Travel board to review $920,000 for Friends of the Bridger-Teton ambassadors

The Jackson Hole Travel and Tourism Board is set to review Friends of the Bridger-Teton’s Ambassador Services funding, $520,000 in FY26 and $400,000 in FY27, for on-the-ground “ambassador” work aimed at managing heavy recreation use on the Bridger-Teton National Forest. In the board packet, Friends of the Bridger-Teton describes the program as a way to reach visitors before they hit high-use trailheads and dispersed campsites, in a forest that “has no formal entrance gateways in Teton County.” Friends of Bridger Teton Strategic Partnerships Application Staff Report

For people who actually use these trailheads, this is the boots-on-the-ground piece of the tourism economy that you notice, the person telling a family where to park, putting out an abandoned campfire, or pushing a bad food-storage setup toward something bear-safe. The question to watch Thursday is how the board wants that work judged and sustained after FY27, since the application says Friends of the Bridger-Teton intends to ask for Travel and Tourism Board funding again next year.