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Gros Ventre Campground
Our move a day early to Grand Teton was a great decision.
The campground that we had decided on did not allow reservations, so it didn’t
matter that we got there a day early. The drive to the park was absolutely
amazing. The first part was still mostly the high desert, but then as we
approached the Jackson, the landscape changed to lush, green, steep mountains.
There were also beautiful meadows full of wild flowers. The road mostly
followed the path of the Snake River. The river was awesome, wide and swift,
with lots of rapids. The mountains became craggier as we moved northward.
As we entered the town of Jackson, we found this to be a
lovely mountain town; however, it was very busy and crowded with tourists.
Being a rather large mountain town, it has all the amenities that a resident or
visitor would need. We made our way through town and the road construction (uhg)
and headed out to Gros Ventre (Grow Vont) Campground. The drive passed through
the lush sage brush valley on the south side of the Grand Teton National Park,
with a view of the Teton Mountains on the west side of the park. This campground
is the largest in Grand Teton. It has over 350 sites (RV and tents) and runs
along the Gros Ventre River. The National Elk Preserve is on the other side of
the river. The ranger station assigned a very nice site for us and it was very
spacious. It backs up to the river, but not a river view. But this was great as
there was no one behind us! Perfect! The campground does not have any
electrical or water hook ups, so we filled our RV water tank prior to setup and
then hooked up the generators for power and battery charging. The dogs loved the
site as we let them run a little off leash, but had to be careful as the
rangers are very strict about this rule. After we were setup, we walked the
dogs back to the river (on leash) to check it out. The Gros Ventre is a fairly
wide and swift river, especially now with the snow melt filling all the rivers
in the area. This area is known to have lots of wildlife roam into the
campground. This happened the first night. We saw two large juvenile moose come
into the campground and were grazing on the plants. They approached an RV about
3 sites down and seemed to be very rowdy, playing and jumping around. They
started to come toward our site, but then headed back to the river. It was awesome
to see these moose up so close.
We prepared our dinner and got ready for bed. We were able
to watch some TV with the air antenna (some local stations out of Idaho). We
started planning our activities for the next three days that we would be here.
The next morning was very chilly and we decided to drive
through the park and stop at a visitor center. We went to Moose Junction and
stopped for information. We found there was a paved bike trail that goes up to
Jenny Lake, so we took our bikes off the truck and headed up the 7 mile trail
to the lake. What an awesome way to see this part of the park. There were many
beautiful vistas that we took pictures of and enjoyed stopping along the way.
There were some glaciers up in the mountains and we got some great pictures. We
finally made it to Jenny Lake and the view was incredible. What a lovely lake
with crystal clear and blue water. We had packed a sandwich lunch and found a
rock to sit on by the lake. It was very peaceful and relaxing. We walked around
the visitor’s area and looked at some historical information about the area. A
ranger was able to provide information about kayaking on Jenny Lake, which
would require a special permit for boating in the National Parks. We really
wanted to get our kayaks in this lake for a paddle, so we thought the next day
we could do a paddle across the lake and then hike up to some hidden falls. On
our way back to camp, we drove down the Antelope Flats Road, and along the way
there was a huge herd of bison crossing the road. There were quite a few cars
stopped to get a look and pictures. And of course, Kurt wanted to get a closer
look. He walked down the road and got within 75 feet of the bison that were on
the road. Oh my, I was so mad at him! He knew better, but those of you that
know him and that he is a crazy dare devil can understand. I just turned around
and couldn’t watch. He finally backed away
and came back to the truck; and eventually everyone was able to drive on past
the herd. There were also some cute baby bison, they call them “little
reds”. Shortly after that we drove down
“Mormon Row”. This is a large tract of land that was homesteaded by a group of
Mormons, primarily the Moultons. One of the barns on the land is the most
photographed barn in the US, as the photos usually show the Grand Tetons in the
background. It was wonderful to read about the history of those settlers and
how they created amazing farm lands and a great spiritual community. Later,
when we were back at camp, we saw two young moose back in the campground again.
They seem to come by most every night. A little later, we wanted to get the
dogs out of the RV and out on a hike. We drove out of the park to a National
Forest area, where there was a huge landslide years ago, the Gros Ventre Slide.
The picture shows the information about this area; it was about 15 mile drive
back into a valley past our campground. We were able to take the dogs on a hike
through a nice trail that crossed over the natural dam that was created by the
slide. A small lake was also formed on the upside of the dam. It is very
interesting history of the area, as seven years later, the natural dam busted
loose and the small town of Kelly was flooded with only 15 minutes warning for
the residents. It was devastating as six people died and almost all the
buildings were destroyed. The dogs really enjoyed running free on the hike and
we also had a great time. By this hour of the day, we were very tired and ready
to call it a night.
