In an era long before Teton Village was the epicenter of Teton County skiing, Jim Huidekoper was among a group of valley residents hungry to expand skiing opportunities and winter tourism in Jackson Hole.

Along with his wife, Virginia, the Wilson resident was among a group of old timers who helped finance the construction of Teton County’s first chairlift. From coaching Jackson’s earliest ski racers in the 1940s to loading chairs at Snow King Ski Area in the early 1990s, Huidekoper spent his life immersed in skiing.

A former ski racer, journalist and owner of Jackson Hole Mountain Guides, Huidekoper died Oct. 23 at the age of 88.

“I would describe him as one of the unsung heroes of early skiing in the valley,” said ski historian Tom Turiano, who worked with “Huide” in the mid-1980s at Snow King Ski Area. “He really enjoyed being associated with the community of climbers and skiers.”

Jim and Virginia met through the ski racing community in Alta, Utah, and later visited Jackson Hole for skiing and climbing trips in the late 1930s before marrying in 1943. The couple moved to the valley in 1944 and quickly became actively involved in the Jackson Hole Ski Club and the valley’s ski racing community. During the late 1940s, Jim and Virginia chaperoned and coached Jackson’s most promising junior racers, driving them over Teton Pass in an old Ford station wagon to races in Sun Valley. At the time, Jackson lacked reliable lift service and races were sometimes held on Teton Pass. The Huidekopers even organized a spring giant slalom that ran down Twin Slides on Mount Glory. Huidekoper would set the courses and act as gatekeeper, timer and coach.

“It wasn’t his nature to take credit for things,” his daughter, Zaidee, said. “He did it because he loved the sport.”

In an effort to promote winter tourism and allow Jackson to better host ski races, Huidekoper, Fred Toppan, Bill Jensen and John Wort formed the Jackson Hole Winter Sports Association in 1945. To finance construction of Snow King’s chairlift, 26 additional stockholders made pledges of $1,000 or more, enough to purchase an old ore tramway from Salida, Colo. The lift opened in 1947, one of the longest chairlifts in the United States at the time, and was an immediate success, serving 8,500 skiers the first year.

In an article that appeared in the 1973 Teton Annual, Snow King Ski Area founder Neil Rafferty recalled Huidekoper’s contributions to the ski area in the early days.

“There was one feller that helped me hundreds and hundreds of times and that was Huide,” Rafferty wrote. “We’d even offer to pay him and he wouldn’t accept any wages for it. He’s the first one that I recall having a a four wheel drive jeep around here; he’d loan this jeep to me. He had no idea how important a four wheel drive vehicle is to a ski area.

“Huide was just tremendous with this business of helping. There were so many things he didn’t know much about, but he sure made it up with that with enthusiasm. He’d take to a job like his very life depended on it. I really owe a lot to Huide, we all do.”

In 1944, the Huidekopers bought the Jackson Hole Courier newspaper and became deeply involved in the conflict about the proposed expansion of Grand Teton National Park. Zaidee recalled that Huidekoper wrote a few articles and a column for the Courier under a pen name.

In 1946, Huidekoper survived one of the most dramatic avalanches ever to occur on Teton Pass. After a day of skiing, Huidekoper, Ted Major and Bobby McLeod were descending Teton Pass in a jeep when an enormous avalanche ripped down Glory Bowl at Crater Lake. The jeep was flipped upside down and spun around 180 degrees as snow piled up 20-feet deep around the vehicle. It took bystanders, including Virginia, 45 minutes to dig out Major, but it took an hour and a half to extricate a hypothermic Huidekoper, who was brought to the bar in Wilson to warm up. McLeod, who was riding in the back seat of the jeep, perished in the slide.

In the late 1950s, Huidekoper and John Harrington made some of the earliest reconnaissance tours of Crystal Springs Mountain, as the peak 10,450 above Teton Village was then known. He later consulted with Paul McCollister and Alex Morley when they were considering building a ski resort up Cache Creek, with Huidekoper suggesting that the Tetons would be a more appropriate location.

After leaving the valley briefly in the late 1960s, Huidekoper returned to Jackson and purchased Jackson Hole Mountain Guides from Barry Corbet in the early 1970s, selling it to Bill Thompson in 1975. Though Huidekoper remained in the background of the service’s day-to-day operations, he started a snow and ice school on Teton Glacier, hiring Yvon Chounaird as one of the instructors. He also enjoyed hauling loads to the guide service’s high camp below the Lower Saddle of the Grand Teton and led numerous trips into the Wind River range. Veteran guide Paul Horton recalled that Huidekoper was always willing to help out the guides in any way he could. When Jackson Hole Mountain Guides used to spend summers living in tent cabins located on Apres Vous in the 1970s, they would traditionally take showers at the Sojourner Inn. When that luxury was no longer available, Huidekoper rented a room at the Crystal Springs Inn so the guides could still get a hot shower.

An avid hockey player, Huidekoper played on the town’s team that would take on Rock Springs and Idaho Falls in the 1950s. He also helped establish the town’s first hockey rink, located where Phil Baux park is today.

When Snow King Center opened, he took a job working at the rink so he could be near others who shared his love of the sport.

In the 1980s, Huidekoper worked as a lift operator at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort for several winters before returning to Snow King. Snow King Ski Area manager Jim Sullivan said Huidekoper would hang around the repair shop telling stories, and his love of skiing made him a popular figure at the Town Hill.

“He became a fatherly figure to all of us at Snow King,” Sullivan said. “He was well respected and well loved around here.”