14.5.2012 – 14.5.2012  21 °C

A very early start this morning.. first time we’ve been in the car and on the road by 7.30am!! Brekky wasn’t crash hot but ok and I slept fine so last night’s accom is certainly the best value we’ve found for a while!! Our plan for today was to drive as close as possible to the Grand Teton NP. The Tetons are a mountain range just south of Yellowstone and are supposed to be breathtaking!

The first part of the drive was a bit more of the same of driving across Wyoming, lots of grasslands, folded hills and oil derricks… However, I do have to say that the northern part of the state is much more populated and is a bit more hilly so therefore marginally more picturesque than the southern side!

Morning tea today was in this tiny town called ten step. No idea why it is called ten step, but the local park is better than most big cities so morning tea was a success! Lunch time saw us arrive into the thermal town of Thermopolis (lots of thought went into the name of this town..). Thermopolis claims to have the largest hot spring in the world! Big claim, and frankly, doesn’t live up to Pammukale in Turkey, but heck it’s a hot spring that you can swim in for free in a public pool type setting so I shouldn’t complain!! Before our swim we went for a wander around the travertines. Unfortunately, the spring isn’t putting out the qty of water it would usually pump so the travertines are dried up white shelves but they are reminiscent of Pammukale but minus the incredibly blue aqua waters…

Thermopolis has three hot spring swimming options, two are private water slide type affairs that you need to pay to enter and the other is a state run squatting pool that you are allowed to sit in for 20mins for free! Actually, it’s a pretty good setup.. there are two pools, an indoor and an outdoor. The outdoor is partially covered which is really nice so you can sit in the nice warm water without worrying about frying your skin. We chose the outdoor option and spent our twenty minutes alternating between walking around the pool and sitting on one of the numerous ledges. You need to be careful because the ledges are throughout the pool so if your not careful you can run into one.. just ask yours truly!

One thing I was surprised about with Thermopolis I was expecting the town to be in the high mountains, but its actually in part of what I think must be Wyoming’s version of a desert surrounded by rolling hills.. Different hey? Our lunch today was a nice picnic lunch in the hot springs park area, ham, pasta salad all wrapped up in a tortilla.. yummy.

Straight after lunch we continued our drive towards the Tetons. In fact, by now, we were fairly confident that we could drive the whole way to the Tetons before nightfall so off we headed. The more we headed west the steeper the mountains became.. Just before we hit the Rockies we went thru very similar scenery to what we saw in Southern Utah.. very arid, grey/ yellow rocks, messas, canyons.. very similar to Sth Utah!! I actually thought that the Tetons were the Rockies but misunderstood the map.. the mountains just to the East and South of the Tetons are the Rockies and we had to drive thru these to get to Grand Teton. The pass we came over was over 10,000 ft and there was plenty of snow still lying out on the ground.

We finally drove out of the Rockies and down to the Jackson Hole (the valley that runs thru Grand Teton NP). By now, it was after 5pm so our first job was to find somewhere to stay for the night. The ranger station was closed (so no help there), so we decided to go for a bit of a drive and test out the in park accom before driving the 30miles down to Jackson (where we knew we’d get accom—it’s a ski resort town).. First place we tried was closed and guide book indicated they would all be closed. I’d given it up as a lost cause and argued for driving straight to Jackson, D dug in and said we should at least try a couple of others that are sort of on our way to Jackson.. Well, we hit the jackpot at the next one!! The Signal Mt Lodge was open and had cheap rates on its rooms!! We scored a two bedroom lake front room for just 120 dollars a night, so we booked two nights to just soak up the view!!!

Enough about our bargain and back to the detail…. The Teton range is GORGEOUS.. It is these craggy, alpine mountains that are covered in snow. Amazingly, they climb up straight from the valley floor (no foothills) so you can really drink in their majesty when you get close!! In front of the mountains are a string of lakes. The one we are staying on is Jackson Lake and the reflection we are getting tonight of the Tetons in the lake is unbelievable.. I swear I’ve taken the best photos tonight that I have at any time!!

After checking in, we decided to hit the pub, have an early dinner and head out to see if we can see any wildlife before the sun goes down (the sun doesn’t set here at the moment until about 8.15pm so plenty of time for wildlife watching). At dinner we had been given the oil to head back out the way we had come to see some Elk and maybe a Bear (a mum is keeping her cubs near to the road into the park)!! On heading out, our first stop was to get another reflection shot of the Tetons and then across the bridge to the Elk range (willow flat). Now, we saw heaps of deer like creatures tonight.. we think they are Mule Deer but will need to check with someone tomorrow (knowing our luck we’ve written these animals off as deer when they are elk!!—NB the difference is size.. deer are much smaller and the males have much smaller antlers.. but seriously, four legs and they pretty much look the same.. who knows what we are looking at!!!).

A little further on and we found a heap of cars parked by the side of the road and people milling around (a sure wildlife sighting)! We pulled in and asked everyone what is happening only to find out that we had just missed seeing a Grizzly Bear with her cubs!!! DAMN! We all therefore immediately decided if we couldn’t see one for the rest of the evening we’d head out first thing and try again!

We kept zooming around that part of the park hoping to see her until it was clear it was just too dark to see anything and the likelihood of seeing her was zero, so we headed back to our cosy two bed cabin for a great night’s sleep and an early rise to see BEARS!!

Song of the Day– Reflections, Diana Ross and the Supremes