grand teton 

national park

Visited: Oct. 1st, 2023

Bopped down to the Tetons this weekend because I was in need of some fall foliage!! Typically the Grand Teton foliage peak is in the last week of September and I think I timed it right because the aspens were out in full force!! My heart was pretty full. 

It was only a quick lil solo trip so not much of a writeup, but I can add that I camped out in Signal Mountain Campground on Jackson Lake and it was gorgeous! The sites are pretty close together, but I really liked that they had bear safe containers right at the site to use. 

I started on a fall foliage hike on Aspen Ridge loop to Boulder Ridge, but I ended up turning around due to a pretty close frisky moose encounter and the weather starting to change up. Saw my first two bull moose and lots of good leaves so all in all still hecka good vibes & am thankful for the trip. 

Aspen Ridge, Grand Teton National Park

Elevation Gain: ~800 feet 

Length: ~6.1mi loop 

Difficulty: Easy

Time: ~2-3

Note(s): 

Visited: Sept, 2022

Visited the Tres Teets with some of the Bozeman gang for Labor Day weekend! We stayed in the Curtis Canyon Campground and it was quite literally one of the worst roads I've seen in my entire life (I honestly think it was worse than the road up to Fairy Lake in Bozeman). We didn't even try to get lil Sparky up the road- so if you're lookin to stay here definitely be mindful about if your car can make it or not. I would also like to take this moment to endorse Gab for her skillful truck driving. 

Highlights of the trip:

Delta Lake via Lupine Meadows, Teton National Park

Elevation Gain: 2300 feet 

Length: ~7.4 miles out & back

Difficulty: Medium (i died going up this, but I think my iron was low) 

Time: ~4.5 hours

Note(s): 

Visited: August, 2021

What better place to spend a birthday other than the one and only Grand Teton National Park?  The Grand Tetons are about 4 hours south of Bozeman and when Santoro and Monica graced me with there presence I could think of no better place to drag them. I was obviously drawn to the Tetons for its stunning views, but my primary motivation for visiting the park was in a draw to see a moose.  Both the Tetons and Yellowstone have pretty strong moose populations, but the Tetons being a smaller park made the possibility of seeing one much more real to me. Somehow moose had escaped me in both Yellowstone and all my time in the Adirondacks and I was determined to not go another year without seeing one of the majestic creatures (spoiler alert I saw one). 

We only managed to spend about a day and a half in the park and I have been itching to go visit there again. I have some plans to venture down that way again this summer and will have some more pictures and hike recommendations coming your way as soon as I do!!  Until then feel free to check out what we were up to with our time spent in the Tetons :) 

monton, santoro and I @ jenny lake

The Tetons are a very unique and distinct looking mountain range due to their jagged appearance, but the history of these rocks is even more unique than they appear. The Teton range tops the charts in being both old and young. A majority of the mountain ranges in the Rockies were formed approximately 50 million years ago, but the Tetons are the youngest in the entire mountain collective being formed a mere 10 million years ago by a still active Teton fault line. What is crazier to me is that despite being one of the youngest mountain ranges in the entire world, it is home to some of the oldest rocks in the world. The park is dominated by two types of rock: Metamorphic Gneiss and an Igneous Granite. 2.7 billion year-old gneiss had molten magma squeeze into its cracks that later cooled into granite approximately 2.5 billion years ago. When the Tectonic plates collided, the old rock buried up to 18 miles deep was thrusted to the surface. Some of the history of these rocks can still be seen on the Tetons today in the stripes visible on the range. The Tetons were later carved out by Glaciers to obtain its beautiful appearance we see today. 

References: https://thefactfile.org/grand-teton-national-park-facts/ , https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/87843/grand-teton-national-park#:~:text=About%2010%20million%20years%20ago,20%2C000%20feet)%20forming%20the%20valley. ,  https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/grte/grte_geology/sec1.htm , https://www.nps.gov/grte/learn/nature/geology.htm#:~:text=A%202.7%20billion%2Dyear%20old,Asia%20today%20forming%20the%20Himalayas

So what the heck is a Teton? The Tetons got their name from early French voyagers who referred to the range as "les Trois Tetons" which translates roughly to "The Three Breasts". However, the French voyagers were not the first humans in the area. Artifacts have been linked to the nomadic tribes of the Paleo-Indians entrance to the valley relatively close to the Glaciers withdraw from the area 11,000 years ago. 

