Rocky’s Siberian Training Site In “Rocky IV” Was Really In Wyoming

When Rocky Balboa opts for the isolation and desolation of frigid Siberia while training for his revenge fight with the Soviet’s indestructible prizefighter Ivan Drago, it’s actually Wyoming that plays the part of the Russian wasteland. 

Rocky chopping trees, Rocky sawing wood, Rocky climbing a mountain in knee-deep snow. It’s all in Jackson Hole.

“Rocky IV” is considered by some to be one of the lesser movies of the franchise but its training montage (every film in the series has one) is probably the best of the bunch. 

It stands out for its use of juxtaposition, alternating shots of nature Rocky and his rural routine edited against the great Soviet goliath utilizing the latest in applied science.

But equally impressive is the western Wyoming landscape which looks every bit the notorious Russian icebox. Just as cold, maybe. But in real life, way more expensive.

1980s Movies Montage

Of course, every movie made in the 1980s has to include the requisite ’80s montage featuring fast-paced edited video clips looped over a pounding synthed-up, saxophone-infused soundtrack.

“Rocky IV” is no exception with its seven-minute training segment showing the Italian Stallion getting all swole by conquering the harsh Siberian elements.

Rocky’s low-tech, old-school methods are contrasted with his opponent, Drago, who exercises in a state-of-the-art training facility complete with frequent syringes of performance-enhancing cocktails.

Drago jogs in his space-age onesie on an indoor flat track while Rocky postholes across the frozen tundra in three feet of snow. Drago is draped in synthetics and hooked up to more health monitor electrodes than a coma victim. Rocky sports a bitchin’ shearling bomber jacket in 20-below windchill temperatures.

It's 1985, at the heart of the Cold War, and the message is clear. Drago’s hi-tech gym is no match for Rocky’s all-American ranch workout. Hard work and desire wins out over Drago’s drugs and dumbbells. Raw versus rocket science. USA beats USSR. 

Stallone would say in later years, he was originally looking for a primitive hairy beast of a man to play “Drago.” But when the relative unknown Dolph Lundgren auditioned for the role, Stallone knew he had to rewrite the script.

“Drago represents the future. He’s science. He’s evolved a thousand years where man should be. Perfect, intelligent, flawless. Whereas Rocky is awkward. He’s smaller, he’s flawed,” Stallone said in 2021.

“It takes it into an almost android concept where the fight is now technology against humanity. Science against natural evolution. Audiences had never seen anything like that before.”

As montages go, many rate “Rocky IV” the best. It’s hard to top the original with Stallone taking on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art three at a time in his old school Converses. “Rocky II” reprises the scene with a gaggle of street urchins following behind the Pied Piper of pugilism.

Songwriter Vince Dicola’s “Training Montage” for “Rocky IV” is not quite “Gonna Fly Now” — used in Rocky I and II — but the Russian front never looked so good.

In “Rocky III,” Stallone high fives and hugs Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) as the two heavyweights train at the beach, and there’s Rocky beating his meat in a walk-in cooler in “Rocky Balboa.”

But the “Rocky IV” montage has it all.

Sly Comes To Jackson

Astute viewers then and now may have caught the Teton Range in the background and correctly placed Rocky in the Rockies, but most have no idea that is not Siberia.

Veteran production designer Bill Kenney and set decorator Rick Gentz outdid themselves by recreating an entire Siberian outpost, complete with Soviet-looking villagers gawking at Balboa as he jogged by in knee-deep snow. 

An estimated 40 locals got parts as stand-ins and extras. In fact, that’s St. Mary Catholic School PE Coach.  Jeff Wordeman’s uncle who plays a very Russian-looking villager with his arm around another stand-in posing as his wife.

The snow and cold was real. Some on the set in March 1985 recall shooting in below-zero weather; temperatures that caused film and audio equipment to simply freeze up.

The isolation had to be somewhat carefully manufactured. Rocky’s adopted Siberian outpost was actually a set built just north of historic Mormon Row in Grand Teton, a national park that sees nearly four million visitors a year.

Where Was Rocky?

