Anika Begay
A half-dozen horses run through the sagebrush, with the Grand Teton Mountains in the background.
/Reed Mattison
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/Reed Mattison
Wyoming Offers to Sell Land to Grand Teton Park, Otherwise It Could Go to Developers
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Under a chrome sky dotted with rain clouds, local horseman Jake Hutton led a horseback ride through Kelly Parcel, telling stories the whole way.
“I got attacked by a grizzly right here last spring,” said Hutton, who runs JH Outfitters in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. “She came full speed out of the trees and charged for a second, stopped at 50 yards, stood up and growled, then made up her mind and immediately chased me again.”
Fortunately, he outran the bear on horseback. His story illustrates how this land not far from the resort town of Jackson Hole remains untouched. It is bordered on three sides by Grand Teton National Park. Birds and butterflies fly over the craggy sagebrush hills and aspen groves at the base of the jagged Grand Teton Mountains.
Jake Hutton leads a visitor past a spring in Kelly Parcel.
/Reed Mattison
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/Reed Mattison
In March, after an outcry over a proposed auction, Wyoming lawmakers hammered out a plan to sell the 640-acre state-owned land to Grand Teton National Park for $100 million. Now the land has become something of a bargaining chip for state leaders who are also demanding other things.
If they are not satisfied, an important migration corridor for elk, wapiti and American antelope could end up in the hands of private developers, who would find it attractive for its picturesque views of the park.
But there is pressure for someone to sell.
Wyoming, like many Western states, is constitutionally required to collect money from public lands. In Wyoming, that money is used primarily for public schools. Revenue can come from leasing land for grazing, recreation, or selling it. The state currently collects only about $2,800 a year from these lands.
Last year, Wyoming state land commissioners considered selling the Kelly Parcel at public auction.
The sun sets behind the Grand Teton Mountains.
/Reed Mattison
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/Reed Mattison
The proposal sparked opposition from thousands of Wyoming citizens who sent letters and flocked to public hearings across the state.
“Having people from outside of Teton County in Cody and Casper show up at these public meetings and really say, ‘Make sure this gets to the Park Service,’” said Leslie Mattson, president of the Grand Teton National Park Foundation, a fundraising arm of the park. “My takeaway? It’s been incredibly meaningful to us to know that people across the state appreciate this piece, and it’s been a real motivator for us.”
After the furore, the Wyoming Legislature passed a law giving the federal government two years to buy the land for no less than $100 million and merge it with the adjacent park. Mattson’s foundation will fork over nearly $38 million. The federal government will put up the rest.
“It’s a tall order for us to raise $38 million basically from the beginning of the winter until hopefully sometime in calendar year 24,” he said.
He said it’s the most the foundation has ever had to raise, and while Mattson and the foundation are cautiously optimistic that they’ll find the funds in time, the wait isn’t over yet. “People are like, ‘Well, congratulations. You did it,’” he said. “I’m like, ‘No, we haven’t done it yet.’”
That’s because there are several other obstacles to the sale. For one, there’s deep-seated distrust of the federal government in the Cowboy State.
“It’s a pretty common problem across the West, wherever there’s federal land,” said Gregg Cawley, a professor who studies environmental policy at the University of Wyoming at Laramie. “Just talking about how the federal government interferes with our lives in the abstract gets us nowhere. But when it comes to something like land policy, there’s a certain kind of tangibility to it.”
The Grand Teton National Park Foundation has two years to raise $38 million, with the federal government providing the remainder of the money needed to purchase the land from Wyoming for $100 million.
/Reed Mattison
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According to Cawley, the political climate of a state often comes into play, especially in a Republican-dominated state like Wyoming, in cases like the Kelly Parcel, where state lands clash with federal ones.
And there are things the state wants besides money. There’s a line in the bill that passed the Legislature that ties the fate of the Kelly Parcel deal to something else lawmakers want: more access to an area in the southwest corner of the state that’s owned by the federal government.
The federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM), under the Biden administration, wants to preserve the area, which is near the town of Rock Springs. But Wyoming leaders want to open the land to natural resource extraction and grazing.
Ultimately, any deal would have to go to the state Board of Land Commissioners for final approval. And some of its members, like Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder, want even more in return.
“We cannot allow the federal government to make a deal that benefits Wyoming students who are funded by these state lands,” said Degenfelder, one of five members of the board.
He wants the state to have access to oil and gas resources on federal lands still another part of Wyoming, although that request could jeopardize the Kelly Parcel agreement.
“It’s unfortunate,” he said in an interview. “I mean, we have to do what’s best for Wyoming. I’ll always, always do what’s best for Wyoming rather than the federal government.”
Of course, if any of these complications were to block the sale to the national park, the land could go right back to where it all began, with the council auctioning it off and turning it into private property.
The Kelly Parcel, about 640 acres adjacent to Grand Teton National Park, is owned by Wyoming and is required by the state constitution to collect revenue from state lands. Wyoming uses most of the money for schools and could sell the Kelly Parcel to raise more.
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But according to Jared Baecker, Wyoming conservation coordinator for the nonprofit Greater Yellowstone Coalition, developing it “would absolutely fragment and impede some of the largest ungulate mammal migrations in the lower 48 states.”
He and others point to the area’s unique geography and the mountains that surround it.
“Physically, the landscape is a bottleneck; it’s a choke point between two mountain ranges,” Baecker said. “It also acts as a migration path.”
Among the sagebrush and hills of Kelly Parcel, the political battle over the sale seems distant as the sun sets behind mountains that jut out like the teeth of an ancient beast.
“I’m pretty sure this is the best view in Wyoming,” said guide Hutton.
He could close his doors if this land is sold to the national park, which would prevent him from continuing private tours. He would prefer things to stay the same, but then again, Wyoming needs to make money off this land and pay for the schools.
Hutton said he would be outraged if that meant selling it to developers.
“You look around and ask yourself, ‘What’s the value of wild sagebrush?’” he said. “Do all these wild animals have a place to roam? What’s the value of walking your dog in an open space?”
The Grand Teton National Park Foundation has just under two years to raise the funds.
Chris Clements covers politics and state government for Wyoming Public Radio.
