Handbook 122
Grand Teton
A Guide to
Grand Teton National Park
Wyoming
Produced by the
Division of Publications
National Park Service
U.S. Department of the Interior
Washington, D.C. 1984
_Using This Handbook_
Grand Teton National Park offers the startling and abrupt scenic
grandeur of the Teton Range and the colorful history and natural history
of the valley called Jackson Hole. Other major attractions include the
Snake River, Jackson Lake, and surprisingly good opportunities for
viewing wildlife, including such larger mammals as elk, moose, and
pronghorns. This handbook is published in support of the National Park
Service’s management policies and interpretive programs at the park.
Part 1 introduces the park through the eyes of a beloved, longtime
Jackson Hole resident, the nationally known conservationist Margaret E.
(Mardy) Murie; Part 2 outlines the natural history, geology, and history
of the mountains, valley, and river; and Part 3 presents concise travel
guide and reference materials.
National Park Handbooks, compact introductions to the great natural and
historic places administered by the National Park Service, are designed
to promote understanding and enjoyment of the parks. Each is intended to
be informative reading and a useful guide before, during, and after a
park visit. More than 100 titles are in print. This is Handbook 122.
_Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data_
Main entry under title:
Grand Teton National Park.
(National Park handbook; 122)
Includes index
Supt. of Docs. no.: I 29.9/5:122
1. Grand Teton National Park (Wyo.)—Guide-books.
I. United States. National Park Service. Division of Publications.
II. Series: Handbook (United States. National Park Service. Division
of Publications): 122.
F767.T3G7 1983 917.87’550433 83-600157
ISBN 0-912627-19-0
★GPO:1983—381-611/302 Reprint 1992
Part 1 Welcome to the Tetons 4
What Gratitude We Owe 7
_By Margaret E. Murie_
Part 2 Teton Country 22
The Mountains 25
The Valley 39
The Snake River 49
Wildlife and Wildflowers 59
Part 3 Guide and Adviser 70
Approaching Grand Teton 72
Map of the Park 74
Visitor Centers and Museum 76
Ranger-led Activities 78
Camping and Accommodations 79
Hiking 81
Backcountry Basics 82
Mountaineering 85
Boating and Floating 86
Fishing 89
Winter Activities 90
Management Concerns and Safety 92
Nearby Attractions 93
Armchair Explorations 94
Index 95
Part 1 Welcome to the Tetons
[Illustration: _The Grand Teton, the heart of the range, rises to
13,770 feet in elevation._]
[Illustration: _The Teton Range’s sharp rise off the valley floor
provides spectacular scenery and easy access. A day hike puts you
right in the mountains._]
What Gratitude We Owe
_By Margaret E. Murie_
A bronze plaque at the doorway of the Maude Noble Cabin on the banks of
the Snake River at Moose, Wyoming, recounts a notable meeting in 1923.
It was a meeting at which “... Mr. Struthers Burt, Dr. Horace Carncross,
Mr. John L. Eynon, Mr. J. R. Jones and Mr. Richard Winger, all residents
of Jackson Hole, presented to Mr. Horace Albright, then Superintendent
of Yellowstone National Park, a plan for setting aside a portion of
Jackson Hole as a National Recreation Area for the use and enjoyment of
the people of the United States.”
The plaque commemorates both the beginning and the end of a stormy
period—from 1918 on into the 1950s—in Jackson Hole’s history. Those
meeting at Miss Noble’s simple log cabin wanted to devise a way to save
the valley’s natural beauty from commercial exploitation. They wanted it
protected by a public agency. These few people recognized the need for
safeguarding a meaningful segment of our country from the uses of
commerce. Their idea did not catch on immediately.
In 1926 Horace Albright escorted John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and family
into Jackson Hole, and a bright hope for this valley was born. Albright
imparted to Rockefeller his vision of the whole valley as a national
park. Rockefeller said nothing then but later admitted that Albright’s
vision had set his own dreams in motion. A land company was formed to
shield Rockefeller’s involvement, and it began to purchase valley
parcels. Unaware of this, Congress voted to create a Grand Teton
National Park in 1929. The park was only about one-third the size of
today’s park, protecting only the immediate mountain range, and very
little of the valley floor.
[Illustration: _Broad, cupped antlers—in velvet here—and an
oversized muzzle positively identify the moose._]
[Illustration: _The world of winter comes to the range and valley
with indescribable grace and stillness._]
The 150 square miles of mostly mountain land then comprising Grand Teton
National Park were not enough to safeguard the complete ecosystem of the
valley. Through his agents, Rockefeller quietly purchased ranches and
other private lands in upper Jackson Hole, where the soil was not good
for ranching and some ranchers were having a hard time. In the avowed
purpose of later turning them over to the Federal Government,
Rockefeller was carrying out the aims of those who had met at Maude
Noble’s cabin. And through all the following stormy years; through the
establishment by proclamation of Franklin D. Roosevelt of the Jackson
Hole National Monument to contain the Rockefeller-purchased lands;
through all the opposition to it; through the eventual negotiated
“peace” and the addition of all the monument lands to Grand Teton
National Park by Congress in 1950, the Rockefeller family held to its
goal of “a complete project.”
So now, after all the years and all the tumult, the cattlemen have their
grazing rights on the national forest lands and the right to drift their
cattle across national park lands to reach those permits: people still
have their homes, dudes still come to the dude ranches. No one, Oldtimer
or Newcomer, would now deny that the national park has vitalized the
economy of the valley a thousandfold. These material results are quite
obvious. Our problem now is not the amount of lands that are under
State, private, or Federal jurisdiction, but whether or not we can keep
our souls receptive to the message of peace these unspoiled lands offer
us.