The next day we had to take some time to drive into the town
of Jackson. We had a package waiting at a UPS store, a part for our tire
pressure monitoring system on the RV. We picked that up and then also had to
have a tire repaired for the RV. One of the tires had a slow leak (thanks to
the tire pressure monitoring system we noticed it early on). We were able to
get a simple fix and were back to getting our shopping done. We found a Mexican
food restaurant and decided to have lunch there; it was okay, but not great. Kurt
had found a mountain bike trail southeast of Jackson, so we drove out to the
trailhead for him to take a ride. I was able to get a cell signal there and get
on the internet to check emails and post my previous blog and pictures. On our
drive back to the campground, we saw another herd of bison crossing the road
into our campground. Again, many cars were stopped to look and we all had to
wait for the bison to decide when they would cross the road. It was so exciting
to watch these massive animals in their natural environment.
When we got up the next morning, we packed up for hiking and
headed back to Moose Junction and found the trailhead for Taggart Lake. We had
heard it was a beautiful hike back up to a mountain lake, which also included
another lake called Bradley. The hike was awesome, as it followed along a
beautiful creek, which we had to cross at a big waterfall area. The trail
continued up through mountain meadows filled with wild flowers and aspen
forest. It was amazing. We reached Bradley Lake first and then continued on to
Taggart Lake. The hike was about 5 miles round trip. It was worth the climb,
except my left foot was in pain by the time we got back to the truck. Kurt had
wanted to do another hike by Jenny Lake, on the Hidden Falls trail. He went on
the hike himself, while I relaxed in the truck and also went to the Visitor
Center and shops at Jenny Lake. On our
way back to camp, we again drove Antelope Flats and saw several Pronghorn
antelope. They are such beautiful animals. When we got back to camp, we also
began prepping for our move the next day to another campground on Jackson Lake
on the northern side of Grand Teton Park.
Colter Bay Village RV Park
The drive to Colter Bay was only about 25 miles, so we
arrived there by noon. We were able to check in to our RV site early. This RV
park has full hook ups, which we were looking forward to after four nights of
boondocking. We were only going to stay here for two nights, mostly for full
hook ups and to get some laundry done. The campground was very nice, but the
sites were kind of small. The Village was a full service area; with grocery,
laundry, fuel, marina and restaurants. After setting up the RV, we decided to
go get lunch at the café. We had been
eating turkey sandwiches for days and just couldn’t take another one. It was a
good for a change to get something different for lunch. After lunch, we went on
a hike around Heritage Point. There were some small lakes, and views of Lake
Jackson. The marina was full service and there were many boats there. The
forest was lovely with lupine flowers everywhere. On the small lake named Swan
Lake, we saw two trumpeter swans. There were also Canadian geese, white
pelicans (there are really pelicans up here!) and a sand hill crane. After the
hike we went back to the RV to relax and have some dinner.
The next day we took our kayaks down to Lake Jackson and put
in near the swimming beach. We were on the east side of the lake and had made
plans to paddle across the lake to look at a giant waterfall back in the valley
named Waterfall Canyon and to see the shore line. We made the 3 mile trek
across the lake and landed the kayaks on a gravel shore. We were able to get a
closer view of the waterfall, but it was still several miles back into the
canyon. There was no way to hike back there, no trails and also it would
require some rock climbing to get even close to the waterfall. We simply
enjoyed the view from the shore, and paddled around into some other little
coves where we stopped and ate our lunch (sandwiches again). On the paddle
back, the wind picked up a little and we were crossing some choppy water. It
was much harder paddling back then it was going over. The complete trip lasted
about three hours and was really fun. It was so awesome to be paddling in the
shadows of the Teton Mountains, a new kayaking experience for us. We went back
to camp to get some chores completed. Kurt walked the dogs and I got to do
laundry. They had a really nice “launderette” and I was able to get a few loads
done at once. We wanted to go down to the lake and take something for dinner.
We went to the grocery store and got a frozen pizza. We baked the pizza in our
RV oven and then loaded up the food, cooler, dogs and chairs. We headed to the
beach about one hour before sunset, which up here is close to 10pm. The evening
was beautiful and the sunset on the mountains was amazing. The purplish hue on
the mountains is called alpenglow. The pictures do not do any justice to how it
really looks. It was a great last evening for us in Grand Teton. What a great time we had in Grand Teton. So
far, this was my favorite stop on our trip. Now, on to Livingston Montana!
