My Visual Adventures: Sharing my Travel, Sports, Nature, and Animal Photography. With a little bit of life thrown in. I luv living life in Northern California.
Proud single mom of one beautiful daughter who shares my love of sports and music. She doesn't share my love of the outdoors which I find weird. I love photography and wish I had a better camera!! Maybe someday...
My First Amazing Trip to see the Wondrous Grand Tetons National Park! - Jenny Lake Area (Days 1 & 2)
In my last post, I was on my way from California through Nevada and Idaho to Grand Tetons and Yellowstone! It was a fun and uneventful drive (unlike the drive home, but more on that later) and soon I was in Eastern Idaho approaching the Teton Range.
So exciting!!
My route was from I-15 to 26 to 31 to 22 - taking me through the beautiful Swan Valley where I saw my first Sandhill Crane and up into the mountains on 31 where I came around a corner and saw a gorgeous, huge deer just off the road. Then I headed over the summit and down the mountain on 22 where, much to my surprise, I saw a MOOSE!
My first moose ever! I was driving downhill just coming up to the town of Wilson when, out of tree line on the right side of the road came what appeared to be a baby (maybe a yearling?) Moose. It was still pretty huge, but it had the look of a baby and definitely not as big as adult moose I've seen in video's and pictures. So freaking amazing! Of course I couldn't stop or pull over right at that moment, but the memory will always be with me.
My route, above, in purple with notations where I saw the wildlife. And the blue line is the short drive I took from dusk to darkness on Moose - Wilson Road. We'll get into that more later.
I really liked the town of Jackson - and Today I Learned (TIL) that the valley is called Jackson's Hole (now Jackson Hole) as it is a hole in the mountains (okay?) and the town is called Jackson.
I think I'm going to drag my daughter with my next year and spend a day or two in Jackson. :-)
I drove slowly through the town and headed up the "Hole" towards my campground at Jenny Lake. The views were absolutely stunning. I am not kidding. There is just something about mountains that seemed so tall and abrupt! I read later that it is because of their age (relatively young) and that because they are so young, they haven't had time to form much (if any) foothills.
For instance, the Sierra Nevada's certainly look imposing and beautiful from the Sacramento Valley floor, but they just don't have that stark feeling of rising straight up from the valley that the Tetons do.
I got to the valley at about 2:20 p.m. and the sun was just behind the mountain peaks. The cloud formations were amazing and the combination was unbeatable.
And, yes! the sky really WAS that blue! I did very little enhancement - only brought up the vibrancy a bit, but not much, and added some contrast. Didn't touch the saturation at all.
This next one I desaturated a bit because I wanted to focus on the clouds and the mountain top.
I drove through Jackson and up to Jenny Lake Campground. To be honest, I never saw a sign for a campground, so I passed it. There are two signs for the Jenny Lake area (North and South I believe - I could be wrong). The first one said something about the Visitor Center (VC) but I don't think it mentioned campground (I could totally be wrong!). But! You can never have too much information, so even if there is a sign that says campground and my brain could not see it, now you know that it is the same road as the VC.
And to further cement it in your mind, here are some maps:
The campground was beautiful! I absolutely loved my spot, #4. Close to the bathroom without being right next to it (kitty corner, across the little road, with one campsite just between), and behind was a gorgeous meadow with a view of the Grand Teton peak.
I made a little video so you can see the campground and the view. I don't normally edit video so please forgive me.
Video Cameo by Uinta Ground Squirrel!
After I got familiar with the campground, I headed out again as it was just about dusk. I wanted to see if I could spot any animals. An elk herd nearby made sure I was not dissapointed!
So awesome! They are so freaking big! And beautiful.
After stopping for awhile with the elk herd, I headed towards Moose-Wilson Road because in my research for places to find animals, this one came up a lot.
I got there probably just a bit too late. It was just starting to get dark and, because you are actually in the trees on this road, it seemed even darker.
I did see a few people with spotting scopes pulled over at the ponds (although some people were just pulling out), so I pulled over to check it out.
Just as I got out of my car, a large bird sailed in, wings spread, gliding over the beautiful ponds and landing on the far side. It was a Sandhill Crane! I love these. I took out my camera and snapped off a couple shots (not the greatest because 1. dark 2. handheld 3. far away).
To be honest, I feel like there is something to the right of the Sandhill Crane in the photo above. I saw it at the time through the lens but couldn't tell what it was and it didn't seem to be moving, so it may be a stump (I got fooled by a LOT of stumps on this trip). But it also could be something?
Anyway, after that I headed back out towards the town of Wilson (which is where I had seen the baby moose on my drive into Jackson). It's a fun road - twisty, narrow, very rough in some places (standing water, mud, dirt, etc.) - through beautiful woods and ponds with at least one creek running through it.
The road is actually much longer than I suspected. I went until it got completely dark and then turned around. I did not see any other animals, although I did see a group of humans staring into the trees with one dude vehemently stating that he saw a "grizzly bear halfway up a tree about 30 minutes ago". We all looked for awhile but didn't see anything. He said he had to go back to camp and get his binocs so he could see it better and now it wasn't there.
Moral of the story: Always have a spotting scope/binoculars on hand (I personally have a monocular that I got off Amazon for a BTS concert. It was $20 and works amazingly both to see bands on a stage and birds/animals in the wild! I keep it in my car center console at all times.)
[edited because some people asked what kind of monocular I have & it's a Gosky. I looked it up on Amazon and they aren't $20! But I swear when I bought mine about 3-4 years ago, it was not more than $30 at most. Probably got them on sale.]
After darkness fell, I headed back to the campground and got settled for the night. It was really wonderful. I slept soundly and peacefully in the back of my Jeep (a little warm thanks to my zero degrees sleeping back). Woke up once to the sounds of a gentle rain, but didn't think much of it. Oh how that will change later on in my trip!
