Grand Teton to Yellowstone

After three days exploring Grand Teton National Park; it was time to move north and begin our exploration of Yellowstone.  This first boulder in planning this trip was our lodging reservations in-park at Yellowstone.  We decided to stay at Canyon Lodge because of its central location, relatively new facilities, and availability of reasonable costs. 

To make the most of our transition day, however, we planned to stop along the route and explore the West Thumb Geyser Basin, Old Faithful, and anything else that draws our attention along the route.  The drive from our Grand Teton hotel (Signal Mountain Lodge) to the first attraction is about an hour, but we're in no rush!  

After entering Yellowstone, we arrived at the West Thumb Geyser Basin to find it closed (it would remain closed the rest of our trip :( ).  Stay tuned for our visit to the Upper Geyser Basin! 

 

Grand Teton - 3 Jenny Lake

Our day started with a short cruise across Jenny Lake. This is one of the more popular lakes and leads to one of the more popular hikes in Teton NP.  You can actually access the Jenny Lake trailhead by first hiking AROUND the lake, but after yesterday's Delta Lake adventure, we took the short-cut!  

The beginning of the hike was quite easy and very popular.  It wasn't particularly enjoyable.  We reached inspiration point and took a few obligatory pictures.  The view is nice, but we knew there would be even better opportunities further inwards and upwards! 

Partway between Inspiration Point and Cascade Canyon, we noticed quite a few hikers stopped along the trail who were hushing us as we approached.  Turns out there were Moose in view.  They were partially obscured in the foliage, but we took a break from hiking and watched them!  

Once the Moose ventured out of site we continued along our way and eventually round the trial open into Cascade Canyon.  It was stunning!  

And we'll leave you with a couple landscapes of Jenny Lake:

 

Grand Teton NP - 2 Delta Lake

Today started bright and early with a goal to hike to Delta Lake.  The trail to Delta Lake is not an official, park maintained trail; but is very popular in the blog-o-sphere and I suspect Instagram.  Delta Lake is famous for its stunning aqua blue color as an alpine lake.  With the early start, we dressed in layers and prepared to be chilly.  We also packed a picnic lunch for the day and pre-downloaded our trail map on All Trails.  Specifically we took advantage of a free trial of All Trails Plus which allows for off-line downloads and maps.  

Cairns as shown below help to point the way forward.  

All in all the hike was tough.  It included a few sections of boulder scrambling, which proved difficult, but we made it.  

Delta Lake was a beautiful place for a picnic lunch and a quick photo shoot :)  Thankful for tripods which allowed us to both get in a shot or two! 

Wifey did take a bit of a tumble on the way back down the mountain, but enjoyed the decent none the less, making friends with some fellow hikers and chatting the whole way down.  

 

Grand Teton NP - 1

Today we move out of our AirBNB outside of Jackson and into Grand Teton National Park for the next several days of exploration.  Making one final grocery store run before we're in the middle of nowhere we found an exciting surprise .... Every friday during this fall, the Starbucks inside has a special Grande Drink and Treat for $5 deal!  So we each chose our favorites during our last moments of civilization! 

Chocolate Chip Cookie and Lemon Bar

Arriving Grand Teton NP!

Our first real wildlife viewing of the trip.  Don't worry if you're following along ... the photos improve :) 

Portrait by Hubby!  We're settling into the lens, collar, and foot we rented for this trip.  So far so good, even if my hair is having a spectacularly bad day.  

 

Exploring Jackson and Jackson Hole WY

We spent our first few days of vacation exploring the cities and areas surrounding Jackson and Jackson Hole WY.  

We had reservations for dinner one night at Piste Mountain Bistro. To access Piste, we rode a gondola to the top of a mountain!  What an experience! 

The wind up top was SUBSTANTIAL!  

After quite the splurge at Piste, we enjoyed a picnic at nearby Rendezvous Park!  The view over the local late was stunning!  

In addition, Rendezvous Park is home to a giant troll sculpture.  

We also walked around the city of Jackson, including taking our picture with the famous antler arches!  

 

Travel Day 1

We flew out bright and early headed towards Jackson, WY!  

After picking up our rental car for the trip; our next stop was at Teton Backcountry Rentals to rent Bear Spray for our trip.  We have some hiking planned and want to be wise!  

We also made as stop by Albertsons and picked up groceries for the next week or so!  

In addition, we stopped in a local UPS store to pick up a shipment from www.borrowlenses.com.  Since we expect to see many unique wildlife specimens on our trip, we decided a super-telephoto option was warranted.   The pick-up went fairly smooth, though there was an unexpected $10 charge for using UPS pickup vs. shipping to a personal address.  The proximity of our trip to the Labor Day holiday caused issues with shipment timing etc unless we wanted to pay for an additional 5 days of rental.  We did not.  

Thank you to Hubby for figuring out the special tripod head and attachments that allow such an awesomely intense lens to be used!

Thereafter we continued to our new home-base in Victor, ID.  Victor is about 45 minutes west of Jackson, WY across a mountain pass.  Thank you to Hubby for figuring out the special tripod head and attachments that allow such an awesomely intense lens to be used!

Lunch/Dinner was at a local establishment, Big Hole BBQ after several attempts.  Apparently Wednesday afternoons around 2:00 pm are not a great time to be seeking a restaurant in Victor, ID!  

Apparently pictures of our food were not captured.  It was unremarkable.