The shots of Rocky climbing a mountain, raising his fists on the summit and shouting “Draaaaago!” were actually shot on Cody Peak (10,759 feet) at the popular Jackson Hole Mountain Ski Resort.

Filmed just after the resort closed for skiing that winter, a stuntman double was flown by helicopter to the top. The helicopter then circled the peak to get all the juicy footage. Stallone, it turns out, is deathly afraid of heights. Go figure, the star of “Cliffhanger” wouldn’t be caught dead on a mountain.

A documentary by James Rolfe more or less accurately tracks down shooting locations for “Rocky IV” that are purported to take place in Russia.

Rolfe tromps around Mormon Row, looking for that precise angle at the Tetons that would give away the location of a 30-year-old movie set now surrendered to the sagebrush.

Rolfe did manage to deduce the location of the scene where Rocky runs through a river. That took place at the Snake River Bridge in Wilson, some 20 miles from his supposed log cabin

But the money shot of the montage is the Siberian equivalent of running to the top of the museum steps in Philly. In “Rocky IV,” Balboa scales a craggy mountain peak and then challenges Drago right then and there with a yodeling rebel yell.

After riding the tram to the ski resort’s summit, Rolfe figured out some of Rocky’s closeups were shot up there but the famous shout from the mountaintop was done at nearby Cody Peak — a strenuous mile hike from where the tram lets off. 

“We saw amazing scenery … and got a great workout,” Rolfe narrated in the video.

While Rolfe admits he did not climb to the top, he confirmed Cody Peak by matching up angles using Jackson photographer Tristan Greszko’s “Low Earth Orbit #02” on Vimeo.

Nothing Like The Real Thing

In the Hollywood age of CGI (computer-generated imagery) there is almost no reason to pack up cameras and crew and schlep out to Wyoming to get that thirst trap shot of the Tetons. 

As previously reported, the popular Amazon Prime series “Outer Range” makes ample use of a Tetons backdrop all the way from New Mexico. Producers found it easier (and warmer) to simply use editing magic to move mountains.

Of course, there are times directors want the authentic thing. Quentin Tarantino found no suitable substitute for Jackson Hole’s snow and general western vibe when he had Jamie Foxx and Christoph Waltz don thick fur coats and ride through a buffalo herd in “Django Unchained,” filmed in 2012.

The crew spent a reported half-million dollars renting a hundred rooms at nearby Snow King Resort for a week during filming. Temporary sets were also constructed at Bar BC Ranch where the crew filmed for about five days. 

The western classic “Shane” was also filmed in Jackson Hole. The homestead cabin was actually built very near where Rocky’s Siberian village was constructed. That cabin was eventually moved and the rest of the set burned down in a wildfire in the 1990s. 

Whiter, Brighter, Better

Incidentally, during a 2021 re-editing of “Rocky IV” (“Rocky vs Drago — the director’s cut”) Stallone remembered getting off the plane at Jackson Hole Airport and seeing all that white, WHITE snow.

For the remake, he asked his editors to juice up the original blueish-looking snow scenes from 1985, wanting them to appear more blindingly white.

“When I was there it just seemed brighter. The snow was whiter. When you see fresh snow like this there is a reason you put on sunglasses,” Stallone said.

Today, no monument marks the spot atop Cody Peak where Balboa called out his Russian nemesis. The Philadelphia Museum of Art has its Rocky steps and Rocky statue. Cody Peak has a crate full of cached rescue gear. 

And the Siberian village is all but forgotten on the lonesome plains north of Jackson, the Hollywood graveyard of “Shane,” “Spencer’s Mountain,” and other classics shot in the picturesque valley.

“We got ripped off! Rocky wasn’t roughing it in Russia. He was chilling in a fancy Jackson Hole ski lodge,” James Fisher posted on the Facebook site “Film Locations Then and Now.”

Maybe so, James, but calling Wyoming Siberia makes up for all the times Wyoming has been portrayed by New Mexico, Canada and everywhere else that wishes they were anywhere here.

Jake Nichols can be reached at jake@cowboystatedaily.com.