The Grand Tetons

Oxbow Overlook, early morning. Incredible
view of the Moran Mountain.

We had a slight change in plans and ended up staying a few days longer in the Yellowstone area, so we headed down to Grand Tetons National Park yesterday. Wow! What a beautiful spot. We've been impressed with Yellowstone, but we actually enjoyed The Tetons even more.

Outside The Ranch House restaurant at
Colter Bay Resrot.

The scenery is absolutely breath-taking. We arrived in the afternoon and took a hike near the Jackson Lodge. It was very hot and not much shade on the hike, so it kind of kicked our butts. We checked out the marina to look into renting a boat but it was too late in the day, so we ended up getting a hotel room and staying over so we could see more stuff. There is a whole 'nother blog post comparing hotel stays to RV stays and why we may never to go a hotel again... ever. LOL.

So this morning, Jim and I got up at the crack of dawn (litterall) to try to spot some wildlife, specifically a moose. The back deck of the hotel looks out over a Willow Flats, which is supposed to be a great place to see them, but not this morning. We did watch a coyote trying to catch some geese. That was very interesting.We took a drive to two other potential spots, but didn't have luck there either.

Bike ride along the base of the Teton Range.

One of several glaciers in the park. 

We headed back to the hotel and woke the kids up and got everything packed up to check out. We headed to Jenny Lake, in the south part of the park, to take a bike ride. What an amazing ride, at the base of the Tetons! After a 5-mile ride and a quick lunch, we took a boat across Lake Jenny, which sits at the foot of the mountain range. The boat drops you off right at a set of stone steps that just go up and up and up.. for-ever. We climbed for what felt like an eternity, partly thanks to Maggie's incessant complaining (I never want to hike again. This is the worst day ever. Just leave me here. etc.) Finally after passing Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point and enjoying the amazing views, we got to the the "flat part", which runs through the canyon between to mountain tops. These are canyons formed by glaciers. The canyon views are some of the most amazing things I've ever seen. The mountains just loom over you and sweep up so high that it makes you dizzy. As our mouths were gaping, we saw some people down off the trail, clearly watching something in the trees. We stopped to see what they were watching and it was a HUGE BULL MOOSE!!! WOW!!! We watched him for awhile and gawked at the gigantic antlers he was hefting around. What an amazing experience. Unfortunately, the trees were pretty dense and it was hard to get a good picture.

The girls on the boat on a three-hour tour.

Smile Conner.

So after that excitement, it was time to head back down to catch the boat back. It took much less time to get down than it had to get up. haha. That pretty much finished up the Tetons for us. We headed back to Yellowstone and are tucked in for the night, glad to be "back home" in our trailer instead of a really overpriced hotel room. We spent more in 24 hours staying at a hotel then we spend in a week in the trailer, between the hotel room and restaurants, it was a fairly stunning difference. We hopefully won't be doing that again anytime soon.

Smoke from two forest fires. 

Before the hike. I can tell because we're not
exhausted yet. 

Approaching the mountians.

One of many breaks on the hike.

Hidden Falls

Great view of Jenny Lake.

The "steps" leading to Inspiration Point.
Don't look down!

Inspiration Point.

There is a moose in there somewhere.

The Canyon. Pictures can't capture the
enormity of it.