Typically, the first reaction is to look up, clear the throat and simply sigh, "Now that's a big mountain."

And it is. The mountain that makes Jackson Hole Mountain Resort among the most recognized in the country comes with a rugged look and the highest vertical rise of any skiable mountain in the country.

For the past 30 years, a sign near the entrance to the Jackson Hole icon, the rising tram with its bright red cars, reads: "This mountain is like nothing you have ever skied before."

Part of its eminence, no doubt, comes from the fact the mountain, named Rendezvous, is a cousin to the Grand Tetons next door.

Surprisingly, Rendezvous, the mountain that has put the resort on the lips of skiers around the world, has been both a problem and a blessing.

"People perceive us as being a resort with only expert skiing. Yes, it is a big mountain, and because of it we do have some very good terrain for experts. But, we also have some excellent intermediate and beginner terrain. It's an image we fight all the time," said Anna Olson, communications director for the resort.

This goes back to 1965 when Jackson Hole ski area, which rises from the floor of Teton Village outside the town of Jackson, put in two small chairlifts, followed the next year by the first and the longest aerial tram in the United States, which rises 4,139 feet.

And there are other long-standing notions that the resort itself is too expensive and too hard to reach, despite the fact millions make it there each summer to enter Yellowstone National Park.

For years, the resort has tried to counter its "too tough" image. That job was made easier, Olson said, back in 1993 when the Kemmerer family, founders of the mining town of Kemmerer, Wyo., went shopping for ways to become more deeply entrenched in the Wyoming landscape.

The Kemmerers bought the resort and set about investing more than $38 million into improving the area. Realizing the tram is not terribly efficient but is a historical fixture the resort couldn't be without, they installed a new, high-speed, eight-passenger gondola, along with the latest technology in skier benefits — three high-speed chairlifts.

"It's transformed the resort," said one recent visitor. "You've still got the old flavor that makes Jackson special, like the tram and the cowboy theme, but now you've got greater access to the mountain . . . And, yes, it is a big mountain. If you haven't been there for a while, you forget."

The additions also allow Olson more success at easing the "expert only" image.

The new lifts opened new terrain.

The breakdown now is expert skiing on half the mountain, and the other half is being groomed for intermediate and beginning skiers.

Another obstacle, which can also be considered a benefit, is the location.

Airlines, preferring high-population areas like Los Angeles, Seattle and even Salt Lake City, were connecting and disconnecting with Jackson with each change in the wind direction.

That, too, is changing, said Olson.

Currently, flights are coming in on United, American and, back after pulling out a year ago, Delta.

Also, people in the West are realizing that areas within Wyoming may look remote, "but they're really not so far away. It's only a 41/2-hour drive from Salt Lake City, for example," she explained.

Still, the bulk of skiers headed into Jackson come from the East where a Western theme and wide open spaces are ravenously consumed.

Skiers from neighboring states comprise a much smaller share of the overall market, again despite the fact that Utahns make up a strong market share of total visits to Yellowstone.

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"Part of that is another impression people have of Jackson, and that is it is expensive. But that's not the case at all. We have ground packages, for example, where people come stay three nights for $59 a night and get a ski pass included, which means they really ski free. We're talking ski-in, ski-out lodges right at the base of the mountain," Olson explained.

A one-day pass for an adult is $54. Ski five of seven days and the cost is $48 a day.

Also unique to Jackson is that most its 22 lodges and restaurants are privately owned, creating an eclectic look.

Still, when all is said and reviewed, the one thing that stands out about the resort is the mountain . . . (gulp) . . the very big mountain, Rendezvous.

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