Grand Tetons

I’m still thinking about Lava Hot Springs, and what a great place that was. You can tube on the Portneuf River that runs through town, and there were a few hardy (crazy) kids doing that in the rapids of the cold spring runoff. When we left there, we went to Heise Hot Springs for a night, but they only had one cloudy, sulphery hot pool. Made us appreciate the clear pure waters at Lava.

Grand Teton National Park is a very special place. Bob and I had not planned on visiting here until we saw that the weather in Yellowstone was going to be very cold and this seemed like a nice place to stall for a few days. I am so happy we did!! The scenery is gorgeous with jagged peaked mountains, crystal clear lakes and tons of wildlife. This place also has some of the best services we’ve seen in a National Park – gas, service stations, good groceries, laundry, showers, RV camp ground, restaurants and lots of visitor centers.

We stayed 3 nights in the park at the Coulter Bay RV campground, which was expensive but very nice. It was great to be nestled among the lodge pole pines and just a short walk from the visitor center, all services and the lake. We went to several evening ranger programs and learned some new things about beavers, wolves, elk and grizzlies.

There is great hiking in the Tetons. It rained on us when we were out on the Swan Lake and Heron Pond trails, but we got sunny warm weather for the ferry across Jenny Lake and the hike on the Cascade Canyon trail. This area reminded us both of the North Cascades and Sierras with granite cliffs and deep forests.

Wildlife viewing was exciting and excellent. We saw three black bears, two grizzlies quite close, elk, bison, pronghorn, weasel, bald eagles, blue heron, grouse, white pelicans and a moose that was less than a block from our RV. Jackson Lodge has a great viewing platform out back and we were able to watch another moose and her tiny calf from there, and off in the distance some wolves chased two elk into the lake. Unfortunately the wolves looked like white and black dots moving back and forth on the shore. Hopefully we can see some wolves up close in Yellowstone.

I wish we had planned more days here, but this will be a great place to come back to in the future.