There's a line in The Art of Flight, last winter's hit, big-budget snowboarding film, when pro snowboarder Travis Rice and his team are showing their helicopter pilot, on a big map, where they want to be dropped – at the top of a remote peak in the wildest Patagonian backcountry, to ride some of the world's steepest, most isolated, and most terrifying mountain terrain. With wide eyes and a shocked expression, the pilot responds, "What planet the fuck are you from?"

I'm kind of thinking the same thing about Travis when, at 5.30am on a dark, freezing cold morning in his home town of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, I'm getting my gear on and carrying my snowboard to the hotel car park – on his recommendation.

At the start of last season, at the time of release of the game-changing film, which took two years, 2,600 hours of footage (much of it shot with a groundbreaking 1,050-frames-per-second high-definition camera), and an estimated $2m, to make, I interviewed Travis, to get some ideas for the trip to Jackson I had planned.

"Jackson has the best free-riding in North America," he told me. "It's amazing and beautiful. But it's not just the mountains: it has a unique location and weather, and there's a really amazing community here."

Unlike Colorado's and Utah's clustered resorts, Jackson is isolated, sitting at the western reaches of Wyoming, America's 10th-biggest but least populous state, between the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains, near the Yellowstone national park, and the border with Idaho.

"Whistler is amazing but has crazy crowds, with that influx of people coming up from the city [Vancouver]. In Jackson, the nearest city [Salt Lake City] is four hours away. It's cut off so you don't get that influx," Travis said.

Even so, Jackson is a lot busier than it used to be. The first ski runs opened here in the 1960s, on a local hill called Snow King, right next to the old wild west town of Jackson. And while its few slow chair lifts and mellow pistes make for a fun, old-fashioned ski morning, it's now far surpassed by the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, 12 miles north-west of town, which boasts 2,500 acres of inbound riding, 116 trails, summit elevation of 3,185m and a fancy lift system, plus average annual snowfall of 459 inches (11.65m).

When Travis talks about the amazing freeriding, though, he's referring to the surrounding terrain, in Grand Teton national park and its 50-mile long Teton Range, backcountry for which Jackson has become renowned among serious skiers. There are some very challenging lines, called things like Death Canyon and Apocalypse, as well as the famous Grand Teton, that involve touring long distances, vertical ascents with ropes and ice axes, and overnight camping.

So when I asked Travis where I should ride, to get a taste of what locals do, I was thankful he suggested an easier option: "The Pass. It's a really great place to ride if you don't feel like paying for a lift ticket. You just drive up to the top of the Pass, hike up the hill, and there's 30-40 slopes you can ride back down to the road. Then you hitch-hike back up to the start."

So my boyfriend and I find ourselves shivering and stamping our feet under a starry sky at 7am by the side of the Teton Pass Highway, the main road out of Jackson towards Idaho, hooking our equipment on to backpacks as dawn creeps over the horizon. Many of Jackson's service workers live over the state border in Idaho, where property is cheaper, so hiking the pass for a quick blast through the trees is just something they do on their way to work, much like a morning jog.

One of them is Eric Henderson, "Hende", who shows us the way. We stomp along behind him up through the forest beside a popular run, Glory Bowl. After climbing for an hour and 20 minutes he insists we rest at the top in a little igloo-like hut, covered with snow and invisible from the outside. These huts are apparently dotted all over the mountains and used by local snowboarders to enjoy a beer or a spliff as well as to shelter from blizzards.

Our descent lasts just 10 minutes but is fabulous, with deep powder and no one else in sight, and we easily hitch a ride back to our car. Then we drive into Idaho for breakfast, because we like saying we're driving to Idaho for breakfast, and because we've heard good things about the pancakes and French toast at Sun Dog Cafe in Victor.

A ski trip to western America is not like an Alpine holiday. In the forests around Jackson, encountering a bear is a real possibility, and as we sit on the ski bus one day the driver is radioed a message: "There's a moose lurking around the junction. Be careful!"

