John Simms first arrived in Jackson Hole almost 60 years ago. Born in Jamestown, New York, in 1937, he grew up skiing Holiday Valley and Mohawk Mountain around Lake Erie and fishing small streams in the Adirondacks. In 1961, after two years in the Navy as a radarman, he and a friend stuffed John’s Jaguar XK120 convertible with gear and headed west. They first landed in Colorado, where Simms was a ski patroller and then patrol director at Arapahoe Basin and an avalanche forecaster at the recently opened Vail Ski Resort. Lured by the open frontier, Snake River fishing and rafting opportunities, and the skiing at the brand-new Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, Simms came to Jackson Hole in the mid-1960s.

His first job was working as a fishing guide on the Madison and Snake Rivers. (Since drift boats weren’t yet a thing, Simms guided with a yellow Navy-surplus rescue raft.) He was one of Jackson Hole’s first ski patrollers and also worked as a U.S. Forest Service snow ranger. At the new ski area, Simms and friend Charlie Sands were the first skiers to drop the gnarly couloir next to the very famous Corbet’s Couloir. (Neither has ever divulged the secret of who went first.) Now named S&S Couloir in their honor, the line makes Corbet’s look easy and requires special permission from JHMR ski patrol to do.

Simms is not merely an outdoorsman, though. He’s an inventor and entrepreneur. A snow-science expert who pioneered evaluation and forecasting techniques to predict avalanches and who saw too many people die in avalanches, he invented tools that revolutionized backcountry safety: a collapsible avalanche shovel and ski poles that could be linked for use as an avalanche probe. These pieces of gear were the foundation of his company Life-Link International.

"I seem to have a knack for appreciating the moment.
I don’t think I’ve ever been bored.” 

—John Simms

Then came Croakies. Tired of his sunglasses falling off, Simms cut up an old wetsuit and sewed the ends together like a Chinese finger trap that slid over sunglasses’ temple tips. Ski patrol buddies gave them their name, “Croakies.”

Next came Simms Fishing Products. In his early days as a fishing guide, wading shoes didn’t keep out sand and gravel. Simms designed neoprene cuffs, Gravel Guards, that did. These evolved into the first neoprene waders and, eventually, an entire line of fly-fishing gear, Simms Fishing Products, founded in 1980. Simms sold the company in 1993, but it still exists today—it’s now based in Bozeman, Montana—and the brand is a leader in high-end fishing gear around the world.

Simms says the through-line for all his inventions and innovations was not to make money but rather to make a difference in all the things he loved to do. And he certainly did: for his “exemplary achievements and contributions toward the excellence of winter sports,” including Life-Link, Simms was inducted into the Intermountain Ski Hall of Fame in Park City, Utah, in 2022.

Around the time he left the fly-fishing company that bears his name, Simms turned his creative spark toward making art, specifically creating large-scale geometric sculptures from metal. His first piece was a three-dimensional cube made from aircraft aluminum. It was mounted on bearings, and Simms went outside one morning to find it revolving in the wind. An edition of this cube, Imploding Cube, has been part of the Indianapolis Art Center’s permanent collection since 2000. Other Simms sculptures can be seen in Colorado, Oklahoma, and Washington State. 

In Jackson, Simms is represented by Diehl Gallery. “All of his work is mathematically based, and much of it is kinetic,” says the gallery’s founder Mariam Diehl. 

Major Bison

This is Simms’s favorite sculpture. “Because it was so large and heavy and strong, he says it was a great feeling to be able to climb and walk on it while working on it,” says his wife, Barbara. A 16-by-24-foot Major Bison—powder coated the same red as the JHMR tram—sits on McCollister Drive at the entrance to Teton Village. 

Gallerist Mariam Diehl says the sculpture is both monumental and intimate (and available in smaller sizes). “You feel the immense power of the animal, but also a quiet stillness that invites reflection. Collectors are initially drawn to the strength and symbolism of the bison, but what keeps them engaged is Simms’s use of the circle and geometric proportion.” 

NOTE: Major Bison was placed in Teton Village by Diehl Gallery