Grand Teton NP

Cribbed a few minutes sleep in to make up for the last few nights, but it still wasn't enough. The plan was to get to the Grand Teton NP early enough to score a powered site, but it didn't work out that way.

A relatively short 3 hour trip with a quick stop in Dubois for a coffee, but it was still 1pm when we arrived. The rangers were helpful ringing around, but there were no powered sites anywhere. According to those in the tourist industry, the peak season officially starts on July 4, but judging by the people who are just everywhere, it's well and truly kicked off before we got here.

We finally found an unpowered site in one of the Colter Bay campgrounds, which is really ok as most systems in the RV run off battery. You just can't do it long term, as you need to recharge, but the problem is that Brendan can't recall if we have power or not tomorrow night either. After we had claimed the site, and put out our washing to dry, we headed off to the visitor's centre to ask advice on what we should see.

We eventually settled on a series of things to do in a southerly direction, starting with lunch on a bench overlooking Jackson Lake with the Tetons behind it. Really stunning. The Tetons are a range of mountains formed by tectonic plate activity millions of years ago, with a central valley running the length of the mountains formed by subsequent glacier activity. Most of the glaciers have now receded so that they are no longer very large, but the range itself still gets lots of snow during the winter months and, being at 3000 metres, some of the snow remains right through the summer months. The tallest of the mountains is known as Grand Teton, and has quite a sharp ridge. Kind of like a mohawk look. It also has some of the last bit of surviving glacier dropping from it's flanks.

After lunch we cruised along the shores of Jenny Lake, then as far south as Taggart Lake where we headed off for a walk to some lookouts. Mandy and I just walked a few kilometres to one of the closer lookouts, while Brendan decided to be energetic and keep going on a longer return loop. Came across some delightful views, a fast flowing waterfall, and a couple of moose - one with her calf.

The return journey saw us stop at Leigh Lake, the popular spot for kayakers and rafters, about tea time. As we had our kitchen with us, there was no great hurry to get back to our site, so Mandy cooked tea in the RV while Brendan maximised his time and did a solo loop of Leigh Lake, trying to stay off the bear's dinner menu.

Finally back in the RV for a climb up a rather steep and narrow road to the top of Signal Mountain for the signature sunset shot. Unfortunately, it's a thing that lots of tourists do, and the mosquitoes have wised up. They were waiting in swarms, so it was a fairly quick photo stop.

Finally back to our campsite in the dark. Luckily nobody had staked an alternate claim to it, as the park was signposted as full.