A range of soaring mountains rising thousands of metres direct from the valley floor above sparkling blue lakes and sagebrush-covered plains. But the absolute highlight was a close encounter with a black bear!
We flew into Salt Lake City from Seattle, picked up a rental car and drove to Park City on the east side of the city in preparation for the drive north the following day.
Impressive views, flying in, of the Great Salt Lake that gives the city its name.
We were exhausted after all the travelling but the jet lag served us well, enabling us to make an early start for Grand Teton.
We had decided to eat breakfast on the way and stopped at Jody's Diner in Evanston. This is a real locals place and on a Sunday morning was very popular. Andrew had French Toast with bacon and eggs, I ordered corned beef hash which also came with hash browns and eggs! Needless to say I couldn't manage all of it. A very good breakfast to set us up for the rest of the drive north.
In the Jackson Hole area we started to pass through towns, many with arches made from hundreds of elk horns. The town of Jackson was heaving with people. The central area looked quite nice but we had no plans to stop here; it's a popular ski town in winter and obviously just as popular with tourists in the summer.
We drove straight through and stopped at Moose where we bought park passes at the Visitor Centre. We took the $80 annual, all-parks pass as we were going on to Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks.
It was way too early to check in to our hotel so we decided to take a leisurely look in the park on the way.
We drove along the Teton Park Road past Jenny Lake, stopping at a few viewpoints, before heading to Jackson Lake Lodge. At Cascade Canyon Turnout we walked a little way into the brush to get better photographs. Very scrubby landscape and coniferous forest below the mountains.
We were staying at Jackson Lake Lodge, in a Moose Pond View room which meant we had a fabulous view across the plain to the Grand Teton Mountains.
Food wasn't great there - we had a poor meal in the Mural room, my bison steak was tough and the less said about the split Bearnaise sauce the better. Breakfast in the Pioneer Grill was excellent though.
Our room had a really nice place to sit outside with binoculars watching for any wildlife, shaded for most of the day. More animals come out in the evening than during the day - chipmunks, ground squirrels, pika which look like guinea pigs, once a mule deer (I think) and half a dozen or so female/young elk in the distance.
In the park itself we saw a few bison, elk, deer, lots of dead raccoons on the roads, and a lot of cattle.
An early start to get to Colter Bay for 7a.m. It was a glorious morning and the views across the lake were fabulous. Just as we set off a bald eagle swooped low over the lake beside the boat and off towards the mountains.
It was maybe a 40 minute boat trip to the island on the calmest of waters, detouring across to the western side of the lake for better views. The boat was quite small, maybe twenty passengers, and the guide gave a very good commentary all the way on the history of the park and its wildlife. For instance did you know that moose have no sweat glands so they spend most of the warm summer months in water to keep cool!
Breakfast, cooked outside over open fire, was superb. A huge range of cooked foods of which the trout, sausages and potatoes were particularly good.
We enjoyed it so much we went back for more! The trout was easily the best we had on the whole holiday. We saw a lot of fish in the lake.
After breakfast we walked up a trail to a great viewpoint over the lake. Down in the forest two fox cubs were curled up asleep.
Straight back to Colter Bay village, we'd been out for about two and a half hours - a really good start to the day.
The Cathedral Group is the name given to the three peaks of Teewinot, Grand Teton and Mount Owen.
Jenny Lake is the second largest lake in the park after Jackson Lake, both formed by glacial action. The lake gets its name from the Shoshone Indian wife of Richard "Beaver Dick" Leigh (who also gave his name to Leigh Lake in the park) who assisted the Hayden Expedition of 1872.
When the glaciers receded around 12,000 years ago, native people moved into the area which became home to many tribes. As well as the Shoshone people there were Blackfoot, Crow, Flathead and Nez Perce and many others. These were hunter-gatherers who moved seasonally with the game that they killed for food, fur and materials such as bone for toolmaking.
Europeans began to make an appearance in the early nineteenth century, exploring the region or trapping its animals for fur. Unfortunately they also brought disease such as smallpox, which killed Jenny Leigh and her six children.2
The Snake River flows through the valley of Jackson Hole, the region in which the Grand Teton Range of mountains lies. It is the longest tributary of the Columbia River at over 1,000 miles, rising in Yellowstone NP, entering Jackson Lake at its northern tip and flowing out of the lake on its east side where the Jackson Lake Dam is located.
The Snake River was the subject of a famous Ansel Adams photograph. Taken from the Snake River Overlook it showed the river literally snaking its way through the landscape with the mountains in the background. Ansel Adams had been hired in 1941 to photograph the area and his photographs were used in the successful proposal to include Jackson Hole in Grand Teton National Park, to the dismay of local ranchers. The Snake River Overlook photograph was taken in 1942. Since then tree growth in particular has made it impossible to reproduce the shot - the light and time of year were wrong too and couldn't get into exactly the right location, Adams seemed to have more elevation so may have used his tripod on top of his car.
The park is a popular destination for mountaineers, skiers and hikers - there are many trails to explore though there are serious warnings about being bear-aware!
One evening we drove up Signal Mountain for the views - we'd read it was best late in the day and this is true of the view east across the plain of the Snake River far below.
But the view west is better in the early morning.
So early the next morning, before breakfast, we drove back up Signal Mountain. We saw lots of elk on the way.
The glaciers retreated around 12,000 years ago leaving a landscape of mountains, deep canyons, lakes and wetlands. Lodgepole pine forest and a sea of sage brush thrive in the conditions.
On the way down, the only car on the road, a black bear nonchalantly emerged from the forest on our right hand side and ambled across the road, just a few metres in front of where we stopped. It was our first bear sighting and absolutely amazing.
We were doubly lucky in that, once on the other side, he turned down towards the car rather than going straight ahead into the trees.
The animal took no notice of us at all, snuffled among the grass and fallen trees, meandering around, looking for food.
As it was very early in the day it was quite dark in the forest so difficult to get good shots, especially as the bear was moving almost all of the time, but still managed to get one or two decent ones.
Eventually he disappeared up the slope into the trees. The undisputed highlight of our visit to the park!
