. Mental blocks prevent you from doing things, and if you eliminate these blocks, you can do anything. For example, I started as a poor musician, got better, became the band leader, and can now perform. That's taking out blocks. You had to learn to confront what the hell the block is and the fact that you created it. It's your own fault. I learned a process which enabled me to look at the block for what it really was and get rid of it."

The organization? The Church of Scientology. "I'm a founding member," he said.

"When I turned 80, I decided to let it all go. But boy, in a couple of years, I realized that was the wrong way to go. At that point, I was determined to instead of grow old, grow young."

Take running. "To get back into running, I started to walk, jog and then run. It was a sequential build-up. I would take a specific series of the same mile, and I would have rest points and go from one to the next and keep increasing gradually until I was running."

At 91, James Aiken is still running miles.

"It's about little improvements, goals. You've got to keep them small enough so that you can do them. I do the same thing with music. It's been a good thing because it didn't decay. It stayed with me. The body grows old, but the music has always stayed.”

James Aiken and I talked for a long time. At the end, I told him I was planning to play later.

There I soon was singing Bob Dylan covers onstage with a band of local musicians I invited to join.

I was strumming an acoustic guitar Bitchwick gave James Aiken in 1955.

James Aiken convinced the manager that I could bring Gaspar in with me that night.

After I played, a very attractive woman, a Teton Cowgirl matter of fact, took Gaspar and danced with him. Teton Cowgirls appear to have lots of money. They are pandemic transports from Manhattan or Los Angeles who wanted the “mountain lifestyle.” To them the Jackson Hole mountain lifestyle is about going out at night, looking damn good, and occupying the pilates/barre/HIIT studios during the day.

Anyway, one of them, a real looker, took Gaspar onto the dance floor.

But then! In came her banker boyfriend through the front door. It's a cool September night outside, and he wanted to know, by the look on his face, why his wife, girlfriend, partner, isn’t answering his one of many phone calls and text messages asking where she is and if she’s planning on joining him for dinner at the Dick Cheney compound.

This hot shot banker with a Top Gun ego caused a real ruckus that night. And this is what led to the old fashioned bar brawl. It got real western, real fast. One poor fellas arms and legs got broken. His feet was splintered, head was cracked. Couldn't walk, couldn't talk, smell, feel. Couldn’t see. Didn't know where he was. He was bald. Quite lucky to be alive though.

But he lived.

The root of the debacle was the jealousy the banker felt toward seeing his girl have more fun with some broncin’ buck from Canada and his dog. The banker till then had never clued in to her lyin’ eyes. The bar brawl took place and when I shot the mean old banker. I shot him right in the chest with kindness. That’s right, I was a real gentleman about the whole misunderstanding. What did I take from the banker? I took his respect. I eventually learned that after his girl left him, he resolved to reorganize his whole life. He was so in awe with how I clearly had won his girl's heart. Just by being real and authentic and not about the money. Not at all about the money. That’s what she said after I asked her why.

I felt like a desperado. Next thing I know, I gunned it to the Colorado frontier, to Aspen, to the party at the ranch. Bound For Glory. A place to cash in on my hard won authenticity. This was a trip about commerce. It was about determining my commercial appeal as a live music draw.

The craziest thing was Gaspar stayed behind in Jackson Hole with the Teton Cowgirl. She was distraught from the whole episode. Her banker boy decided he wanted to become an artist and abandon his life as a suit. So the Teton Cowgirl, whose name was Joanne, convinced me to let her take care of Gaspar while I was in Aspen.

Now that I was a single man, I may as well have a reason like that to come back to Jackson Hole. Need to get Gaspar. If anything, the episode with Craig and Gracie, the North By Northwest thing, proved that Gaspar was fine to be in the care of someone else for a while.

So yeah, maybe I’d have a night or two of rest on my way back. She did offer her roof to sleep under if ever I was in need.

~~

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