Short of a few gunslingers (though there are plenty here who look the type), the wild west is still seemingly alive and well, and it's not surprising that Quentin Tarantino shot scenes in his new film Django Unchained here. Many 1800s facades remain, and there are dozens of shops selling western antiques, Native American turquoise and silver jewellery and crafts (Cayuse stocks authentic Sioux fringed leather tunics), and Pendelton blankets.

In the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar, housed in an 1890s building on the main square and a bar since the 1930s, western memorabilia covers the walls, the bar top is inlaid with silver dollars, the bar stools are made from saddles, and Hank Williams, Glen Campbell and Willie Nelson have all played. I'd choose it for my last beer on earth.

And then there's The Wort, still the best, most historic, hotel in town. It was a once a gambling den, and has cowgirl-themed suites, mooseheads on the wall and live bluegrass on Tuesdays. The Wort family who created it in the 1940s are considered local heroes.

Jackson has always been a town of heroes, though now they tend to be of the wintersports variety. The earliest were among the Shoshone and Blackfoot Native Americans who hunted in the valley for centuries before the first beaver trappers arrived in the early 19th century. Explorers, scientists and map makers came in the 1870s, and bachelor homesteaders arrived in 1884, later followed by families. In the 1900s came the first dude ranchers, offering a "western experience" to wealthy east-coasters.

There have been rodeo stars and wranglers, mountaineers and adventurers. And characters like Paul Petzoldt, who brought the town fame when he claimed the (much debated) first ascent of the 4,197m Grand Teton in 1924, at the age of 16, in cowboy boots; and the five women who ran the all-female town council in the 1920s with what was called "petticoat power". A touch of liberalism in redneck territory.

Today there's a strong huntin', shootin' and fishin' lifestyle thing going on still (Wyoming is staunchly Republican, and 96% white), and taxidermy is so prolific in Jackson that you might want to avoid going shopping there if you're a member of Peta – or "People Eat Tasty Animals" as the T-shirts in the local giftshops have it. They also sell stuffed arctic foxes, bears, hats made from racoons with their faces left on, chairs made from old guns, and even a Barbie-sized canoe paddled by three stuffed squirrels – perfect for the mantelpiece.

But it does have its alternative side, with galleries, skate shops, independent breweries, and the Lotus Cafe, a raw/veggie/organic/healthfood cafe where I have a fantastic coconut and cashew vegetable biryani.

There are lots of good Asian restaurants. Travis's favourite is Teton Thai in the resort village, where we have a most delicious meal.

"I love this place so much they wanted to name a dish after me," he says. "You know, like the Travis rice. But I told them it has to be noodles. I just prefer the noodles ..."

One night I'm invited to attend Goat (goatevent.com), a networking weekend that's like a mini TED on snow. Among the charity workers, eco-activists, internet entrepreneurs and artists, Travis is there. He tells me about his website, the Asymbol Gallery (asymbolgallery.com), which sells graffiti- and skate-influenced artwork and boardsports photography. He's also created a new snowboarding competition, Supernatural, which, funnily enough, he has just won, and has a classy new cocktail bar, The Rose, in Jackson's old pink playhouse. He's certainly making the most of his opportunities, and of living in a town with lots of dollars sloshing around.

For Jackson is an increasingly prosperous resort. Harrison Ford and Calista Flockhart own property here, Uma Thurman, Sandra Bullock and Justin Timberlake come, as does former World Bank president James Wolfensohn. We meet people who work from home, but in high level finance. The affluent are arriving in droves.

Whether that's because they like visiting the national elk sanctuary, or because of Wyoming's tax breaks and complete lack of state income tax, I wouldn't dare to guess. But the laid-back outdoors enthusiasts who also live here, only on a budget, are worried about increasing property prices, and hope Jackson won't go the way of blingy Aspen, with its heated pavements.

