Grand Teton National Park
Wyoming
Friday, August 17, 2018
Smoky, 88°
“I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery — air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, ‘This is what it is to be happy.’” Sylvia Path
There was a beautiful sunrise over Yellowstone Lake as we made our way to Grand Teton National Park.
Sunrise over Yellowstone Lake
The campground in Teton was a first come, first serve facility so it was imperative that anyone wanting a campsite that night get there early to get one of the few open sites. The NPS web site said that campgrounds usually fill up by 11 in the morning.
Grand Teton sign
Arriving about ten o’clock, we were able to get the last campsite but could not “check-in” until one in the afternoon. That gave us plenty of time to drive through the park and Jackson Hole valley. We spent the morning in the town of Jackson where we ate breakfast, walked around, and shopped for groceries. It also gave us the opportunity to wash off all the dirt from the drive through Alaska and Canada’s unpaved roads.
The town of Jackson has not changed much since my last visit; the iconic elk antler arches around the town park have been there since the local Rotary Club erected the first arch in 1953 on the southwest corner.
Jackson Square Antler Arch
The other three corners of George Washington Memorial Park, more commonly called the Town Square, were erected between 1966 and 1969. The antlers have a lifespan of about thirty to forty years and the arches are replaced as they get dingy or start to decompose. During the holiday season the arches are lighted, giving a nice glow to the snow and surroundings.
There are many shops around the square and on the side streets giving visitors a chance to find art work, jewelry, western themed clothing, as well as, the hard to find one of a kind pieces at the specialty shops.
Mark Twain Street sculpture by Gary Lee Price (Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer, & Becky Thacher)
Summer seems to be just as busy as the winter season when the ski resorts are in operation. The main road leading south out of town has grown to a five lane thoroughfare filled with strip malls, grocery stores and other shops seemingly losing the small town feel that Jackson once had. The area around the square looks basically the same but is more crowded with people and new businesses everywhere.
Driving out of town back across the valley on the Elk Preserve, in the distance, one could see several herds of elk in the fields.
Elk along road
Re-entering the park at Moose Junction, we took the less traveled road west toward Jenny Lake and away from the busy highway.
Grand Teton Range
Driving along the lake loop, the mountain scenery was magnificent as the Teton Mountains rose to over 12,000 feet in elevation. The hanging glaciers still visible but, like all glaciers seen on this trip, had receded a great deal.
Jenny Lake
They are still beautiful but show the signs of Global Warming as they shrink in size year after year. On the way back to the campground, we saw several small herds of Pronghorn Antelope walking about several hundred feet off the roadway.
Arriving back at Colter Bay Campground, check-in went smoothly and we felt lucky to have gotten a site for the night, as like many of the National Park campgrounds in summer, it fills to capacity each day. It has been great, on this trek, to see families out camping with their children or grandchildren getting them outside to do activities, sit around the picnic table eating, or playing board games together. There is nothing like sitting around a campfire at night telling stories, making s’mores, or just watching the flames dance around the logs slowly turning them to embers.
There were a couple of bear sightings in and around the campground close to the marina; so many people were trying to get close enough to snap a photo or two. I think the bears are somewhat conditioned to people as there were no incidents but people tend to forget these animals are powerful and can charge you at over 30 miles an hour so outrunning them is futile. To finish out the afternoon it was laundry day once again so the nice laundry facilities were appreciated. Being on the road for months at a time gives one an appreciation of how easy it is to do laundry at home. Many campgrounds have laundry facilities but some do not have enough equipment and waiting lines are sometimes the norm as you wait to do your chores on the road.
I have a tendency to change towels and sheets every three days so it has been a constant battle to find a nice laundry to keep up. Also, in packing lighter you have to do clothes more often than you would at home where you have more choices to wear. Oddly, either way, you seem to pack more clothes and shoes than you typically need or wear.
Yellowstone and Grand Teton are close together so it was nice having a fairly restful day taking care of groceries and chores with still enough time to kick back and relax a bit talking to other campers. It was a restful night’s sleep in anticipation of a long day of driving to the next location that was made famous in a movie long ago. It is something I have wanted to see for many years now.
It was over a seven hour drive to cross most of North Central Wyoming as we traveled through Casper and other small towns along the way. Before leaving Grand Teton, we saw a black bear walking across a small field toward some berry bushes. People had stopped to take pictures and left plenty of room between one another so as not to cause any danger to anyone. The bear lazily made his way, lumbering along his trail, to the berries.
It was not long after leaving the Park that we saw another bear, a grizzly, walking along the hillside not far from the road. He was about half way up the hill walking in our direction. We almost missed seeing him as he blended into the dry, grassy hillside.
It was a long day driving but it was somewhat broken up as there were pronghorn antelope starting to appear on each side of the road.
Pronghorn Antelope
There were one or two here and there and small herds of fifteen to twenty scattered about. Some grazed while others lay beside the road resting in the sunshine. The sky still had the smoky, brownish haze we had seen for weeks due to the forest fires.
Driving across Wyoming there were many areas where drilling and fracking for natural gas or oil was taking place. There were active seismic crews working in the fields along the road in several places and small pump stations or working process stations in the distance, maybe a half a mile off the highway. The impact to the land and surroundings seemed to be minimal, as the debate on energy continues across America. We saw an abundance of wildlife that did not seem to be affected by the work being done around them.
As we neared the destination the anticipation for the first view, of what was surely a one of a kind place in America, grew. The roads leading to this place keep you from seeing anything until you are only several miles away. You come up over a hill and there is a turnout on each side of the road with a sign telling you about Devils Tower which sits off in the distance.
Devils Tower History Sign
Devils Tower first view – Fire smoke haze
It was another magnificent sight on this trip.
The Devils Tower KOA campground, just outside the gate to the Monument, had a great view of the monolith less than a half mile away.
Campground view of Devils Tower
The campground has had a continuous showing of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” since the movie’s debut many years ago. The only drawback was microwave popcorn from the camp store and not the good movie popcorn found in theaters.
There were several restaurants in the area but we arrived too late in the evening and all were closed. It was time for a simple dinner before hitting the sack for some much needed rest after driving all day, Traveling Life’s Highways.