It's Certainly Grand: Grand Tetons National Park

I know that millions of people have likely taken photos of the Moulton Barns at the Grand Tetons. It's one of the iconic scenes featured on calendars and marketing materials. But that didn't keep me from wanting to get my own photos of the barn. 

When we had arrived in the Grand Tetons the evening before, it was hazy and overcast. We had been to the Grand Tetons in 2011, and I remembered the beautiful blue skies framing the craggy, snow capped mountains. 

A favorite photo from our 2011 trip

Jenny Lake in 2011

Taken after riding the ski lift in 2011

And one more from 2011 ...

Also from 2011

The sun was trying to burn away some of the haze, but I must admit I was disappointed when we first arrived because I had those 2011 "snapshots" in my mind. 

Still, even with the haze, there's a majesty to the area. You realize just how infinitesimal you are when looking at the mountains rising up from the plains ... when you see the vast lakes ... and when you view the deep canyons and valleys.

 Wilderness ... is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.

--- The Wilderness Act of 1964

The beauty of the Teton Range and its abundant wildlife and plants have attracted people for more than 11,000 years. Prehistoric American Indians, explorers, ranchers and visitors have all fallen under the spell of the magnificent place.

With the support and stewardship of many citizens locally and nationally, the Grand Teton National Park was established in 1929. John D. Rockefeller Jr. and his wife, Abby, first visited this area in 1926, beginning a family legacy of stewardship that continues even today. Strong supporters of national parks, they purchased more than 33,000 acres of the valley lands which were donated in 1949 - allowing Grand Teton to expand to its current boundary in 1950. 

Their son Laurance S. Rockefeller continued this heritage by donating the Vernon Collection of American Indian Art and the JY Ranch, a family retreat for 75 years, to the park.

Powerful geologic forces - including earthquakes, volcanoes and glaciers - shaped the landscape. These mountain ranges formed in different ways, but ice-age glaciers scoured all of them and left behind lakes, U-shaped canyons, jagged ridges and outwash plains. (From a park sign)

 

Randy's favorite stop in our 2011 trip was Jenny Lake. It was definitely a different scene this time around, but we still thought it was a beautiful part of the park. 

The sun was doing its best to chase the haze away at the nearby Cottonwood Creek. (We Kansans were naturally attracted to the creek's name.)

It was just another reminder of how clear the waters  can be when fed by mountain snows.

Luckily, the next morning brought sunshine. Since we were leaving for home right after our trip to the barns, I know I was fortunate. 

Leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - or Mormons - sent parties from the Salt Lake Valley to find new settlements to support their expanding population. Mormon settlers from Idaho first arrived to the Grand Tetons in the 1890s. The U.S. Post Office named this community Grovant, now known as Mormon Row. 

The Homestead Act of 1862 promised 160 acres to anyone who built homes on the land and worked to improve the land. After five years of living there and working the land, the settler owned the land free and clear.

The 27 Mormon pioneer families picked this place for its relatively fertile soil, protection from winds by Blacktail Butte and access to the Gros Ventre River. Despite the harsh conditions of Jackson Hole, Mormon settlers succeeded in growing crops by using irrigation techniques they developed during the 1847 settlement of the Great Basin.

Mormon pioneers formed close-knit communities around their church and school, starkly contrasting with the pattern of isolation typical of many western households. Families cooperated with each other on large projects, from building barns to digging ditches. Women worked communally, assisting in neighbors' births and chores.

Yes, I know that the thistles are considered noxious weeds in Kansas. But they provided a pretty frame for the buildings and mountains.

Mormon Row settlers dug ditches by hand or with teams of horses. They built levees and dikes to funnel water from central ditches to their fields. Working together, they built an intricate network of waterways between 1896 and 1937 to provide water for their crops. 

The dwellings that have starred in so many tourists' photographs are what is left of the original 27 homesteads. They were added to the National Register of Historic Places in the 1990s. 

While it would have been great to find more scenic spots in the Tetons when the sun was out, we were also both ready to head for home. We should have counted how many times we crossed the Continental Divide while on the trip. Maybe next time.

***

A note to anybody considering trips to National Parks: 

• Plan ahead. At Glacier, the reservations open 4 months ahead of the date you'd like to visit. The passes go quickly in the nation's most popular parks.
  
• Get a National Parks pass. Randy got a Senior Pass when he turned 62. At the time, it was $60. Now it's $80, but it's worth every penny. You'd spend half that just for admission prices to get your car in one day at some of the national parks. (Ironically, he turned 62 two days too late. Before the price bump, Senior Passes were $20. But it's still a huge bargain.)
  

Yellowstone: Take Two

Summer television reruns aren't my favorite. I keep seeing the ads for the new season, and I'm looking forward to more choices for evening television viewing. (We are not in a prime location for streaming, so I'm limited to the "million" or so channels from my Dish Network. Yes, I know that's ironic, coming from someone who grew up with four TV stations - ABC, NBC, CBS and PBS. My, how times have changed!)

Anyway, we had a "rerun" to Yellowstone during our trip. I had someone ask me why we'd want to go back. There were several factors. Even though we'd spent 12 hours in Yellowstone in 2011, we didn't see it all. If you're driving to Glacier, you have to figure out some way to get back home. Why not include the beauty of Yellowstone in the travel itinerary?

The Madison River

This time, we drove through different areas than we had the first time. Though we repeated the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, we didn't visit Old Faithful, Blue Star Spring or Grand Prismatic Spring on this latest trip.

Yellowstone has been a national park since 1872. But nature changes. It changes from day to day, much less since our visit 13 years ago or when it was founded 152 years ago ... and beyond.

