Our Vacation: Scenes from Grand Teton National Park

When I discovered, several months before our trip to Yellowstone, that it was already far too late to make any kind of reservations for lodging within Yellowstone, I decided to try for a location in between Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons, and lo and behold, I miraculously found a place for us to stay right outside the south entrance to the park on National Forest land.

For years I have wanted to see the Grand Tetons.  I wanted to see the Grand Teton mountains as a teenager, and I tried and tried to convince my dad to go there, or to take a little detour on one of our family vacations to get there, and I was always strongly vetoed.  My dad had been there once, with his family, and wasn’t impressed.  My dad also wasn’t impressed as a young person with Glacier National Park, and I happen to think that Glacier is about the most splendid national park in existence.  I really love Glacier.  Therefore,  I was not about to take my dad’s word on the Grand Tetons.

I’m glad I didn’t, because I LOVED the Grand Tetons.  They were amazingly beautiful.  I loved how as we drove through the valley we were constantly gazing at them from a new viewpoint.  I loved how they burst out of the valley and reflected in the lakes.  I know if we had been blessed with a bit more time that I would have loved them even more, especially if we were able to do more hiking.  There were so many hiking possibilities!  We barely got halfway down the park, but we saw some amazing scenery.

We spent a large portion of the day in the Jenny Lake area.  To the kidlets’ delight, we took a boat across Jenny Lake to hike to a hidden waterfall on the other side.  They loved the boat ride, and it was the perfect length . . . only about 10 minutes.  Just enough time to feel special without anyone getting even the least little bit antsy.  It was a warm day at Jenny Lake, and there were lots and lots of people, which made the hiking trails hot, dusty and as crowded as the boardwalks in Yellowstone, but at least it was easier to step aside on the hiking trail to let people by.  The kidlets were tired from our big day at Yellowstone the previous day, and our late night adventures at the Mud Volcanos.  They were not particularly excited about hiking.  But we went anyway.  Far be it from me to pass up a waterfall.

When we actually made it to the waterfall, there were so many people jostling about trying to get a picture of themselves in front of the waterfall without anyone else in the picture that it was actually hard to just sit and relax and enjoy the waterfall.  It felt like we were in the middle of a swarm of unruly ants jostling about.  But the cool mist from the waterfall was magnificent, even though we couldn’t get super close to the falls.  Can you tell that I was starting to miss my sparsely populated Minnesota hiking trails, with smaller waterfalls peppered throughout?  I was.  I was especially wishing I could get closer to the waterfall like the falls in the state parks and city parks back home.

Because it was frustrating to see so many people trying to take the SAME picture of the waterfalls  (and I knew none of the pictures was really going to turn out well because of the crazy lighting when we were there) I turned around and let the cool mist drip over my back and saw some amazingly big tree trunks!  So I took a picture of those instead.  I even had some brief, very brief, kidlet cooperation.  We did some other hiking near Jenny Lake as well.  All of our activities were interdispersed with feeding Squirmy and changing diapers and  trips to the restroom with the other kidlets.  Sometimes it felt like we were running in circles.  Actually, we were.  We snuck in an ice cream treat to celebrate YaYa’s half birthday that took place that day, and at one point Mr. SP got a nasty bloody nose from the altitude.  Thankfully at the time he, YaYa and I were sitting right outside the visitor center, and a nice park ranger gave us a bunch of tissues.

I loved all the wildflowers!  There were even several different kinds of purple wildflowers!  YaYa and Dr. Peds bought me a wildflower identification sheet in one of the gift shops, and YaYa and I had a great time figuring out which flowers we were encountering on our late afternoon hike.

I really wanted to stay in the park and watch the sun set behind the mountains.  It was just starting to dip on our drive home, but we decided that after our late night the day before, and our impending super duper long drive the next day, it would be more prudent to get back to our cabin at a decent hour, so we were responsible.  Another time, when my kids are big, I’ll stay for the sunset, because I am definitely going back to the Grand Tetons.