Jackson Hole Honored With Prestigious Safety Award

Originally posted on Powder | By Izzy Lidsky | Last updated May 14, 2025 6:06 PM ET

The National Ski Areas Association has (NSAA) awarded Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, Wyoming the honor for 2025's Best Overall Safety Program. The award applies to resorts with over 500,000 annual visitors and is considered a prestigious honor for larger ski areas.

The award comes following several new facets of JHMR's Triangle of Safety campaign that were implemented for the 2024/25 season, and several cultural changes to the mountain to further promote safety.

The Triangle of Safety specifically focuses on skiers managing their speed, space, and themselves as a way to reduce reckless skiing and riding. Additionally, the resort removed the vertical foot leaderboard from its mountain app to avoid any misconstrued promotion of fast skiing just to gain vertical feet.

Family Zones and designated rest areas were established across the mountain on beginner terrain and commonly congested areas in order to remind skiers and riders to control speed in such areas and giving folks a safe place to stop. The resort also increased their staff of Speed Wranglers by 50% in designated areas.

The combined efforts of the JHMR's newly implemented safety programs resulted in an 83% increase in documented interactions between JHMR employees and guests in regards to 'reckless' skiing and riding. In comparison to the 2023/24 season, there was also a 34% increase in revoked lift access for reckless skiing/riding.

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"We are thrilled to be honored by the National Ski Areas Association for our efforts, we will continue to foster this culture of safety and community at the Resort in the years to come, and we are committed to raising awareness about this issue across the entire industry," said Jackson Hole CEO Mary Kate Buckley. Buckley will retire at the end of the month as the resort's CEO.

Although the ski season is over at JHMR, the resort's Tram will reopen for its summer operations on May 17, 2025. Guests can ride 'Big Red,' as the Tram is affectionately nicknamed, from the heart of Teton Village to the summit of Rendezvous Mountain, gaining 4,139 vertical feet on the way. From the top, there are incredible 360-views of the Tetons, Jackson Hole, and Gros Ventre range. From the summit, guests can explore Jackson's vast network of hiking trails or enjoy a world-famous waffle from Corbet's Cabin. (Hint: if they still have the cookie butter waffle on the menu, get that one!).

For those looking to get in some summer backcountry turns, skiing and riding is permitted outside the ski area boundary in backcountry terrain accessed through resort gates. As always, backcountry users should have proper equipment and knowledge of the area and be prepared for variable conditions. If you don' t know, don't go!

The Tram will be open daily from 9am-5pm until October 6.

This article first appeared on Powder and was syndicated with permission.

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