Teton County officials are unhappy with the Trump administration’s reversal of a 2016 management plan directive that paves the way for a pathway in a wildlife-rich Grand Teton National Park corridor.
The board of county commissioners approved a letter Monday to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum underscoring the body’s dismay at being excluded from the process that resulted in an August amendment to a 2016 management plan. The amendment calls for construction of a multi-use pathway along roughly 7 miles of the Moose-Wilson Road in the park.
“We ask the Department to reconsider the corridor-length pathway decision and include Teton County’s input as a cooperating agency before proceeding,” the letter states.
The letter signifies a win for Friends of the Moose-Wilson Corridor. The volunteer group reformed this year in explicit response to the pathway’s revival. The Friends organization previously opposed the pathway during the public process that resulted in the 2016 Moose-Wilson Corridor Comprehensive Management Plan record of decision.
“We remain hopeful that the NPS will be allowed to press pause on this destructive project and seek other ways to manage visitation in the Moose-Wilson Corridor in Grand Teton National Park,” group member Joan Anzelmo told WyoFile in an email.
Teton area residents are not uniformly against the pathway’s revival. Transportation advocate Tim Young, who has long championed the pathway as an important safety upgrade for the congested corridor, told WyoFile he thought the development was “outstanding.”
A road much-traveled
The road is the main artery through what’s known as the Moose-Wilson Corridor — a swath of roughly 10,300 acres that provides access to destinations like the Death Canyon trailhead, Laurance S. Rockefeller Preserve and Murie Ranch historic district.
Located between Teton Village and park destinations, it’s a major starting point for visitors eager to spot wildlife, including bears and moose. Area locals also use it as a shortcut to bypass the town of Jackson, and it’s popular with cyclists.
In 2016, the park service estimated that roughly 400,000 visitors traveled the Moose-Wilson corridor annually. The narrow roadway is closed to RVs and mostly signed for 25 miles per hour.
In the late 2000s, Young led an effort to develop an extensive network of bike pathways around Jackson — including Moose to Jenny Lake and Jackson to Moose. His advocacy followed high-profile cycling deaths.
In 2013, the National Park Service initiated the Moose-Wilson Corridor Comprehensive Management Plan process, proposing four ways, or alternatives, to manage the corridor. During the ensuing public process, stakeholders litigated the concept of a separate pathway. Advocates argued that it would create safer access to the park for the vehicles and bikes traveling the winding roadway at various speeds, while opponents claimed a pathway would unduly harm the corridor’s rich wildlife habitat and archaeological sites.
In its 2016 record of decision, the park service selected alternative C, which generally restricted development within the corridor to the existing footprint. Notably left out of that alternative was the separate pathway proposal.
“The emphasis of the selected action is to balance preservation and public use and enjoyment by exemplifying conservation legacies within the corridor,” the agency’s record of decision read.
When the federal agency announced in June that it was revisiting the pathway portion of the 2016 decision, it cited a 2025 executive order that “calls for improving visitor services, enhancing access, and reviewing policies that may unnecessarily restrict recreation in national parks.” Recreational opportunities, newly stipulated by President Donald Trump’s order, were not considered during the previous scoping process, the draft stated.
The park service identified additional scoping work related in part to pathway construction and opened a 15-day public comment period.
With the amendment calling for the path’s construction in August, the park service reopened those old rifts over its obligation to balance multiple concerns, including wildlife protection, archeological preservation, recreation and safe visitor access.
Not so fast
Anzelmo, who worked for the park service for 35 years, was dismayed when she heard of the plan’s amendment. Friends of the Moose-Wilson Corridor had already participated in a robust public process, arguing that a separate paved pathway would damage rich wildlife habitat at a ridiculous cost to taxpayers, she said.
The Friends group supports bike paths in certain places, Anzelmo said. “But there are places in national parks that are not appropriate or compatible with bike paths, most especially in grizzly bear habitat.”
Of particular concern to the group was the absence of a supplemental environmental impact statement or meaningful public involvement in the new reversal.
In the wake of the amendment, the Friends group reorganized and began its campaign anew, teaming up with the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance and lobbying local, state and federal officials in an attempt to slow the process. That included the Teton County Board of Commissioners.
In the letter it approved Monday, the board asked the Interior Department to “conduct further analysis of alternatives that support recreational access other than a separate pathway” and requested that it and other local stakeholders be engaged in the process as cooperating agencies.
