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Margaritas, music, and magnificent views
David McMeekin, Jamie Drysdale, and Jon Degroot of the Random Canyon Growlers perform at Dornan’s Spur Bar.
Reader discretion advised: The following describes a family-friendly nightlife experience in the “town” of Moose. If it’s something a little livelier you’re looking for, try hitting the Mangy Moose Saloon, a wilder Alces alces cousin located in nearby Teton Village.
Our evening started on the deck of Dornan’s, a six-
decade-old family operation situated in Moose within the borders of Grand Teton National Park. Dornan’s Spur Bar is hands down the best watering hole for enjoying a drink while watching the sun dip behind the Tetons.
An hour later, the sun had gone down and so had a pair of margaritas. Time for some grub, and a trio of choices beckoned: the old West barbecue dinner from the outdoor Chuckwagon (beef stew, short ribs, cowboy beans, gravy-smothered mashed potatoes); a do-it-ourselves picnic shopped out of the Moose Trading Post & Deli; or Italian fare from the Pizza Pasta Company, which operates out of a niche inside the bar. We opted to remain seated on the deck and go Italian, since that daytime operation stays open for dinner only on Hootenanny Mondays. I had the Caesar salad and Greek calzone; Nancy chose the spinach salad and chicken Marsala. Everything was satisfactory and filling.
Meanwhile, I kept waiting for the Hootenanny to heat up, because I was under the impression that it happened in the Spur. (It does, I finally learned from our waiter, but only in the winter.) After wandering around the grounds a bit, we found the songfest well underway in a partially open-air shelter composed of three canvas walls, a solid west wall, and a metal roof. An audience of maybe 150, ranging from very young to quite old, filled the long sitting benches under the roof. Bottles of beer and glasses of wine were finding their way out of the adjacent BBQ tent and into the shelter.
The evenings can be chilly in Jackson Hole even in July and August; this was September, and the air was beyond chilly. It felt good to squeeze in amidst all that body heat. The collective mood was upbeat, no doubt in part because the crowd included a lot of pilgrims still glowing from an exceptional day spent outside in the park.
Coincidentally, we’d watched the 2003 folk-music mockumentary A Mighty Wind on DVD just a few weeks earlier, so I was prepared for a Kingston Trio/Rooftop Singers/Pete Seeger sing-a-long sort of gig. And that this was, but it was much more: folk, country, country western, country blues, and lightning-fast guitar picking and plucking. (Even hip-hop is rumored to have surfaced on certain Hoot evenings; I find this disturbing, but then I’m so old that I don’t trust anyone born after the Beatles broke up.)
We sat down as Bill Briggs strummed his well-worn banjo. If you’re a local, you need no introduction to Briggs; that might be true even if you’re not from these parts. But just in case, you can call him “Dad.” He is widely regarded as 1) the father of big-mountain extreme skiing—in 1971 Briggs became the first person to ski off the Grand Teton; 2) the father of the Stagecoach Band—he and a parade of musicial compadres have played country and bluegrass at the famous Stagecoach Bar in Wilson on Sunday evenings since 1969; and, 3) the father of this very event, the Jackson Hole Hootenanny. (I’m wondering if maybe those first two years at the Stagecoach, in the ambiance of the sixties, are what made Briggs think skiing off the Grand was a good idea.)
Next up were another couple of Hootenanny veterans, river man Dick Barker, who, making his 483rd appearance, sang about unfortunate “Old Bernard the mule [who] got mistaken for a moose.” Then John Byrne Cooke, Hooting for his 527th time, pulled one out from the very foundation of country music: Jimmie Rodgers’ “Brakeman’s Blues (Yodeling the Blues Away).”
Now we were getting somewhere.
But things slowed a bit with the next performer, who stood nervously on the Hootenanny stage for his first time. He played guitar perfectly well, but I predict he won’t be giving Susan Boyle voice lessons anytime soon. Above all else, the Hootenanny is an open-mic night—and that’s a large part of its beauty, with first-timers mixing it up with 527th-timers. Two songs maximum, and no swearing permitted. (Remember what I said about family-friendly?) There’s also a rule of etiquette those on the other side of the microphone are asked to observe: no chattering or visiting while a performer is playing.
Next came Jack Huyler, Jackson Hole’s resident historian. At age ninety, he can be forgiven for taking a stumble as he struggled up the stairs to the stage; he did not stumble when relating a hilarious tale about the old days. Then things sped up again—way up, thanks to Byron Tomingas, a classical/concert guitarist and native Jacksonite who studied guitar performance at the California Institute of Arts in Valencia. Long ago he worked as a river guide for Barker, who encouraged him to take up guitar. I can’t tell you the names of the songs he played, but I can tell you they sounded beautiful and mesmerizing.
On and on the live music rang, far into the evening. We had to be up and at it early the next morning, however, so it was time to pack it in. You can’t soar with the eagles if you hoot with the Hootenanny-ers. Next time, we’ll plan to make a day and night of it: hit Moose early in the day and take a ride on the outstanding new pathway leading north to Jenny Lake (mountain-bike rentals are available at Dornan’s), perhaps rent a canoe for the paddle across Leigh Lake, and then stay for the entire Hootenanny and overnight in one of Dornan’s Spur Ranch Cabins.
That’s the way it should be done.
