It started with a simple idea. With Teton County Search & Rescue being the host organization for the 2025 International Commission for Alpine Rescue, the team’s volunteers wanted to have a public event that showcased Jackson’s rich Western Heritage in front of a crowd filled with rescuers from around the world. Could they throw a Wild West show at the Fairgrounds during the offseason? How would they pull it off? And, it being held outside the normal rodeo season, would anyone show up?

During every ICAR, which is held each year in a different location, the host organization produces a Heritage Night to show off their local culture, art and history. But throughout the more than 70-years of ICAR, Heritage Night is almost never a public event. That was different this year in Jackson Hole.

Teton County Search & Rescue felt it was important to bring the public into the ICAR fold to help the 600 mostly international attendees get a taste of the culture of the American West. With community being an integral component of TCSAR’s culture and support, the team opened Heritage Night to all. In the end, the Jackson community showed up big time, with an estimated 3,000 people in attendance for the free show. More than 45 local vendors provided a vibrant backdrop to Heritage Night, illustrating the valley’s extensive art and business community.

Photo Gallery by David Bowers

The event began with all TCSAR volunteers and TCSAR Foundation staff members lined up in the middle of the Fairgrounds arena, where Chief Advisor Cody Lockhart thanked the crowd and framed the culture of the West as being intertwined with the Search & Rescue idea and ethos of “locals helping locals.”

Miss Rodeo Wyoming Kate Budge. Photo: Griffin Kerwin

Then, Miss Rodeo Wyoming Kate Budge, a seventh-generation Jackson local, galloped around the arena hold the American flag during the singing of the national anthem by Adrian Croke. Teton County Commission Mark Newcomb read the land acknowledgement, helping international visitors understand the cultural significance of the Native American tribes who lived and subsisted off the land we now call home.

TCSAR volunteer and Heritage Night emcee Ian Johnston took over the microphone to introduce representatives from the Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative. Singers and dancers from the Initiative demonstrated a “ReMatriate” ceremony, where they brought the buffalo to life.

Afterward, it was onto the main event by the Jackson Hole Rodeo. While the rodeo is a mainstay at the Fairgrounds throughout the summer, this rodeo was a special offseason event. It included some of the nation’s very best cowboys and cowgirls on buckin’ broncs, bull riding, barrel racing, and calf roping.

A highlight was the “Grab the bull by the horns” event, in which ICAR attendees teamed up in groups of three. In this timed event, the teams had to chase down a steer, remove the rope around its head, and return to the bucking chute. Whichever team could do so the fastest was crowned champion. Teams from Austria and France went up against SAR teams from Teton and Sublette counties. Perhaps it wasn’t a fair fight, as the home team from TCSAR took the crown. Chalk it up to homegrown dirt.

Photo Gallery by Griffin Kerwin

Thank you to our ICAR sponsors, and to all the vendors who joined us at Heritage Night

ICAR Jackson Hole is sponsored by the Jackson Hole Travel & Tourism Board, Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, and Snow King Mountain, with additional support from Airbus, Arc’teryx, and Bell, as well as CalTopo, Momentous, Motorola, Rocky Talkie, CMC, Backcountry Access, Breeze Eastern, and Safeback. Local business support comes from: Jackson Hole Still Works, Lockhart Cattle Co., Roadhouse Brewing Co., Snake River Brewing, Snake River Roasting Co., Stinky Prints, and The Liquor Store and Wine Loft. TCSAR is enormously grateful for this critical support.