ALTA — Seeing the sun rise over Grand Teton and the lesser peaks in the national park definitely is a perk for those in Alta.
They live on the back side of the mountains photographed and inundated by summer tourists in Jackson Hole.
The 429-resident community sits in the Teton Valley along the road to Grand Targhee Resort ski area. There are no bumper-to-bumper traffic lines that back up as tourists vie for views of a bison in Grand Teton National Park or the mountain scenes around Jackson Hole.
“It’s always been interesting living in a part of Wyoming where you couldn’t get to any other part of Wyoming unless you drove through Idaho,” said Jim Wilson, a fourth-generation farmer on the north side of Teton Creek. “Unless you hike or ride horses over the mountain, which many of us have done, you have to drive through Idaho to get to us.”
That hike over the Tetons involves 21 miles and 4,000 feet of elevation from Teton Canyon to Jenny Lake in Jackson Hole. Make sure to bring bear spray.
As a resident of Teton County, Wilson, along with fellow residents Steve Green and Hunter Christensen, knows that to get his license plates or go to the county clerk’s office involves at least a 40-mile drive with 20 miles through Idaho before re-entering the state over Teton Pass.
And shopping — well, you do what you need to do.
“I’ve always claimed Wyoming,” said Green, a fourth-generation farmer on a 160-acre homestead in Alta. “(But) the only thing we do in Wyoming is pay taxes and license vehicles.”
Green, 70, who grows barley and hay on his farm south of Teton Creek and a few other leased properties, understands that having a view of the Tetons in his backyard is something to appreciate. But it’s also all he has ever known.
He characterizes his community and view as “the better side of Idaho.”
Christensen, 36, senior vice president at Hughes Foundation based in Jackson, grew up in Alta and went to school in the little elementary building that still serves students off of Ski Hill Road and then spent his middle school and high school years in Driggs, Idaho.
Green fields on the Wilson farm in Alta. ( (Jim Wilson) 
Rows of hay are prepared to be rolled into bales at the Wilson farm in Alta. (Jim Wilson) 
An aerial view of part of the Wilson farm in Alta. The Wilsons farm 1,500 acres in the area. (Jim Wilson)
Driving Teton Pass
Unlike Green and Wilson, he drives Teton Pass most work days in his front-wheel drive Toyota Camry through all of its seasons, and characterizes the commute as just the way of life for many who live in Alta.
“It’s a beautiful drive every day,” he said. “You never go over that pass and think, ‘Oh, this is terrible.’”
Christensen said there are days when traffic backs up entering Jackson in the morning or leaving in the afternoons. Commuters plan for it. The winter weather in recent years has not been as heavy as when he was growing up, but there are days when he might have to work from home.
Christensen said he knows Alta residents who work in Wyoming and others who work in Idaho. But their identity, though a border community, remains rooted in Wyoming.
“Sometimes they call it ‘Wydaho',” he said. “We have a lot of wonderful neighbors in Idaho, a lot of good heritage and community with our neighbors across the border, and then we still get to be part of Wyoming.”
Christensen, Wilson, and Green all agree that shopping for the vast majority of people who live in Alta takes place in Idaho. Driggs offers a well-stocked supermarket and gas stations as well as a few other services.
To find the box stores, such as Walmart or Costco, residents travel to Rexburg or Idaho Falls, rather than pay the “resort town” prices at stores in Jackson, Christensen said.
Green, who worked at a lumberyard in Driggs for several years in addition to farming, said he contracts with Great Western Malting in Blackfoot, Idaho, to sell his barley. Much of his hay is sold to livestock owners in the Teton Valley and some to horse ranches in Jackson.
The farm he works was homesteaded by his great-grandfather and he has a son who might take it over as a sideline when Green is done. Making money off the farm is more difficult than ever due to the costs of fertilizer and the taxes on his home and barns as part of Teton County, Wyoming.
