Community members are raising money for a Wyoming man, who is stuck in a Chilean hospital following a skiing accident.
Rob Ammann was injured on Sept. 15 while skiing in Portillo, Chile, the GoFundMe page, which was organized by Jeff Zell, of Jackson, states. Portillo is a South American ski resort located in the Andes mountains.
Ammann was life-flighted to Santiago, Chile, where he has been undergoing multiple procedures to restore his health, the page states.
“He has a long road to recovery,” the page reads.
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Ammann was scheduled to have another surgery Tuesday.
Still, he’s preparing to come home, but the hospital is allegedly demanding Ammann pay for all his medical bills in full before they let him leave, the page states.
This practice is not uncommon in other countries. The Associated Press found evidence of hospital imprisonments in more than 30 countries worldwide, including China, India, Thailand, Iran and the Philippines, their report shows.
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Any donated funds will help Ammann cover his medical bills, the page states.
People have already donated more than $30,000. There is a goal of $75,000.
Zell did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
TETONIA, Idaho — There’s a secret route that people living in Idaho’s Teton Valley all know about as an alternate route over to the wealthy enclave of Jackson, Wyoming, to do their blue-collar work.
It’s called Reclamation Road, and some locals think it may be time to dust off — or grade with a heavy equipment scraper— this possible route for travel.
To get there, you have to drive 25 miles or so north of Tetonia, look for the Squirrel cemetery near Ashton, then head west on a dirt and gravel road. About half the trip to Ashton is possible at 70 mph. The rest goes about half those speeds — or slower.
But there’s no traffic. None. Only potato farms and silos.
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The road is rough over the Teton mountains and dumps drivers on U.S. Route 191 a dozen or so miles north of Jackson.
Google maps doesn’t work very well in this part of the Potato Belt. But now that the main artery that connects Jackson with its working-class communities in Idaho is out of commission, no other alternative seems out of the question for consideration.
Tyler Hamilton, owner of WreckerBoyz Towing in Driggs, Idaho, won’t go up to Reclamation Road anymore to fetch anyone because they are “tourists and people with RVs, and the cell service isn’t great.”
Everyone in Idaho’s tiny Teton Valley communities knows about Reclamation Road.
“Reclamation is nicknamed ‘Jeep Trail’ because it’s a little rough in spots,” said Tetonia resident Jim Beard.
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Even Jerry Anderson, the front desk clerk of Cobblestone Hotel & Suites in Victor — the first town outside of the Idaho and Wyoming border along Idaho State Route 33 — knows about Reclamation Road.
“I’m going up there on Friday to check it out,” said Anderson, whose hotel Tuesday lowered its $300-a-room charge to $220 to attract guests.
WYDOT’s Horse
The Wyoming Department of Transportation isn’t familiar with the Reclamation Road route because it is betting on a faster horse.
WYDOT’s alternative to a washed out Highway 22 over Teton Pass in Wyoming is the reason why everyone drives more than 100 miles along five highways of bumper-to-bumper traffic from Victor, Idaho, at the border with Wyoming to Jackson.
This alternative route was developed after the 30-minute drive to Jackson was taken away in a landslide from Idahoans, who are frustrated that their blue-collar pay is now complicated with a big commute.
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Highway 22’s loss in Wyoming is a crushing blow to Idahoans.
Tourism is feeling the slowdown on the Idaho side of the border, and pocketbooks are feeling lighter with the extra money everyone is paying for gasoline at the pump.
In Tetonia, the Sinclair station was charging $3.54 for a gallon of unleaded gas.
“I miss having tourists around here,” said Erica Black, manager of the gas station.
This time of year had brought long lines to the gas station, but now a fill-up is quick-in, quick-out, she said.
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Others are getting pinched financially by the fewer tourists in the valley as well.
“People living here have been impacted a lot by the Teton Pass closure,” said Zach Bennett, who runs the Teton Peaks Resort in Tetonia. “We’ve seen a lot of cancellations because everyone thinks there’s nothing to do here.”
