Grand Teton National Park - Wyoming

Grand Teton National Park – July 13-14

Here is a little bit about the logistics of RV Travel. We have been pretty much able to wait until the morning of travel to locate an RV Park at the desired location for that night. There are exceptions, such as don’t try it on Friday morning because local people usually reserve all the spots for Friday and Saturday nights. Also we have been pretty lucky about scoping out RV Parks from the several campground guides we have with us, so most have been of a decent quality with the amenities we need. However, for Grand Teton National Park, trying to get the park we wanted on a Wednesday didn’t work. We were not able to get into the RV Park where we wanted to stay, so we ended up at Flagg Ranch Resort and RV Park. They had spots open so I reserved Wednesday and Thursday nights and had to pay via credit card for both nights when I made the reservations. It turns out that this is not the nicest park we have stayed in, in fact I will not recommend it to anyone with a Motorcoach. The access roads to the sites are all too narrow with really tight turns, requiring lots of backing up and jockeying around. The sites are all narrow and the park owners do not keep the pine trees trimmed, so we ended up with scratches on both sides of the coach. Then we had to move the coach back and forth so we could even open the room slides At that I still had to ‘trim’ a branch or two.

In case you think staying in RV Parks is cheap, this one with very few site improvements and very few amenities is the most expensive RV Park we have stayed in so far, at $64.00 per night.  I reserved it for 2 nights before seeing the sites and amenities, and after seeing them, decided I wanted to cancel the second night. They refused to refund the charges for the second night, so we stayed for both nights, but I will not recommend this park to anyone as a Class A Motorhome RV Park. The park is well suited if you are here for tent camping, but is vastly overpriced for a motorhome for what you get. I did not ask what the charge is for tent camping, so take your chances.

Back to the fun part….  Park touring

Grand Teton National Park consists primarily of majestic mountain peaks, many lakes and lots of hiking trails. Most of the lakes are accessible only by hiking trail. If you have a couple weeks and are a devout hiker you can probably see most of the lakes.

One of the disadvantages I knew we would incur by towing our Honda S2000 sports car for our ‘Toad’ instead of a higher ground clearance SUV or 4 wheel drive is that we cannot traverse the many ‘4-wheel only’ roads in the National Parks. I’m not complaining because I knew of this restriction before we left Estero, but Grand Teton NP has several 4-wheel only roads that I would have liked to drive. I guess we could go rent a Jeep, but we are only here for 2 days, and there are more than enough roads for the S2000 to cover over 2 days. There is a long 4-wheel road in the park that follows the Snake River, which might have been fun to drive. On the other hand, I don’t think that Sylvia would have looked forward to travelling these roads, so maybe the S2000 saved us some friction. The primary park roads follow the valleys, so there are few windy mountain roads to worry about.

The largest lake in the park, Jackson Lake, was a natural lake in the Snake River, but a dam was completed in 1916 at the lower end of the lake, raising the lake level by 30 ft and increasing it significantly in size  It created a really nice lake with beautiful shorelines, and a great foreground water feature for pictures of the northern peaks in the mountain range.

Here is a picture including the 3 Teton Peaks for which the park is named.

The highest peak to the right side is Grand Teton Peak (13,770 ft), the peak in the middle of the picture is Middle Teton Peak (12,804 ft) and South Teton Peak(12,514 ft)  is the peak to the left.

There are many pretty flowers in this terrain.

Sylvia picked some and perched on the fence for this picture.

The Snake River also provides a nice water feature as it 'snakes' its way through the foreground of the Tetons.

The road took us through Moose, Wyoming where we had lunch, then on the way out we discovered 20-30 people all excitedly looking over the edge of a bridge. Whenever you see this activity it is a good idea to ask what the excitement is. In this case it was a Moose, grazing on an island in the river. You don’t often get to see a moose, so we stopped and after waiting for him to come into view I was able to get this picture. I wish I had brough more of a telephoto lens with me to get a larger moose image, but the telephotos were back at the RV, so this is all I got, so it is all you are going to see. I'll make sure I have a telephoto lens with me in the future.

We continued south going out of the National Park to Jackson Hole, the ski resort. It is a quaint town, overshadowed by the ski slopes.

There are lots and lots of shops where you can buy almost any imaginable food or craft product. There is also a town square that has an ‘elk antler arch’ on each of the 4 corners, constructed of actual, guess what - Elk Antlers. Sylvia and I found a person willing to take a picture of both of us under one of the arches.

Here is a picture I took of some horses on a ranch with Grand Teton Peak in the background.

And another with some more pretty mountain flowers.

We only have a short drive in the morning to get to Yellowstone Park.