Gibbon Falls

 

This was Beryl Spring. The violent agitation of the water is due to volcanic gases, mostly steam. The temperature of the water is usually a few degrees below boiling. It's one of the hottest springs in Yellowstone.

We took a short hike to the Artist's Paintpots.
 

The shot below wasn't nearly as pretty, but it shows the aftermath of all that boiling and bubbling.

We saw more geysers at the Norris Geyser Basin. It is Yellowstone's most dynamic - the hottest, most acidic and most dynamic geyser basin. It's part of one of the world's largest active volcanoes (according to a sign at the park.)

Norris Geyser Basin

It was named for Philetus W. Norris, who served as superintendent of Yellowstone from 1877 to 1882. He recorded the area's hydrothermal features in detail and also oversaw construction of some of the park's first roads, which still remain in the Grand Loop Road.

 

The next day, our trek along Blacktail Plateau Drive took us off the beaten path and onto a gravel road. (Our car is used to that.)

We only saw two other cars along the gravel road, which was a nice change of pace.

But, soon enough, we were back to the main road and heading toward some of the better known attractions - like Tower Creek. About 50 million years ago, volcanoes in Yellowstone and surrounding areas started to erupt, burying the land under volcanic rock. These ancient Eocene volcanoes left their mark with darker vertical cliffs that stretch up from the river. 

The 132-foot drop of Tower Creek, framed by eroded volcanic pinnacles has been documented by park visitors from the earliest trips of Europeans into the Yellowstone region. It has inspired numerous artists, including Thomas Moran. His painting of Tower Fall played a role in establishing Yellowstone National Park in 1872. 

Most of this visit's stops at Yellowstone were new to us. But the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone was our favorite spot when we visited the park in 2011. Unlike the summer reruns on network television, this second viewing was just as awe-inspiring as the first. 

The canyon varies from 800 to 1,200 feet in depth and from 1,500 to 4,000 feet in width. It's about 24 miles long. 

 

Hot spring activity has continued through the ages, altering the lava rock to produce varied colors which are largely due to different iron compounds. 

 

We also saw Roaring Mountain ...

 ... and Yellowstone Lake. (It is huge.)

We packed as much as we could into our day and a half. I'm sure we didn't see all of it this time either. 

Visitors at Yellowstone seemed to form the United Nations of the world. As we walked around after supper in West Yellowstone, we heard many different languages - probably more that weren't English. But is it any wonder that the natural beauty attracts people from all around the world? 

It wasn't just the different countries represented. The National Parks also bring together people from all different parts of the country and different lifestyles. There were plenty of families with little boys skipping rocks into lakes. (It does seem little boys and rock skipping are universal. I'm not being sexist. Boys just seem to gravitate to the rock throwing more, in my observations.) I sat on a bench with a woman about my age who lives in New York City. She couldn't believe how "isolated" and "remote" everything was. I'm looking around at more people than I usually see in a week and thinking about how different our daily lives are. But we still had a wonderful visit while sitting on a bench. I "met" another woman while standing in line, waiting for a bathroom at Glacier. She said, "They say everyone has a twin somewhere in the world. I know yours." Ironically, my "twin's" name was Jill, and I told the lady that I had a daughter named Jill (who looks nothing like me). I happened to see her a couple more times, and each time, she said, "Hi, Kim!" 

It really is a small world. And it's a beautiful world, too. 

Yellowstone Critter Sightings

 

There were traffic jams in Yellowstone National Park. It wasn't caused by bumper-to-bumper commuters on their way to a big city job. 

Instead, the traffic snarls were caused by wildlife sightings. On our first evening at Yellowstone, we could tell that something ahead was creating a traffic jam. From the Yellowstone guide handed out at the entrance: "Do not stop your vehicle in the road or stand in the roadway. Do not block any portion of the road with tripods, chairs or other objects. Do not block the free flow of traffic."

Let's just say there were plenty of rule breakers when wildlife was around. Thankfully, we found a parking spot and wandered down to see what the fuss was about.  (I'm a rule follower from way back. It's that firstborn child thing.)

In this case, the road block was caused by a mother elk and two babies, eating and drinking along the river. We had seen elk before, but we were just as enamored as the rest of the interlopers to watch the mama and two babies.

As I've mentioned, a bear sighting was on Randy's bucket list for this trip. (Click HERE for our first bear sighting. Don't get too excited. There's no photographic proof.)

 An NPS brochure said to "Enjoy them at a distance."

Well, that wasn't a problem. We kind-of-sort-of saw another bear in Yellowstone the next day. We saw people stopped along the road and asked what they were looking at. I could see a brown speck moving in the distance. Randy found the bear in his binoculars. My extreme nearsightedness doesn't mix well with binoculars, so I wasn't successful locating the brown bear, which was probably 200 yards away. 

Randy assures me there was a bear out there - somewhere.

During our trip, we also heard a loon - also a first - and saw some antelope in fields in Wyoming. We saw one big-horned sheep in Glacier, but, again, there is no photographic evidence to support the sighting. (I wasn't the only one on the Red Bus tour to miss the photo op. It was quick!)

There was no problem seeing the buffalo that dotted the Hayden Valley along the Yellowstone River.

 

 

Believe me, I know none of these photos is spectacular. But they were taken from the car window ... as we were moving. (See above for note about firstborn rule following.)

Earlier in the day, we'd found what seemed like a "hotel" for chipmunks at the Sheepeater Cliff. 

Though it was named by the Shoshone Indians for bighorn sheep, we saw the area's much smaller mammals.

Next time: More from Yellowstone