For them, this town is still all about the wilderness. To explore it myself, I hire a guide, Brendan, for a day, to explore the off-piste terrain within the resort, hiking Cody Peak, Powder Eight, and Four Pines several times for steep and deep powder runs. (All these slopes are visible from the lifts, however, and could be found by following locals.) There is plenty of unpisted terrain within the resort boundary, but those who hire a guide are allowed to hike, ski tour or splitboard into Teton national park.

That the snowboarding skills of one of the world's best riders were borne of such incredible landscapes, figures. As Travis says: "The kids get real good real fast here."

Son of a local ski patroller, Travis switched from skiing to snowboarding at five, was backflipping off cat-tracks at 10, and has spent the past decade winning big air competitions and jumping out of moving helicopters for his films. He also had a helping hand.

Back in the early 1990s, when snowboarding was just developing out of the southern Californian skate-scene, one of the new sport's stars, Bryan Iguchi, or "The Guch", shocked his peers by announcing he was quitting California and moving to little-known, middle-of-nowhere Jackson. His sponsor, snowboard maker Burton, promptly dropped him.

The fact that the Guch now works at one of Jackson's Japanese restaurants, Sudachi Sushi, might suggest the story ended there, but the world eventually came around to his idea that snowboarding, even freestyle, should be about the mountains, not just the board park. As local guide Zahan Billimoria puts it: "The industry had no clue that idea had traction. But they were totally wrong. The Art of Flight shows the proof is in the pudding. It's borne from what Bryan started 15 years ago."

When I meet Bryan for a day's riding, he explains. "I came here in '95 with kind of a vision. I grew up in southern California where the mountains are featureless, so we decided we'd build board parks to do jumps, and it really accelerated the progression of riding. But my dream was to find a place that had natural terrain to ride, and I found that in Jackson. In the beginning it was just seen as this extreme, skiers' place."

Having visited on a school trip aged 17, he moved there four years later, after travelling the world for competitions and photo shoots,– though he still does that now, as well as the sushi.

"It turned out to be even better than I remembered, the unlimited backcountry. I had a vision of riding the mountain like a park. To be honest I might not have fulfilled what I thought the potential was myself, but Travis has definitely exceeded it."

The Guch spotted Travis young and became his mentor, taking him on his first trips into the backcountry, by snowmobile.

The day we meet, sadly, the powder has turned to slush, so going into the backcountry is out, but The Guch says he doesn't necessarily need to do the "biggest, gnarliest things" out in the wild. I follow him around the resort slopes, steep tree runs, natural half pipes like Dick's Ditch, parks and paths, watching him pull tricks off everything and dance into the air.

"I still have that skateboard mentality," he says, "looking for features to hit."

He likes doing a long line straight down, with "a couple of thousand feet of jumping opportunities", from the infamous Corbet's Couloir, a steep chute reached by dropping in from an overhang a couple of metres above. I proudly admit I did it earlier in the week. Travis did it aged six, apparently.

"The kids starting out now are going to have so much fun," he says. "When I came here it was a very small snowboarding scene. It's now my 17th season. During that time Jackson Hole has slowly been put on the snowboarders' map, largely thanks to Travis. But snowboarders were always the underdogs and I like that, the subculture. I hope Jackson keeps living slightly in the shadow, even though I doubt it will lose what it is. There's a lifetime's amount to explore here, and I love it like I did the first time I started."

I couldn't agree more, and so we head off for one more run.

• Flights were provided by American Airlines (0844 499 7300, americanairlines.co.uk), which flies to Jackson Hole via Dallas or Denver from £650. Accommodation was provided by The Alpine House (+1 307 739 1570, alpinehouse.com, doubles from $145), The Wort Hotel (+1 800 322 2727, worthotel.com, doubles from $209) and Hotel Terra (+1 307 739 4000, hotelterrajacksonhole.com, doubles from $335. Snow + Rock (snowandrock.com) lent Gemma a T-Rice Lib Tech snowboard. Read more about the resort at jacksonholehistory.org