Press

The western continental divide states of Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana are noted for their beauty and recreational attraction. Sun Valley, Grand Targhee, Jackson Hole, and Big Sky are world-famous for recreation, especially skiing, fishing, hunting, hiking, and biking. Ernest Hemingway lived in all three states but was drawn out of Montana and Wyoming in 1939 by Averell Harriman and the Union Pacific Railroad Company. It is thought that Hemingway drove through the Teton Valley area of eastern Idaho on his way to the Sun Valley Lodge to write and promote, along with other famous stars, the Sun Valley experience. Rumor further speculates that he was enthralled by the beauty and isolation of the Teton Valley, which is just over the pass from Jackson Hole.

“Impossible!” I pronounced after my tenth miss of an impossibly towering clay seeming to float between Doug firs scratching the clouds. “Show me how.” Hank McKinnell stepped to the station and called for the target. There’s no way he’ll scratch it. And he didn’t. Until his third shot. Then the crazy, deceptive, curving, falling-while-it-appears-to-be-climbing little disc of clay broke. The echoes of the shot had long faded before we heard the shower of falling pieces on the forest floor. “I’ve had some chances to work on that shot,” Hank humbly confessed. That made sense, because Hank owns the clays course we were shooting. It’s part of his 2,200-acre Lazy Triple Creek Ranch, an hour’s drive west of Jackson Hole.