💵 Grand Teton just paid $10.9M for 35 acres!

Good morning, Stoke Crew. Hope everyone's having a fantastic week. No witty opening today, just some solid news from the outdoor world. Hope you enjoy, and remember, stay STOKED and go get outside! - Tyler

In today's report

• ⛷️ Crested Butte's ski patrol locks in new contract
• 🏂 Danny Kass takes over U.S. slopestyle and big air
• ❄️ Supporting Friends of CAIC
• 🌲 Grand Teton finishes a 25-year, 210-acre land deal
• 🐺 Wolf news

Skiing

🎿 Ski news, new Skis

⛷️ Crested Butte's ski patrol locked in a new contract. The resort and the Crested Butte Professional Ski Patrol Association agreed to a three-year deal that runs through November 2029, and the patrollers ratified it unanimously, months before the lifts spin for 2026-27. Neither side published dollar figures, but the union board says it won several raises.

• The wins go past wages. Patrol picked up time off built into the heart of winter so patrollers can reset physically and mentally, and get more medical / technical rescue training!
• Union president Reid Pritchett kept the scorecard honest. "Were we able to win everything that we wanted, no," he said, pointing to a longer push for patrol work to be recognized as a skilled trade.
• The bigger Vail Resorts picture isn't fully settled. Vail patrols without a union got a paid time off perk, and the three crews with one say they didn't, so this spring Crested Butte joined Park City and Keystone in filing for arbitration. That hearing lands in September.

Why It Matters: Wage compression is the quiet killer in mountain town jobs. When a ten-year patroller makes barely more than a rookie, experience walks. Raises for senior staff and built-in recovery time are retention tools, and retained experience is what keeps avalanche terrain open and skiers safe!

🏂 Danny Kass is the new head coach of US slopestyle and big air, effective immediately. The two-time Olympic halfpipe silver medalist comes over from the pro pipe program, where he coached Maddie Mastro, Jake Pates, and Chloe Kim after starting out with the rookie crew in 2022. Now he takes over a young slope and big air squad fresh off Jake Canter's bronze at Milano Cortina, with the World Cup season starting in November.

🔭 Sun Valley just became the first US resort certified by DarkSky International, the nonprofit behind the world's dark sky parks. The certification, announced July 13, required an audit of every outdoor light on the property, toning down the village lighting, and a commitment to educating guests about light pollution. The payoff shows up fast: on August 12, Stars Over Sun Valley runs the Perseid peak from the top of Baldy, with a gondola ride to the Roundhouse and astronomers pointing out what's overhead.

STOKE support

🎟️ A raffle that funds avalanche safety!

❄️ Friends of Colorado Avalanche Information center (FoCAIC) reached out about this one, and I couldn't say no. The nonprofit teamed up with The String Cheese Incident on a raffle benefiting avalanche safety and education across Colorado!

The grand prize is stacked: a day of skiing with The String Cheese Incident co-founder Billy Nershi at Loveland Ski Area, four Loveland lift tickets, a two-night stay at a cottage in Silver Plume, two pairs of Icelantic skis, two Rab Khroma Latok kits, and some SCARPA gear (boots and shoes). Tickets are $20 and on sale through Sunday, July 26 at 11 p.m. MDT.

• Friends of CAIC has put more than $4 million into Colorado's avalanche forecasting and education since 2008, the same forecasts most backcountry users check before every lap!
• Winner gets the call Monday, July 27. Fair warning: all gear is subject to size, color, and availability.

Why It Matters: Every backcountry lap in Colorado leans on a forecast somebody has to fund. $20 is a cheap way to back that work directly, with a real shot at skiing with a guy who's written actual songs about waiting for the snow to fall!

🎟️ Buy tickets here!!!

Recreation

🏔️ The Tetons just got bigger

🌲 Grand Teton just closed out a 25-year land campaign. On July 15 the park celebrated buying the last of six private parcels from the Resor ranching family, 35 acres that cost $10,995,000. That's over $300K per acre, and it completes a quarter-century effort that has folded 210 acres of private land at the Granite Canyon entrance into the park for good!

• The land butts up against Jackson Hole Mountain Resort on the Saratoga Bowl side, north of the Teton Village base area, with a straight-shot view of the Tetons. Conservationists considered it prime development bait.
• The Conservation Fund brokered all six deals, and the money came through the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund, which is funded by offshore energy royalties rather than taxes.
• The protected area covers wildlife habitat in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and keeps the Valley Trail corridor intact. About 3.6 million visits in 2024 translated to an estimated $983 million for the surrounding communities.

Why It Matters: 11 million for 35 acres sounds absurd until you run the alternative... A row of trophy homes would have cut wildlife off from that habitat and put those views behind glass forever. Buying land near a national park is expensive only once. Losing it is permanent.

Environment

🐾 Colorado Wolves

🐺 Wolf pack number four is official. State wildlife officials confirmed Wednesday that the Piney Ridge Pack denned in Eagle County and raised a litter this spring. Copper Creek, Three Creeks over in Rio Blanco County, and One Ear up in Jackson County all produced pups too, putting four reproducing packs on the board in a single year.

• Litters typically run four to six pups, but nobody knows the exact count yet. The agency's wolf program manager said pups this young are "inherently challenging" to count, and a minimum statewide number will come in next spring's annual report.
• Packs are good news by the numbers. Ten wolves died between April 2025 and March 2026, and seven of them were wandering alone.
• The one miss was King Mountain. Both of the Routt County pack's breeding wolves died within months of each other (the male in January during a collaring operation, the female under circumstances still being investigated), and no pups followed.
• The known population stands at 31 collared wolves. The split between transplants and Colorado-born animals is close to even, and how many are running around without a collar is anyone's guess. New releases are paused, so growth currently relies on mother nature.

Why It Matters: With new releases on hold, Colorado's wolf future depends entirely on wild reproduction. Four packs denning in one spring is the difference between a population and an experiment, and this year the wolves tipped it toward population.

What else is going on

• Garmin acquired TrainingPeaks and TrainHeroic, the Louisville-based coaching platforms for athletes, adding 120 employees to Garmin's workforce.
• 26,403 sequoias were studied by NASA-funded researchers, who found decade-old prescribed burns lowered wildfire mortality odds by 77 percent.
• Mount Elbert hikers skip the vault toilets two-thirds of the time, a new Penn State dissertation on backcountry waste found.
• East Portal Road near Black Canyon disappeared under six feet of mud after July 16 storms, trapping 21 visitors overnight.

📚 Trailhead Trivia

What's the elevation of the Grand Teton, the tallest peak in the Teton Range?

⚡ Share The Stoke

THE STOKE REPORT is a quick, no-fluff newsletter built for mountain lovers, adventure seekers, and the ones who enjoy a little type 2 fun!

If you know someone like that, forward this email or send them to thestokereport.com. Thanks for spreading THE STOKE — it seriously means a lot!

If you ever have ideas, tips, or stories worth sharing, reply to this email. I'd love to hear from you.

Subscribe to THE STOKE REPORT

Answer!

13,775 feet