“My life is your vacation — Jackson Hole Wyoming.”

While walking around my east Jackson neighborhood — Jackson is the biggest town in Jackson Hole — I first saw this bumper sticker. I was 26, healthy, debt-free, starting my writing career and amazingly, obliviously, wonderfully naive. Of course my life was a vacation; skiing or climbing 300 days a year was just the cherry on top.

Fast-forward 13 years, and I've joined the real world. Life as a whole is no longer a perpetual vacation, but it's still generally awesome and I still live in a vacation destination. If I have a productive morning at work, I spend the afternoon skiing at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. Moose sometimes wander through my front yard. At least in the winter, when the cottonwood tree my neighbor is obviously fertilizing with steroids is bare of leaves, when I wash dishes and look out a window I see the Grand Teton. One night last winter, elbow-deep in warm, sudsy water and admiring my mountain view, the snow-spackled peaks pink in the setting sun, I decided it was time to take a vacation — in Jackson Hole.

Even if only for a weekend, I would leave the dishes behind, see a moose without worrying if it was going to eat my new aspen trees, and do something I usually don't: cross-country ski.

Turpin Meadow Ranch is about as far north as you can go in Jackson Hole and still be in Jackson Hole. It's at the back of Buffalo Valley, in the Absaroka Mountains at the eastern base of Togwotee Pass, one of the few weaknesses in the five mountain ranges surrounding Jackson Hole.

We turn from U.S. Route 89/191 onto Buffalo Valley Road. Immediately the snow banks are taller than the road is wide. We drive — the road mostly parallels the Buffalo Fork of the Snake River — until we no longer can. Ten miles. Between November and May, the county plows the road only as far as the ranch. We pull up to its historic log lodge. It has been precisely an hour since we left downtown Jackson, but I feel light years away.

The Tetons are right here, though. As we stand next to a group of parked fat bikes — with 4-inch-wide tires capable of riding on top of packed snow — the range looks so close. I know it's not but I don't question the optical illusion. I check in and pick out rental boots and skis as fast as possible. I'd rather be cross-country skiing and looking up at the Tetons than standing in a parking lot doing the same.

Jackson Hole has long been known as an Alpine ski destination. Snow King Mountain opened several blocks from Jackson's Town Square in 1939. Jackson Hole Mountain Resort opened across the valley in 1965 and, in 2013, was voted by Ski magazine readers as the best overall ski resort in North America. Jackson Hole has Nordic skiing too, though. Turpin Meadow Ranch, opened on Dec. 31, 2013, is Jackson Hole's first destination Nordic ski resort.

The owners of a boutique inn in downtown Jackson, Hans and Nancy Johnstone — who both competed in the biathlon in the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France — partnered with Dan Nordstrom, conservationist and chief executive of gear company Outdoor Research, to resurrect and revamp the historic Turpin Meadow Ranch. The ranch's lodge and eight main cabins date from 1932. When the group bought the property in 2012, it hadn't been used in several years, and its appropriateness to host winter guests had always been questionable considering that the cabins lacked foundations. Heat came from space heaters.

Winterizing the buildings — all of the cabins were lifted, put onto foundations and hooked up with heating and gaslit fireplaces — and adding modern bathrooms onto each took nearly two years. Designing 25 kilometers of cross-country ski trails went much faster.

A benefit of the ranch being at the base of the Absarokas instead of the Tetons is the surrounding terrain. The Tetons explode 7,000 feet up from the valley floor without hesitation. Nordic skiing in the Tetons is either flat or uphill.

Trails at Turpin Meadow roll as they wind through pine forest and open meadows. There are rolls for every skill level. Because my five prior times cross-country skiing started with my edgeless skis slipping out from beneath me and my coccyx (and ego) getting badly bruised, I head for a loop that is rated easy. I allow my boyfriend, Derek, a much better Nordic skier, to accompany me only after he promises to explore a more challenging trail on his own later.

We combine the 3-mile Summer Homes Loop with the Willows Loop and finish just before dusk. I manage the whole thing without once falling! For the last mile, I'm even comfortable enough to look away from the trail. While skiing. This is good, because if I wasn't, I'd have been stuck standing near the bank of the Buffalo Fork of the Snake River staring at the Tetons. It's one of the views you can't tear yourself away from.

Each of these — the river and the mountains — are gorgeous on their own. From the Willows Loop, their sum is much greater than the individual parts. I know Jackson Hole better than a regular vacationer, so I can authoritatively state that this view of the range is one of the best in the entire valley.

I walk into the main lodge ready to share my success with the manager and any other guests who might be hanging out over cookies, served in late afternoon, or wine, beer and cocktails, available all day at a cozy bar. But the dinner menu distracts me. Mixed green salad with a locally made sheep's milk cheese. Risotto and short ribs from a local cow. An apple cobbler for dessert. Best of all? No dishes to do.

Dina Mishev is editor of Inspirato magazine.