Trip Report - Grand Tetons National Park
Last weekend, my wife and I met up with a couple of her friends from high school and their husbands at Gros Ventre Campground near Jackson, WY. The girls graduated high school in Star Valley not too far from Jackson and worked summer jobs at various places around the valley, so although we're all living a few hours drive from the area, we're still privy to "local knowledge" - back roads around construction were a big benefit!
Gros Ventre is located just south of Grand Teton National Park and is adjacent to the National Elk Refuge. It has great views of the Tetons and our group spot was on the edge so we had unobstructed views.
We left from our home in Billings, MT on Friday morning, and even though it's past Labor Day and there aren't as many people in the Park that's Yellowstone we decided to go through Cody, WY, in through the East Entrance, south past Yellowstone Lake and out the south toward GTNP and Jackson. If we had more time, we may have gone through Red Lodge, over the Beartooth Highway, in through the Northeast Entrance (Cooke City) and been able to drive through the Lamar Valley and Canyon areas, which I find much more scenic and a better chance for wildlife viewing.
We had a picnic on the shore of Yellowstone Lake and overhearing the people near us, I was reminded of the wonder people have when they've never been to this place that I grew up visiting.
Arriving mid-afternoon on Friday, we got busy setting up camp and learned one bonus of being a little further south than we are used to - no restriction against having a campfire! It was nice to have a warm fire as Jackson this time of year is 70s during the day, low-30s or high 20s at night.
Despite the lack of rain in the forecast, I hung a tarp I borrowed from my dad over my hammock, mainly for wind and holding in heat. It was bright yellow, so it was assured that any hungry bears would be blinded by my setup.
Because my wife thought she would be too cold in a hammock, I adopted her brand new blue Kammok and hung it directly below mine, creating a quasi-double-layer and giving me a place to put my Hyalite Designs Peak Oyl Lite 2/3 pad to insulate my butt. I wasn't sure the double setup would work, but it ended up being very comfortable and I didn't have any issues with tangling or my pad slipping.
I'm a hot sleeper so other than the sleeping pad, I had a cheap synthetic 20˚ bag (that rating is optimistic!) and some warm clothes. At the last minute, I grabbed another blanket - one that was a give-away from an old client with their logo on it. Basically, it's cheap nylon on one side and fleece on the other and about 5 feet square. I used it to block wind at my feet and it worked fairly well. Not something I'd backpack with, but since it's our car's emergency blanket, it's good to know it actually is fairly warm.
I slept well and barely felt the 28˚ overnight low. At about 3am, my feet did get a little cold, and rearranging the sleeping bag and blanket solved the issue.
Saturday morning, I was up at first light, hiking off to get photos of the Tetons at dawn. We were fortunate to have a clear night Friday night and clear morning on Saturday, because a fire broke out nearby filling the valley with smoke Saturday afternoon.
(Note: this is just my wife's blue Kammok hung for the photo. I didn't actually hang with those bushes brushing my butt. I photoshopped my ridgeline out for "editorial purposes.")
On the hike back to camp, I spotted something large and brown about 100 yards outside of our camp. As I got a little closer, I realized it was a bull moose. Camera at the ready, I started shooting - although it wasn't until I'd fired off about 20 shots before I realized I still had my ISO set to 100 (for a long exposure landscape) so most of those shots, hand-held, were too blurry.
I kept moving toward camp, and so did Bullwinkle, to the point where although I never saw his hackles up or any sign of aggression, I was placing trees between me and him and made sure my bear spray could be found in a pinch.
Of course, none of my late-rising cronies were up yet, so they were blissfully sawing logs as I was trying to document what they missed. My wife, however, did get up and I signaled to her from afar that she should come see the moose.
Moose aren't all that unusual in the Greater Yellowstone, but seeing a bull up close is pretty neat. What made this moment so much more memorable though, was that as he approached, there were coyotes howling in the distance and then a nice, loud, echoing elk bugle rang out. It was a perfect moment. Too bad photos don't have sound!
Saturday, we went to Jenny Lake and then into Jackson for lunch because we all were craving Bubba's buttermilk pie. I ate way too much and ended up with quite the sugar crash shortly after we got back to camp.
That night was a little warmer and most of the adjustments I made to my system were to prevent my feet from getting outside of my bag again. They didn't work. So I ended up with cold feet again, but the rest of me was nice and toasty.
What I do know is that during the afternoon when the bees in camp were pretty bad and I got in the tent to hang out with my wife, I had a rock in my back. Nice reminder of why I hang. When I was in the hammock, nothing but comfort. I slept great all weekend.
Beyond that, I think I may have converted a couple of our friends to hanging. Yay me!
Sunday we started home, taking a back road into Wilson, WY for breakfast and then heading out through GTNP, retracing our route past Yellowstone Lake and out through Cody. While driving along the lake shore, we encountered a Yellowstone traffic jam, which means one of three things: accident, construction, wildlife sighting.
When I got out of the car, I noticed some people looking toward the lake, others looking toward the forest. In the lake was an elk cow - quite a bit off shore, too. That indicated to me that she my have been chased by a predator, so I was hoping for a grizzly or wolf sighting.
However, on the other side of the road, more elk. A calf was bedded down hiding behind a log. Mama was nearby, eating grass in a small clearing. And though I never did see him, there was a bull nearby, bugling. It is rutting season after all.
A short while after we left the Lake area, we hit another jam just past Fishing Bridge. Apparently, there was a bison carcass that had attracted a few bears the day before, and people were staking out in hopes of another sighting. But it was 2PM, the carcass was only about 175 yards off the road, and the crowd was upwind from the food, so I felt like it could be a few hours before any bear would feel comfortable coming out for a snack. Hours watching ravens circle just wasn't in our agenda so we moved on.
The rest of the trip was uneventful, aside from a bunch of hawk sightings. We got home and I had a fitful night of sleep in my bed trying to figure out how I could hang a hammock in my bedroom.
I look forward to another trip sometime soon in the Tetons. They are truly spectacular mountains, with nothing behind them and nothing in front, they appear almost two-dimensional, even a little fake, like a movie set. But they are definitely real!
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