The little schoolhouse in Alta, Wyoming, has served three generations of elementary students over the years. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
A view of the Tetons from Ski Hill Road above Alta, Wyoming. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
St. Francis of the Tetons Episcopal Church sits just off Ski Hill Road in Alta, Wyoming, and offers services Sundays at 10 a.m. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
The view of Teton Valley from Ski Hill Road above Alta, Wyoming. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
Targhee Ski Resort brings traffic through Alta during the winters from skiers and mountain bikers during the summer. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily)
Paying Taxes
“I suspect there is always some kind of benefit to living in Wyoming versus Idaho, or Idaho versus Wyoming,” Green said. “For years, our property taxes and stuff were quite a bit higher than Idaho. Now Idaho, about 10 years ago, caught up. They kind of figured out they could charge more money, just like they do here.”
Green said he sold his cow herd about 25 years ago, but in recent years has purchased a steer or two in the spring to fatten up the family freezers. Predators have not been a problem.
Wilson works on the family farm run by his brother. They have the 160-acre homestead and have leased several properties to farm 1,500 acres of alfalfa, grass hay, barley, and a heritage wheat that has unaltered seed genetics from the wheat planted in the 1800s.
“We sell the wheat online or at farmer’s markets,” he said. The barley is sold in Idaho and the hay in Jackson and Teton Valley.
Wilson said he's often asked if he resents people moving into the community from other areas of the country to enjoy the scenery, skiing, hiking, or just walking their dog up the canyon.
He tells them he’s enjoyed the valley and the view for his entire life and certainly is willing to share it.
“I would describe it as heaven,” he said. “What I do resent is if they come in and try to change it to be like where they came from.”
Christensen said the community has elk on the outskirts, an occasional moose wandering through, and many black bears in recent years. During the winter, the traffic on Ski Hill Road to Grand Targhee picks up on the weekends.
On a recent weekday, Grand Targhee was hosting a mountain bike gathering that had cars going up and down the mountain and past an off-duty Grand Teton County Sheriff’s patrol car parked at the end of a driveway as if waiting for speeders to exceed the 25 mph limit.
Steve Green, left, and his brother, Dave, work their fields in Alta. (Steve Green) 
Steve Green raking hay in his fields in Alta. He typically gets one-to-two cuttings during the summer. (Steve Green) 
The only way to get to Alta, Wyoming, unless you want to climb over the Tetons, is to drive through at least 20 miles of Idaho. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
Steve Green harvesting one of his fields in Alta. (Steve Green)
Deputies In Community
Teton County Sheriff’s Office Operations Lt. Mark Priest said he has two deputies who live in Alta, and other deputies live in Idaho. They typically drive through the community as part of their shifts before heading over the pass to do law enforcement in the more populated Jackson Hole region and other parts of the county.
In addition to Alta, the department is responsible for covering the popular hiking destination in nearby Darby Canyon as well as other remote spots on the west side of the Tetons. Those require deputies to traverse the pass and drive Idaho roads before crossing back into Wyoming and the county to respond to any issues.
Priest said his department has strong relations with the Idaho counties. If needed they sometimes secure a scene or provide an initial response to an incident if his department can’t get there immediately.
“Recently we have asked them less and less because of the fact we have two guys living (in Alta) and then our guys in Idaho who are able to respond from home as well,” he said.
Wilson said residents receive good service from the county and even in the winter the roads will be plowed while Idaho communities experience closures due to snow.
Good Neighbors
All three of the Alta residents spoke of a community that looks out for one another and helps in time of need.
“The people who live here are by far salt-of-the-earth-good people that have a lot of love for their neighbors,” Christensen said. “That’s what makes living in Alta, for sure, and Wyoming in general, wonderful for me.”
Wilson said he recalled a time in the 1960s when an Idaho senator wanted to annex Alta.
A story in the Casper Morning Star on Feb. 13, 1965, stated that the senator had advocated that “many residents of Wyoming’s Teton Valley would like to be come Idahoans because the mountains cut their communication with Wyoming business centers.”
It apparently was more fancy than fact. Residents voted it down, the newspaper reported.
Wilson said there is no other place on Earth that he would rather be and made clear there is no identity crisis in the community. In the 1990s, Alta successfully lobbied to get its own ZIP code to distinguish it from the Driggs-based rural route that defined the community for years.
Now the Driggs Post Office serves two ZIP codes: 83422 for the Idaho side and 83414 on mail that carriers deliver across the state line.
“We have considered ourselves citizens of Wyoming since the day I was born, and my dad was born, and my grandpa was born and my great-grandpa homesteaded up there,” Wilson said.
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
