Wednesday September 23: Finishing Up Grand Teton National Park

Yesterday's goal was basically to GET to the park. Today was the day to really explore what it had to offer.

The room at Heart Six Ranch was what you might have expected from a ranch. Log cabin and all. But fun :-)



First stop (after breakfast at the Buffalo Cafe of course) was the visitor center back at Jackson Hole. There was a 3-D relief of the park which really made it easy to see how this mountain range is unique.

There are no foothills at all on the Eastern edge of the range due to the manner in which the forces that formed the mountain interacted - one plate sliding completely under the second one.

So the Grand Tetons seem to just rise right out of the valley floor (which is called a 'hole' - hence Jackson Hole).

Downtown are the visible results of all of the elk that come south from Yellowstone to winter in Jackson Hole on the National Elk Refuge.

Thousand of elk escape the high ground (and 12 feet of snow of their Yellowstone home) and spend the winter here.

Come spring, the males all shed their antlers (which will regrow quickly). The boy scouts scour the refuge to pick up the shed antlers and auction them off as a fund raiser. And what else would you do with them but make an arch?!

 There are still glaciers on the highest peaks but nothing like years past of course.

And nothing like what was around thousands of years ago as the glaciers were forming the landscape of this area. It's amazing how much we have learned today!!

Steve with a life sized moose near the visitor center. We really don't expect to see one of these but you never know, right?

Mt. Moran was one of the highlights today as we traveled north to south with the morning sun providing a very different view than yesterday traveling south to north with an afternoon sun.

Crystal clear waters of Jenny Lake

The changing colors of the aspen trees were even more pronounced with the morning sunshine.


And we made great use of the planning guide provided at the entrance to the park (which by the way for seniors is $10 for a LIFETIME pass to any national park!!! What a bargain).

For some interesting background on how Jackson Hole became a part of the the original Grand Teton National Park, click here.

Bottom line was the congress couldn't agree (and you thought to only happened under Obama :-) ) so President Roosevelt simply created the Grand Teton Monument (which didn't require congressional approval)! Quite interesting though and a great thank you to John D. Rockefeller for spending $1.3 million to purchase lands in Jackson Hole which he then donated to the federal government.

Done with Grand Teton - time to head another hour or so north to Yellowstone.



We were staying in a cabin near Yellowstone Lake that was built in the 1920's. Maybe it's the same one my Grandma Drouhard stayed in when she came out this direction!

Not sure what this cabin was going to look like - I mean really - almost 100 years old???

No TV, no phone, no hair dryer - but a keurig coffee maker - go figure :-) Just a bed, a small table with 2 wood chairs. Shower, no tub. Sink in the main room. What's not to like!

Perfect by our standards (actually a lot nicer than some places we've stayed :-))






Tomorrow: off to look for wildlife - we have very high expectations of seeing buffalo, elk, wolves, bear, deer. You name it, we expect to see it!!