The river as icon

The Snake River flows from Jackson Lake Dam in northwest Wyoming and through Grand Teton National Park. Over the last century, the river has been controlled and regulated to serve many interests: irrigation, power production, flood control, rafting, trout fisheries and salmon.

For beauty and sport, it's beyond compare

The rolling wheat-covered foothills of the Teton Range cast long shadows in the afternoon sun. The road east continues to rise and wind into the forests of Wyoming, which each winter capture snows that eventually funnel into the Snake.

To the north is the site of Teton Dam, whose waters killed 11 people in 1976 when the dam failed in a spectacular, drowning rush.

Ahead is Jackson, the famed resort town that glitters with monolithic ranch homes. Not far from where a sign welcomes travelers to the "Last of the Old West," a teal-colored '70s pickup rumbles through the mountains with cow horns attached to its grille.

News item of the day: Jackson resident and actor Harrison Ford rescues a college-age girl from a mountaintop in his $2 million helicopter. The Forest Service calls the rescue illegal because he had no permit to land in a wilderness area.

Jackson crawls with Harley bikers, who are fanning out across the country after their annual summer shindig in Sturgis, S.D. They spill from the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar, which boasts buffalo burgers and saddles for barstools.

The town is the gateway to Grand Teton National Park. The Tetons - a queue of jagged peaks higher than 11,000 feet - are among the youngest mountains on the continent and still growing by about 1 inch every 100 years.

At their feet lies majestic Jackson Lake. And from the lake flows the Snake River.

JACKSON, Wyo. - Dave Hansen was on his way to Tangiers when he got sidetracked here.

That was in 1964.

Today, Hansen, a grandfather of white-water rafting on the upper Snake, is still paddling downstream on what has since become a famous stretch of the mostly tamed river.

"He's the guy who named most of those rapids down there - he's one of the pioneers," said David Cernicek, Snake River manager for the Bridger-Teton National Forest. "Every one of those (boat company) guys will say they were first, but Dave was ... figuring out how to get down the Snake River Canyon safely and sanely back in the 1960s."

Four decades later, 180,000 visitors raft or kayak through the limestone canyon in a good summer, making it one of the most popular activities in this land of natural wonders.

After one year of graduate school, the disenchanted then-24-year-old was aiming to get out of the country on "one of those go-find-yourself trips."

A friend lured Hansen to Jackson as a fishing guide.

"I found myself here," said Hansen, sitting in his office just north of downtown.

One of the first Europeans to find himself in Jackson Hole was famed explorer John Colter, who scouted the area in 1807-08 after breaking company with the Lewis and Clark expedition.

Within a decade, mountain men descended on the valley - or "hole" - to trap beaver for their lucrative pelts.

The hole was virtually forgotten for four decades after the decline of the fur trade. But by the turn of the century, it had gained a national reputation as a sportsmen's paradise and its beauty generated a suggestion that Yellowstone National Park be expanded to include parts of it. At the time, ranchers and outfitters dotted the valley - always combating harsh weather that brings 4 feet of snow and temperatures of minus-25 degrees to the valley.

"Others recognized that dudes winter better than cows and began operating dude ranches," says one federal history of the land.

Unlike the creation of Yellowstone - which took just two years from concept to congressional approval in 1872 - Teton park was mired in controversy for years. Part of today's park, the cragged peaks and six glacial lakes, was created in 1929 after more than a decade of opposition from Idaho sheep ranchers and Jackson businessmen.

Starting in the late 1920s, the Snake River Land Co. spent 20 years purchasing 35,000 acres in the valley, spending $1.4 million - the price of a spacious Jackson home today.

The man behind the company was one of the world's richest, John D. Rockefeller Jr., whose trips to Jackson convinced him of the need to protect the valley from sprawling and shabby development.

His goal was to preserve the area's unique scenery and eventually donate it to the nation.

Rockefeller used the company to mask his involvement and keep landowners from inflating their prices, said Jackie Skaggs, 50th anniversary coordinator for Grand Teton National Park. "What seemed like a simple and straightforward plan became 20 years of bitter debate, nearly tearing apart the Jackson Hole community," Skaggs said.

Themes of the debate were the same then as they are today: East vs. West, regulation vs. freedom, preservation vs. land use economies.