Tempers also are beginning to flare.
A Wyoming Department of Transportation sign warns drivers to stop at the Wyoming and Idaho border due to the landslide that crippled Wyoming State Route 22 through the Teton Pass. (Pat Maio, Cowboy State Daily)
Idaho State Route 33 is the major thoroughfare that runs through the Potato Belt communities of Teutonia, Driggs and Victor. In the sign above, Idaho SR 32 is one of the roads that a driver would take in order to travel to Reclamation Road — still about another 25 miles away to the north. (Pat Maio, Cowboy State Daily)
Jesse Fritsch, co-owner of Elements Building Specialties in Driggs, said she’s pushing a lot of work off because of the road being out to Jackson. “We’re definitely rescheduling things because of the landslide,” she said. “It’s added to our overall costs because we have to travel around the loop to get to Jackson.” (Pat Maio, Cowboy State Daily)
Jerry Anderson, the front desk clerk of Cobblestone Hotel & Suites in Victor, Idaho, plans a trip Friday to check out Reclamation Road, a secret route from the Idaho’s Teton Valley to Jackson, Wyoming. (Pat Maio, Cowboy State Daily)
Crashing Gates
At the Idaho-Wyoming border, WYDOT traffic electrician Bryce Clements drove up from Cokeville, Wyoming, to repair the closure gates because an unidentified driver rammed them.
“This is not typical in the summer months,” Clements said.
Earlier in the day, he repaired a closure gate in Wilson, Wyoming, to the east of the landslide when a distracted driver talking on a cellphone hit the gate.
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“I’m not sure what is going on,” he said. “This type of stuff happens in the winter.”
Sitting at a picnic table outside the Hot Diggity Dog food stand about a mile north of the Bennett’s Teton Peaks, a group of men were chewing the fat on the traffic mess.
Beard, Hank Hatch and Os Rigby wondered why WYDOT wasn’t helping out with the grading on the old Reclamation Road that runs up near Grassy Lake Dam in Wyoming by the southern boundary of Yellowstone National Park.
“Hell, yes,” said Beard when asked whether WYDOT should get involved with improving the road to help the Idaho communities.
Reclamation Road — named after its owner, the Bureau of Reclamation, which manages power and water in the U.S. West — is about a 30-minute drive north of Tetonia over a labyrinth of paved and fine-dirt roads to just north of a tiny community called Squirrel.
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On the turnoff to Reclamation, there’s not much except for a dirt road, a collapsing wooden home from a bygone era and a silo.
“Over 25% of the people who live here, work there in Jackson,” Beard said. “No one can afford to live there, where people are paying a few thousands of dollars a month in rent.”
Thousands of people who work in Jackson but live in Idaho’s Teton Valley communities are seeing red over the extra driving time.
Above from left, Os Rigby, Hank Hatch and Jim Beard, ate hamburgers at a picnic table outside the Hot Diggity Dog food stand in Tetonia, Idaho, chewing the fat on the traffic mess in the Teton Valley. They wondered why WYDOT wasn’t helping out with the grading on the old Reclamation Road that runs up near Grassy Lake Dam in Wyoming by the southern boundary of Yellowstone National Park. (Pat Maio, Cowboy State Daily)
Jerry Anderson, the front desk clerk of Cobblestone Hotel & Suites in Victor, Idaho, plans a trip Friday to check out Reclamation Road, a secret route from the Idaho’s Teton Valley to Jackson, Wyoming. (Pat Maio, Cowboy State Daily)
In Tetonia, Idaho, the Sinclair station was charging $3.54 for a gallon of unleaded gas. “I miss having tourists around here,” said Erica Black, manager of the gas station. (Pat Maio, Cowboy State Daily)
Tyler Hamilton, owner of WreckerBoyz Towing, is pulling his hair out in the traffic from Driggs to Jackson. He’s hauling cars back and forth between the two towns at a higher price because of the time and expense of gasoline he’s now spending on the 100-mile trip. (Pat Maio, Cowboy State Daily)
Riding Buses
A START bus service run out of Jackson charges $16 for a roundtrip ticket to go from Driggs to Jackson, but that assumes an over two- to three-hour ride that begins at 5:10 a.m.
