Grand Teton National Park - 1

After the irritation of yesterday, we arose relatively early and headed over Teton Pass, into Wyoming. You may have heard of Jackson Hole which is a fairly famous ski area near the town of Jackson. No? Never mind. Neither had I.

Teton Pass is kinda steep, with a series of 10% grades on both sides of the pass. There are big yellow warning signs that attest to this.... We are experienced mountain drivers now however, and a few miles of 10% poses no threat to us (and the Jeep didn't blow up either, so all good).

We stopped, bought some lunch, and headed a little further north to the Grand Teton National Park.

I hadn't been sure of what to expect, but ... we were greeted with lush green forests and meadows, peaks still capped with snow, and the sound of birds singing, and Americans hiking. Ahh. Nature on the weekend.

All jokes aside, it's really nice here.


We headed up to the Taggart Lake trail-head, and went for a gentle 5 mile stroll. It was very pleasant, although there are thousands of mosquitoes here, all lusting after my blood.

I'd been doing some reading last night about the little fuckers, and found out that only the females suck your blood. Verrrry interesting. Verrrry interesting indeed.

Moving along. Kat ripped out this awesome shot of a bumblebee on a flower.


...and this one of a strange looking elongated ladybug.


I had to be content with landscapes. The mountain meadows were alive with colour.
These yellow flowers were everywhere, and were super bright.


This is a not very interesting view back to the mountain range with Taggart Lake in the foreground.


There is a Leigh Lake here in the park, so we will be sure to visit that soon.

We had a spot of lunch and headed up to String Lake and wandered around (another casual 4-5 miles I think). It was here that we spotted our first Marmots. These guys are pretty cool. This one was running across the path to safety.


This one was just emerging from its burrow. You can see a couple of little sticks to the left side of the frame - when it was inside, it was moving the sticks like a little robot arm....


This is not an interesting picture. But if you read the Wikipedia article you will see that it says...

"Most marmots are highly social, and use loud whistles to communicate with one another, especially when alarmed."

Let me tell you that they're not kidding. This one obviously got alarmed, and let out this freaking noise which nearly blew out my ear drum and literally made me step back. I felt a little woozy for a second too. Sorry about that old chap.


At this point it was nearly 6pm, time to go home. Man are we both stuffed, and going to bed.

Tomorrow I think we're going to do something a little closer to home (and I might get a second to replace the pressure hose on the power steering for the Jeep).

Whew.