Gliders and Warbirds at Driggs Airport

At the edge of town lies the Driggs Reed Memorial Airport, a small mountain field with an outsized reputation among pilots. Tucked right against the western wall of the Tetons, it draws corporate jets, tail draggers, helicopters, and, most famously, gliders and vintage warbirds. The rising air along the steep face of the range makes this some of the finest soaring country anywhere, and on a good day sailplanes ride the currents up near the level of the peaks with the engine off and only the wind for sound.

The field is home to Teton Aviation, which offers scenic flights and flight instruction and runs the Warbirds Cafe alongside a small collection of historic aircraft from the World War Two era. Vintage aircraft are an unusual sight at a modest municipal airport in a town of a few thousand people. For a valley long defined by potatoes and quiet, the airport is a reminder of another way to experience these mountains, not from the highway or the ski lift, but from the air, drifting silently along the back side of the Grand Teton with the whole of Pierre's Hole spread out below.