Day 38 (If only we could bottle beauty)

Day 38
July 29, 2006
Teton Village

Frank rose at 7 AM, grabbed the camera bag and set out for Jackson Hole to try to capture some images of the Teton Mountains in low morning light. Unfortunately the morning skies were overcast, so he didn’t have much luck with the shutter. Instead, he stopped by the Teton Lodge and posted 4 days’ tales on the family blog.

After a hearty, cooked breakfast, we decided to check out the Teton Village ski resort, located just outside the park’s southwest boundary. The drive to Teton Village via Moose-Wilson Road was quite a thrill. This 9-mile-long, 16-foot-wide (no shoulders), 2-way road is partly paved and partly gravel. It begins in Moose Junction on the park’s south side and winds its way alongside some wetlands and through a wood before emerging about a mile from a hamlet comprised of ritzy ski lodges, cafes and outfitters at the base of a lesser Teton mountain (still a big mountain, mind you). There is a cable tram, built in 1966, that takes people to the top of the mountain year-round. We considered riding it, but the roundtrip would have taken 2+ hours, and we didn’t want to invest that much time. We learned that the tram will be decommissioned this fall and, hopefully, replaced with a new one.

We had a look around and ate a very nice lunch in a restaurant before returning to Teton Lodge via Moose-Wilson and Park Roads, where we went swimming and read our books. On the way back to the lodge, we stopped at a dozen or more turnouts and took photos of the lakes, rivers and mountains that make Grand Teton so popular and famous. Frank got the photo opportunities that were not possible earlier and we were all feeling satisfied that we had seen just about everything we wanted to, except for a male moose with antlers. We had given up after failing see one where they are frequently spotted in the marshes along Moose-Wilson Road.

Well, we didn’t see a male moose, but about 1 mile from our campground on our last day at Grand Teton, we came around a curve in the road and saw a throng of people and standing vehicles that we have come to recognize as an animal spotting and photo session in progress. As is the custom in Yellowstone and Grand Teton, we slowly approached the crowd and yelled out the window “What is it?” “Moose,” replied a woman. “Male?” we asked. “No, female.” We stopped anyway and took her picture. She was standing in tall grass about 400 feet from the road and grazing. It was hard to get a good photo of her, but we could tell from her hump and floppy ears that she was, without a doubt, a moose.

We cooked a huge spaghetti dinner and then sat around a camp fire before going to bed early to prepare for tomorrow’s long drive.

If we could somehow capture the beauty of Grand Teton, bottle it, and sell it to the East Coast-bound masses for periodic consumption as desired, we’d be rich and things at home would be a bit more cheery.