Commuters are arriving home as late as 8:30 p.m.
START Director Bruce Abel did not return phone calls seeking comment on the service.
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Gale Luna, a START supervisor, said there’s been a small uptick in ridership on the buses this week that are taking about three hours to travel from Driggs to Jackson.
“Call volumes from commuters about the service have gone up about 50% since the weekend,” he said.
With the tourism season typically in full swing this time of year, some residents like the light traffic through the Potato Belt.
“Traffic is definitely down,” said Brett Johnson, a manager of Walters Produce Inc., a potato processing operation that runs a lot of 18-wheeled trucks carrying potatoes.
“Most of the traffic was due to tourism,” he said.
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While the Potato Belt traffic along SR 33 is lighter than usual, the traffic picks up from Idaho Falls to Jackson.
Tow truck owner Hamilton is pulling his hair out in the traffic.
Traveling to Jackson wasn’t so bad when he left mid-morning Wednesday, but returning as the rush hour picked up around 3 p.m. took more than two-and-a-half hours, he said.
Related to the extra miles that he’s driving, Hamilton raised the price on towing a car from Driggs to Jackson from $375 to $525 with the same charge billed to customers who want cars hauled on a return trip.
“It’s my time and gas that I have to charge for,” Hamilton said.
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Jesse Fritsch, co-owner of Elements Building Specialties in Driggs, said she’s pushing a lot of work off because of the road being out to Jackson.
Her business sells appliances to new construction builders near Jackson.
“We’re definitely rescheduling things because of the landslide,” she said. “It’s added to our overall costs because we have to travel around the loop to get to Jackson.”
Pat Maio can be reached at pat@cowboystatedaily.com.
DENVER (AP) — A federal court on Wednesday dismissed the appeal of a lawsuit that challenged a transgender woman’s acceptance into a sorority at the University of Wyoming, ruling it did not have jurisdiction to hear the case.
The lawsuit could not be appealed because a lower court judge in Wyoming left open the possibility of refiling it in his court, the three-judge U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver determined.
The case involving Artemis Langford, a transgender woman admitted into the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority chapter in Laramie, drew widespread attention as transgender people fight for more acceptance in schools, athletics, workplaces and elsewhere, while others push back.
The sorority argued it had wide leeway to interpret its own bylaws, including defining who is a woman, but six sorority sisters argued in a lawsuit for a narrower interpretation.
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FILE – In this June 14, 2016, file photo, two people walk on the University of Wyoming campus in Laramie, Wyo. A University of Wyoming sorority challenged the admission of a transgender woman into their local chapter. (Shannon Broderick/Laramie Boomerang via AP, File)
Last summer, U.S. District Judge Alan Johnson in Cheyenne dismissed the case without prejudice in a ruling that suggested the lawsuit could be refiled in his court.
The appellate judges sided with sorority attorneys who argued the case was not ready for the appeals court. The question elicited the most discussion before the judges during oral arguments in May.
An attorney for the sorority sisters, May Mailman, declined to comment on the ruling. An attorney for the sorority, Natalie McLaughlin, did not return messages seeking comment.
The sorority sisters’ lawsuit against Kappa Kappa Gamma and its president, Mary Pat Rooney, claimed Langford made them feel uncomfortable in the sorority house. Langford was dropped from the lawsuit on appeal.
The arguments hearing drew a small demonstration outside a federal courthouse in Denver with women holding signs that read “Save Sisterhood” and “Women have the right to women’s only spaces.”