References: https://thefactfile.org/grand-teton-national-park-facts/ , https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/grand-teton-national-park-is-established#:~:text=Other%20adventurers%20followed%20in%20Colter's,%E2%80%9Cbig%20breasts%E2%80%9D%20in%20French. 

oxbow bend

oxbow bend

I could geek out on the history of the Tetons for awhile, but I must talk about what areas I'd recommend people to check out if they were to visit today! A  lot of beauty is extremely accessible to the park visitors from the road alone. A majority of the road through Grand Teton National Park offers stunning views of the range from all angles. One of the most recognizable views in the park, Oxbow Bend, offers jaw dropping views of both the river and the Teton Range right from the side of the road.

Alas I don't know if you can really say you visited a national park if you didn't get out of your car and hike a little. Mon-ton, Santoro and I partook on one of the most popular hikes in the park because a ranger advised me the views were spectacular and that it was pretty much impossible not to see a moose on this trail. What is super cool about getting to the trail head is that you can opt to either hike 2 miles around Jenny lake or take a boat across the lake to the trail head. We opted to take a luxurious boat ride on the beautiful day and were rewarded with getting to watch black bears just across the stream of the loading dock, stunning views, and a lil rainbow forming from the water spraying on the side of the boat. 10/10 would recommend. 

Anyhoot the hikes we combined were to the Hidden Lake falls, Inspiration point, and through the Cascade Canyon. All of these hikes can connect and we were blessed with the most beautiful views. I can definitely see why the ranger reccomended this hike to us when I mentioned I wanted to see a moose because in hiking through Cascade Canyon I can undoubtedly say I will never see that much moose poop again in my life. Our hike rewarded us with views of a beautiful falls, an overlook of jenny lake, insane mountainous views streamside, and animal sightings of both a sleeping bear in the sun and a moose (albeit a little too close for my liking). 

Hidden Falls, Teton National Park

Elevation Gain: 200 feet 

Length: ~1 mile out & back

Difficulty: Easy

Time: ~1 hours

Note(s): 

Hidden falls is extremely pretty, but I was a bit disappointed to find the area near the base of the falls fenced off from visitors. I'm assuming this is due to some humans being absolute dummies in nature, but one of my favorite parts about visiting falls is getting close enough to the base to really hear the water roar. Speaking of humans being dummies: MOOSE ARE EXTREMELY DANGEROUS SO DO NOT APPROACH THEM. Their main attack method is stomping on people with their sharp hooves so it doesn't matter if you are in an area with a bull or a cow- either can still f you up.  If you are going on this trail please recognize that moose generally attack more people than bears do so please stay your distance and DON'T try to pet them kiddos ;) 

Inspiration Point, Teton National Park

Elevation Gain: 450 feet 

Length: ~2 miles out & back

Difficulty: Easy/Med (I bet my mom could do it) 

Time: ~1.5 hours

Note(s): 

Cascade Canyon, Teton National Park

Elevation Gain: 2700 feet 

Length: ~9 miles out & back

Difficulty: Med (no notable overly steep areas)

Time: ~4.5 hours

Note(s): 

a glacier!!!! 

santoro approx. 1 min after seeing a moose

*bonus Grand Teton history content*

I was extremely surprised to learn that the Grand Tetons had ties to a famous New Yorker. John D. Rockefeller Jr., yes the son of the Rockefeller plaza-oil tycoon-world philanthropist guy, fell in love with the area in the late 1920s and later purchased 35,000 acres of federal land in the area with preservation on the mind. Grand Teton National Park was first established in 1929 and Rockefeller Jr. had aspirations to add this federal land to the existing park. 

Despite well intentions, Rockefeller received a TON of pushback from the Wyoming State government in fear of "exploitation and driving citizens out". As a result, the government would not take the land for about a decade. In 1942 Rockefeller Jr. had enough of this and wrote the Interior Secretary for FDR with a threat to sell his holdings to the highest bidder if the government would not finally act on the proposed donated land.  FDR took action to adopt and protect the land as a national monument, but received more pushback from Wyoming Senators and newspaper columnists declaring it a "foul, sneaking Pearl Harbor Blow" and comparing it to Hitler's annexation of Austria. However, in 1950 the land donated by Rockefeller Jr. was finally adopted by the national park under reign of President Harry S. Truman with the concession that the federal government could not establish any further national monuments in Wyoming using the act that FDR did. Today Rockefeller Jr. is honored with the parkway connecting the south entrance of Yellowstone and the Tetons being named " John D. Rockefeller Jr." in his honor. 

References: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/12/04/rockefeller-and-the-secret-land-deals-that-created-grand-tetons-national-park/