Grand Teton National Park

After Yellowstone, we headed the short distance south to Grand Teton National Park. We were able to find a great space in the Colter Bay Campground, and go without hookups while we were here. Near that area they have a great visitor center and store. The store was a pleasant treat; the prices were reasonable, unlike Yellowstone where a box of graham crackers could set you back six bucks.  It was also near the Jackson Lake Lodge, which had a great patio.

Our first day we set out to hike Signal Mountain. This was a fantastic seven-mile hike. 

After a short uphill climb, the meadow allowed a great view of the Tetons. Sidenote: The French translation of Les Tois Tetons, and Les Grand Tetons, will NOT get old with the teen and pre-teen crowd. At least one of them will constantly remark upon the majesty of the tetons in a faux-French accent. How much tuition we've paid for that little bit of wonderful I'm not even going to calculate.

Then we just went up, and up, and up.

 

You could drive to the top viewpoint, but it was much more rewarding to make the climb.

Happy hikers

Headed down towards the lake shore

Awesome mountain views

After that hike we took our dirty selves to the Trapper Grill for nachos, soup, and beer. Yum! Sadly, about thirty minutes after that it all broke loose. Sorry to anyone who's picture I ruined by being in the background loosing my dinner on the side of the road. Nobody else reacted to the food, so it could have been the flu or altitude; it just wasn't pretty. I went to bed, and the kids had some good dad time (also known as, 'Is an entire bag of marshmallows a good bedtime snack? . . . Sure!")

Feeling a bit better, we planned on taking the easy Jenny Lake hike the next morning, just a nice flat trail around the lakeside.

 

Things started out well enough, but then we saw that the lake trail was closed so we had to detour up the canyon. Happy to say that my empty tummy and shakey legs made it!

I'm glad that we did this one, even if it was by accident. It was beautiful.

 

 This hiker has style!

 

We think that this brown fuzzy thing was a marmot. It wouldn't turn around and give us a good look, though.

 

Half-way there!

The end point of Hidden Falls.

 

 

We must not pass a chipmunk without a good twenty pictures.

They had a little store with samples of the types of things you'd see in pioneer days. Plus rootbeer from Jackson Hole. Of course we didn't pass that up.

 

The view of the tetons from a pioneer cabin.

 

An original church

An old barn and an afternoon rainstorm rolling in.

 

Bison just didn't get old, we almost always had to stop.

We all agreed that this was our favorite park so far, and we could have stayed much more than three days to do more hiking. (I would have liked to have recovered more before hiking again though, ugh.) It's amazing that this is so close to Yellowstone, and yet so much less visited and peaceful.