June 17th - Grand Teton - Colter Bay, Wyoming

For our first full day in Grand Teton, we started off with a 3-hour Ranger walk from the Colter’s Bay Visitor Center. The walk was a nice and slow 3-mile loop, so the Ranger could stop and explain about the quite varied ecological zones along the walk. The first part of the loop went along the largest lake in the Tetons, Jackson Lake, which was originally a natural lake but has been modified by a dam and is now used as a reservoir. This helps the Idaho potato farmers along the Snake River irrigate their crops, but also leads to unnatural fluctuations in the water level. The view of the snow-capped Teton Range gleaming from across Jackson Lake in the morning sunlight was simply beautiful. Along the trail was a dead lodge pole pine where a grizzly bear had stripped away the bark and ate the cambrium during the winter, incidentally girdling the tree.

The next ecological zone was sagebrush flat with, naturally, sagebrush and other dry-land grasses and shrubs. We saw a ground squirrel perched on a stump watching us, but he didn’t even take the trouble to scold us as we walked by. Around the next bend in the trail we saw Swan Lake, which was almost covered with pond lilies. Many of the lilies were blooming, and the big yellow flowers were quite pretty. Monika saw a Great Blue Heron land on a beaver lodge on an island in the middle of the lake and I got a picture of an osprey that was circling above us. At the far end of the lake we first heard and then saw sand hill cranes, but they were far enough away that we had to use binoculars to get a good look.

Leaving Swan Lake we crossed a slight ridge to get to Heron Pond, which had a connection to Jackson Lake and had recently been inundated by overflow from the rising lake waters. Again we had great views of the Teton mountains as well as seeing pelicans, Canada geese, ducks, and 3 beaver lodges but no beaver. One pelican came circling above us and then glided in for a landing—very gracefully, I thought.

Our route back to the Visitor Center was thru a mature lodge pole pine forest, where the Ranger explained about the role of fire in the seeding and renewal of these trees. We saw a red tail squirrel and holes where a badger had dug into squirrel burrows for a meal. As the Ranger said, a lot of the natural environment was who eats whom and who gets eaten by whom.

After the walk we completed the tour of the Indian Art Museum. This museum has a wide variety of Native American artifacts packed into a small area. Many of the artifacts were beadwork or pottery, but some of the cases included items like peace pipes and war clubs, which, despite their quite different intended uses were both exquisitely crafted in an artistic manner. The curators of this museum had clearly focused on the artistic and beautifully crafts rather than attempting any systematic chronology or cultural presentation. Nevertheless, the cumulative effect was an astonishing variety of really beautiful artifacts and the exhibit is well worth seeing.

For the afternoon we drove a loop road to the south that took us by Jenny Lake. This lake is right at the foot of the Tetons and we decided to walk the trail around the lake edge the next day to get some “up close and personal” views of these mountains along with some exercise.

Our next stop was a historic homestead on the Snake River where we encountered a Ranger given a presentation. The original homesteader had chosen a location where he could build a ferry across the Snake River and eke out a living on the proceeds. The Park Service has a completely reconstructed and functional ferry based on his design, but Snake River was flowing too fast for it to be in use the day we visited. Still, it was fun to see it and have the Ranger explain about the history of the homestead.

We stopped in at the original store by which the homesteader had augmented his income, and found it to be in pristine condition. I was amazed at a chair constructed entirely from elk antlers, antique snowshoes on the wall, and antique stoves that still worked, according to the Ranger. We bought replica pill boxes that had a dancing couple in bass relief on the cover, and I couldn’t resist a jar of locally-made chokeberry jam. From what the Ranger had said, I expected it may be bitter but the store proprietor reassured me that it was quite sweet. When we tried it later, it turned out to be slightly tart but really quite tasty, so I was not disappointed.

On the way home we kept looking for a moose but instead we saw some threatening clouds coming across and around the mountains. That made us hurry the drive a bit. After a quick stop off at the grocery store at Colter’s Bay on the way back to camp, we had a hasty meal and retreated into the tent for the evening when the rain started coming down.