Hello all…..we are now in the Tetons. What an incredible beautiful area! The Tetons are the youngest mountain range in the Rocky Mountain chain. The mountains are more jagged and steep. We dropped our camper off at Colter Bay RV Park. These sites are not as close together and much nicer than Fishing Bridge.

We were all very tired and at a much slower pace today. We rode down to Jenny Lake to get a feel for the area. Jenny Lake is a beautiful greenish color, high altitude mountain lake with lots of trails around it. We found out that the best picture time for this area is sunrise which means getting up at 5am.

On the way back to Colter Bay RV Park we saw two bears as we turned into the campground’s main road. One was a black bear and one was a cinnamon colored black bear. They were just meandering through the woods eating and finally crossed the street where we lost them. David & Mary got lots of pictures.

Monday morning we got up at 5am in order to drive to see the sunrise at Signal Mountain overlook. It was beautiful and there was no one out but us. We then rode down to Jenny Lake and did a 4 mile hike to Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point.

The trail followed Jenny Lake for about 2 miles and went through some beautiful mountain meadows with plenty of yellow and lavender flowers. Then we started the climb to Hidden Falls which followed a mountain stream up to the Falls. We walked through some beautful alpine forests of spruce, lodgepole pine and aspens. The trail started getting a little harder as we walked towards the falls, and it got really steep as we continued up to Inspiration Point. As you can see in this picture, I am hugging the side of the mountain for the last 50 feet to the top (Joyce, you would have hated this part of the hike).

We were all really tired by the time we reached the top, but the view of Jenny Lake was awesome and well worth the hike!! We ate lunch at the top which was about 7200 feet and then headed down. We took the shuttle across Jenny Lake on the way back to cut off a few miles of walking because we were so tired by then.

We continued our drive south towards Moose on the Inner Loop of the Tetons. We stopped at Lupine Meadows were the lupines were in full bloom. The lupines are a beautiful lavender color and they smell wonderful. Also, the yellow flowers that look like sunflowers are called arrowleaf balsamroot.

Next, we stopped at the Chapel of Transfiguration which is an Episcopal chapel built in 1925 that still has services. The chapel was made of logs from the area and the pews were made of aspen trees from the area. There was a large glass window behind the altar that had a magnificent view of the Tetons.

We drove down to Moose and the new visitor center that has some great exhibits of the area and then headed back to our campground by way of the Outer Loop. This was a much quicker way back. We saw bison, pronghorn and elk in this area.


BISON


PRONGHORN

We were exhausted by the time we got back and crashed!

We woke up again at 5am on Tuesday morning to get ready for our raft trip down the Snake River. We met the group at a hotel near us and were shuttled down to the river. Our guide Phillip was wonderful. He had a great knowledge of the area and it was a good float trip down the river. We saw eagles, otters, all kinds of birds, and pronghorns and a beaver den.

After our raft trip we continued down the Outer Loop and drove Antelope Flats Road and visited a Mormon settlement of the late 1800s. This was a thriving community until the mid 1900s and there were several home sites still in fair condition that we could see. Near this settlement was a herd of bison grazing in a field of yellow
flowers. Of course, David took lots of pictures.





We were all very tired so decided to take it easy in the evening.