Rockefeller faced plenty of resistance - including a Senate investigation - but he was aided by economic woes in the valley. Many ranchers were happy to sell out in hard times, and some went so far as to circulate a petition that recognized Jackson Hole "as a playground ... for the education and enjoyment of the nation as a whole."

But opposition in Congress through the late 1930s and early '40s swelled until a frustrated Rockefeller threatened to sell his land on the open market.

In what was the most controversial move in the park's creation, President Franklin D. Roosevelt skirted Congress by using his executive powers to form the 221,000-acre Jackson Hole National Monument in 1943.

"Local backlash immediately followed as park opponents criticized the monument for being a blatant violation of states' rights," Skaggs said.

In a show of belligerence, ranchers drove 500 cattle across the new monument, gaining the attention of the nation.

Congress responded by abolishing the monument.

Roosevelt vetoed the action. Wyoming sued the National Park Service to overturn the initial proclamation. That effort failed.

Then Congress withheld maintenance money.

Finally, a compromise with landowners and Teton County in 1950 led to the creation of the current park, which covers 485 square miles.

When Hansen arrived 14 years later, boat charters concentrated on the region's fishing lakes and the mellow braided section of the Snake that winds through the park.

"After a while, that started to get a little old," said Hansen of the scenic section.

At the time, few ventured through the Grand Canyon of the Snake south of the park entrance - a sometimes treacherous stretch of white water made even more dangerous by the clunky World War II relics that passed for boats in Hansen's heyday.

"I'd heard about the canyon and I heard a lot of b.s. stories - guys telling me what they had done," he said.

After a macho game of one-upmanship among the boatmen, Hansen took the plunge. "I said, 'Let's take that (boat) down the canyon.' "

He still loves to recall his initial trip in the summer of 1967, when he floated around a corner and spray from the boiling river covered his boat like ocean surf. He said his eyes were bigger than the plunging waves.

"It was a hell of a trip. It was the greatest thrill I have ever had. You didn't know what the hell was coming and everything was new."

It didn't take long for the thrill-seeking young men to bag the scenic float trips in favor of running the wild river.

"You really thought you were a stud - this is what you came to do," Hansen said.

By the early 1970s, competition for raft customers heated up, prices dropped drastically and boat manufacturers started designing better craft for the exploding hobby.

The combination of factors solidified white water rafting - and it addicted men like Hansen.

"We learned the river," he said. "We learned it blind."

The stretch they learned turned out to be perfect for commercial rafting.

It starts slow - especially in the late summer when water levels are way down, maybe just a fifth of what they were a few months before.

The boats drift through national forest. Eagles and osprey circle for trout. Deer perch on the steep banks and watch an unending string of boats pass. Moose and bear are common.

After four pleasant miles, the river changes. The canyon walls constrict. Rocks bulge into the river. The river rumbles. And the boats lunge through walls of water that Hansen named - the Lunch Counter, Big Kahuna and Three Oar Deal.

"You end on a high," Hansen said. "You leave 'em hanging."

At the peak of the tourist season, each half-mile of water carries three brightly colored rafts through the canyon's Class 3 rapids.

"We're one of the big four in the West when it comes to heavy use," Cernicek said.

The other three most popular rivers: the Arkansas in Colorado, the South Fork of the American in California and the Deschutes in Oregon.

Cernicek credits many factors with making the Snake canyon so popular. Among them is that the Forest Service operates its boat landings on a donation system rather than fees and that noncommercial boaters don't have to get permits. Also, Yellowstone and Teton parks attract millions of tourists each summer, creating a huge client base.

But foremost is the water itself.

"It can be a very big powerful river ... very big, very fun roller-coaster type of waves but not very many serious technical moves," Cernicek said. "There is room for error. You can make mistakes and not have to pay a heavy price for them."

But there is a cost for use - the "wilderness experience" that is lost with 40 boats on eight miles of water. Teton National Park managers also are concerned about crowding, with 70,000 people taking commercial trips on its section of the Snake last year.

Without restrictions, Skaggs said, "There would be times in the summer when there would just be a crush of rafts."

Today, Hansen doesn't guide many trips himself or worry about advertising. With only eight commercial companies allowed in the canyon, people will come to him like they always have, he figures.

His employees teasingly remind him that he has a business to run.

Explains Hansen: "I am just sustaining a lifestyle."

But that doesn't keep his adrenaline from flowing each spring when the big water rolls.

"Still, I never miss the high water."