"READY ABOUT!" Sailing in the Mountains
Posted on Thursday, September 27th, 2007
I could list dozens of reasons why I moved to Jackson. But, sailing would not have been one of them. Don’t get me wrong, I love sailing! I moved to Jackson from Seattle where I got out and “hoisted the main” as much as I could. I even crewed on a recreation race boat in the Puget Sound and owned a 17 foot catamaran that I would go out and scare myself on.
But when I moved to my self-proclaimed paradise, I accepted that I would have to, unfortunately, sacrifice sailing. Apparently I was wrong and I’m very glad I was.
Last summer my good friend Scott Fitzgerald, who’s wedding I wrote about earlier, bought himself a small sailboat: a 20-foot Balboa christened "Toby", named in memorial after Scott and Jannines’ good friend.
So Scott (A.K.A. Fitzy) moors his craft up on Jackson lake for the summer. Jackson Lake is just north of the town of Jackson about 35 minutes and right in Grand Teton National park with incredible views of the Tetons, which makes for a perfect after work excursion and an easy way to get away.
Our adventures usually started by Fitzy giving me a call a day prior to cast off. Our plan: one person would grab the bagels and cream cheese for breakfast, the other would grab the beer and ice. We’d bust out of work as early as we could and rush up to the lake, order a pizza from Leeks marina, take the dingy out to grab the boat from the buoy and fill the bucket with beer and ice and set sail!
And, on most occassions, our plan actually worked! One adventure began as planned, which us motoring out of the marina and setting the sails. Sometimes it was windy and others it was definitely not. That’s when the bucket of beer came in handy. The wind of Jackson Lake is pretty unpredictable, swirling every which way and right when you have the perfect trim set, it changes.
As our boat swayed and stopped, stopped and swayed, we enjoyed a full panorama view of the Tetons from the North, with Mt. Moran closest. The massive mountain’s flanks drop right into the water and present perfect views of the Skillet Glacier.
By the time the sun went behind the mountains, we were already on course for a remote place on the lake to drop anchor for the night. We wandered around the shore, chatting about anything and everything before spreading the sleeping bags out on the deck of the boat and calling it a night. The sunrise woke us up and the wind was pretty much non-existent, so we fired up the small outboard motor and aimed back towards the marina.
Crossing the lake in the morning we enjoyed some French pressed coffee and more spectacular mountain views that never ever get old. Back at the marina we cleaned up the boat and readied her for the next adventure, hopped in the car and barreled back to town for the next day of work with a huge smile on our faces!
Got any great after work sailing stories, mountain town or not? Share them with us in the comments.
Want to see more photos, check out the Flickr Slideshow.
Have a few mountain thoughts and or pics to submit…. need the how to?
Go Scott….
Sounds great! Last June we visited the park for the first time. We stayed in a cabin at Colter bay. In August we bought a 25′ Venture MacGregor (swing keel sloop). I would love to bring her up to Jackson Lake this year but I am curious about some of the details. I know the park requires all boats to be registered in the park ($15 for a week if I recall), but is there a fee to use the marina for launching and the courtesy docks? We would likely spend our evenings anchored along the shore somewhere, so mooring wouldn’t be necessary but are there restrictions as to where you can anchor? Any info or advice you can offer would be greatly appreciated. There isn’t much info about in the online sailing communities about sailing the lakes of the west and my guess is the park doesn’t get enough sailboats to make it worth publishing info about sailing on Jackson.