Grand!
Grand! Grand!
Part
I
The
Majesty of the Tetons
The
Trip – Day 17
Rexburg,
Idaho – Dubois, Wyoming
The
Grand Tetons National Park
195
miles
When
planning this trip, in paring down the twenty plus parks on our long
list of places to visit, it was a toss-up between Yellowstone and the
Grand Tetons. The Yellowstone website warned of major road repair
during the summer of 2016, and any in-the-park lodging would had to
have been booked a year in advance. Fearing a 160 mile traffic jam
if we tried to do Yellowstone as a drive-through, we struck it from
our list and opted instead to check out the nearby Grand Tetons.
Great decision! The Grand Tetons National Park was to become my
favorite place on our road trip. It had snow-capped mountains, clear
lakes, easy hiking trails, non-stop vistas, and encounters with
people who had interesting stories. I've combined two days of travel
into a single post twice now, but this is the first time I feel
obligated to split one day of travel reporting into two days of
posts. Part I will be about the drop-dead beauty of the Grand Teton
area itself; Part II will be about people encounters.
|
"Back" of the Tetons, in Idaho, approaching the Teton Pass |
We
set out early in the morning from Rexburg, headed toward the Teton
Pass, a steep, twisty, non-interstate road that would take us into
Jackson, Wyoming, and the entrance to the Grand Tetons National Park.
We saw the “back” of the signature Teton peaks approaching us as
we drove through what remained of Idaho. A scenic drive itself, this
route took us through a river valley before entering the mountain
pass overlooking Jackson Hole, the valley below the Grand Tetons.
The most iconic section of the Teton range was once a single
mountain, but ages of erosion created the craggy individual peaks
that exist today. Part of the incredible majesty of the Tetons is
that they are viewed from the Snake River “valley” running along
their base. Despite the already 6,200+ feet of elevation of the
valley, the mountains appear to soar up higher than their 7,000+ feet
from the valley floor. That, along with the pine-covered mountains
rising into rocky, snow-capped peaks (more accurately, glacier-capped
peaks), make for breathtakingly spectacular views. While the red
rocks and canyons of Zion and the Grand Canyon had shouted loudly of
God's grandeur, as did the granite cliffs and waterfalls of Yosemite,
the Grand Tetons speak in a loud hush of His power and beauty and
creative ability. ("...awe...some...")
|
THE Grand Teton |
We
spent the day driving the length of the park, about 50 miles of
non-stop scenic views, going from overlook to overlook, stopping at a tiny
historic village, hiking along some of the valley lakes, and soaking
in the incredible mountain vistas. The weather was perfect – cool and
clear – making for some of the most pleasant hiking of the trip.
We started out at a small historic village, Menor's Homestead and
Ferry, consisting of a small general store, a cabin, a barn and a few
out buildings along the Snake River. There was a replica of the
ferry used to take people across the Snake in the early 1900s, one
that would be used later in the summer to take visitors across the
river in the same fashion. The docent at the general store had just
baked a batch of peanut butter cookies in the store's old fashioned
oven and was giving out the still-warm treats to the visitors as they came through.
The barn housed a covered wagon and other modes of transportation
from the era. Nearby the little village was the Chapel of the
Transfiguration, a small log cabin church built in the 1920s, still
functioning as an Episcopal place of worship each Sunday.
|
Chapel of the Transfiguration |
|
The ferry |
|
Menor's General Store |
Farther
up the road we found a picnic area to eat our hikers' lunch and
afterward walked along a lake path, a varied, relatively level trail,
sometimes wooded, sometimes open, following the shore of long, skinny
String Lake, a crystal clear body of water. There were swimmers and
kayakers along some sections of it, and nothing but waterbirds along
other sections of it, and the endless Teton range along all of it.
We walked as far as the rocky stream that joined String Lake to the
larger Leigh Lake, sharing the path with canoers who were portaging
from one lake to the other. We returned to the picnic area along the
same path, but now seeing that mountain range I couldn't get enough of
from the opposite direction.
|
String Lake |
|
Looking toward Leigh Lake |
|
Coulter Bay, off of Jackson Lake |
|
Tailwaters of the Jackson Lake Dam |
We
did a bit more driving along the park road, traveling up to the
Jackson Lake Dam, where the Snake River, having entered the large and
beautiful Jackson Lake 15 miles to the north, flows out of the lake
before continuing south to Jackson Hole. The tailwaters of the dam
were lined with fisherpersons, some women, many with fly rods. This
would not be the last time during our trek through Wyoming that I
would regret not having stashed a fly rod in the trunk of the car,
“just in case”. We continued up Jackson Lake to Coulter Bay
Village, a peninsula with a marina and walking trails and more views
of the lake and, of course, those ever-present mountains. Alas, it
was getting late and we still had 60 miles to drive to our motel, so
we had to forego the hike along the peninsula and head east. The
drive out away from the park and into the western part of Wyoming was scenic in its own way, weaning us gently off the overwhelming beauty we
had been surrounded with all day. The state route followed the Wind
River to the small town of Dubois, our stop for the night, screaming
“Trout!” most of the way, though my husband didn't seem to hear
it. The Trail's End Motel, an old-fashioned log cabin strip motel in Dubois, had a
somewhat small, but wonderfully clean and cool room with such a
beautiful deck area along the same Wind River (still screaming
“Trout!” at me, and now whispering “Fishing without a license
doesn't really make you a poacher...”) that I forgave it for the
gun shop they had attached to the main lobby.
|
Wyoming, east of the park |
All
I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for all I have not seen.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Next:
Grand!
Grand! Grand!
Part
II
The
Trip – Day 17
Rexburg,
Idaho – Dubois, Wyoming
The
Grand Tetons National Park
195
miles
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