In my many years living in this valley called Jackson Hole, I have
sometimes had half-waking fantasies about how such a very special place
came to be. One could almost imagine that 50 or 60 million years ago
some great force purposely set about to create a valley as beautiful as
any valley could be. A step further into fantasy, one might imagine this
great force saying: “Let us start, of course, with mountains. I shall
raise up a block of granite from the Earth planet’s interior; over the
centuries it will become a magnificent 14,000 feet high; time and the
winds and waters will sculpt it. Looking across to it will be other
hills and mountains, and glaciers will form the valley and then melt
away and there will be waters and streams flowing through. But with only
the winds and waters singing, it will be too quiet, it will not be
alive, so there must be animals—mammals, birds, fish, frogs, toads,
butterflies, and all the rest.”
[Illustration: _For many birding enthusiasts the park’s scenery
proves merely a dividend. They come to see the stately trumpeter
swan, the largest waterfowl species in North America, which nests in
the park. Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks provide
essential habitat for this bird’s survival._]
Fritiof Fryxell, the first ranger naturalist of the park, has described
the forming of these peaks: “With continued uplift came a stage when the
passing air currents, in surmounting the block, were compelled to rise
so high that their moisture condensed. Precipitation over the elevated
region was thereby increased. The streams, ever gaining in volume and
velocity, now flowed along with the fine enthusiasm and vigor of youth,
and like a group of skilled artisans singing at their work, went about
their business of sculpturing the range.”
Within this space the Creator must have intended to bring man in
humility to his knees. Imagine traveling into the range from either
south or north, toward its center. The peaks loom ever higher and
steeper and more dramatic until, as Fryxell points out, with the 6.5
kilometers (4 miles) between Avalanche and Cascade, two of the canyons
piercing the range, there stand in close ranks the South, Middle, and
Grand Teton, Mt. Owen, Teewinot, Nez Perce, Cloudveil Dome, and many
spires. These form an overwhelming Gothic assemblage of peaks, a
concentrated and unforgettable mountain experience for anyone. And it
all goes on, and on, and on, north or south, from there.
This is the Teton Range, but it is not the whole picture. The glaciers
that during the Ice Age came through the whole valley left lakes as a
row of jewels at the feet of the peaks: Phelps, Taggart, Bradley, Jenny,
Leigh, and then finally Jackson lakes, through which the Snake River
travels for some 17 miles southward. From the lakes the flat glacial
floor extends to meet the river in mid-valley and beyond to all the
other beautiful, though not quite so spectacular, mountains and hills
that form the north, east, and south walls of the valley known as
Jackson Hole.
Those “other mountains” are the Yellowstone Plateau to the north, the
Absaroka, the Washakie, and Gros Ventre, merging southward into the
Hoback and Snake River Ranges. It is immediately clear why the first
mountain men called this type of valley a hole. As the Snake winds its
way south from its source in a high mountain meadow in southern
Yellowstone National Park, into and out of Jackson Lake, it is joined by
other streams: Pacific Creek, the Buffalo River, the Gros Ventre. All
are bordered by cottonwood and aspen and spruce and fir forests. The
scene is one of infinite variety, and in summer it is aglow with
wildflowers of every hue. When I first entered the valley in mid-July of
1927, I thought surely I was entering a fairyland.
We know that for many hundreds of years the Indians came to this valley
to hunt and fish, but not to stay. They left the land nearly untouched.
Then in the early 1800s came the mountain men to harvest the beaver. And
the valley became the favorite of one David Jackson, for whom it was
named by his fur trade partner, William Sublette, in 1829, 100 years
before Grand Teton National Park was established.
The first white settlers came to the hole about 1884, settling first in
the southern part of the valley. Grass grew there and hay could be
raised. Cattle could live there. But it was a demanding environment. The
settlers worked hard all summer and battled cold and deep snow in
winter, feeding their stock by horse-drawn sleigh or on snowshoes. Much
could be written about their survival techniques, but what interests us
here in connection with the national park is that the life they led
nurtured a bold and independent spirit. They believed in their “first
rights” to this part of the world, and resisted anything threatening
their independence and proprietary feelings. Most of what is now the
national park was part of Teton National Forest in 1929, and cattlemen
had grazing rights on the forest. Naturally they were flamingly opposed
to anything that might change their privileges. This was the human
background for the long drama of saving a good portion of Jackson Hole
in its natural state, for the benefit of untold generations of people
from all over the world.
[Illustration: _Author Mardy Murie and her late husband, Olaus, came
to Jackson Hole for his now world famous elk studies. Her home base
is still in Jackson Hole, although she travels across North America
in the cause of conservation._]
Teton country was a part of the West where, thankfully, gold was not an
issue. An oldtimer once left this notice on a Snake River gravel bar:
_Payin gold will never be found here
No matter how many men tries
There’s some enough to begile one
Like tanglefoot paper does flies._
That left cattle as the only “gold,” with their owners ready to fight
for what they considered their rights. The puzzling yet invigorating
diversity among people is part of the long evolution of the human
spirit. Jackson Hole was and still is a fascinating microcosm reflecting
these diversities, and they all played roles in the long controversy
that colors the history of this great national park.
[Illustration: _Aspens gone golden for autumn stand reflected in the
Snake River._]
[Illustration: _The few remaining Jackson Hole ranches reflect the
Old West._]
One of the valley’s most famous residents, author Struthers Burt, once
wrote: “I am afraid for my own country unless some help is given it—some
wise direction. It is too beautiful and now too famous. Sometimes I
dream of it unhappily.” When Burt wrote this there had irrupted at Jenny
Lake and nearby, in front of the most impressive view of the main Teton
peaks, a gasoline station, tourist cabins, a hot dog stand, a dance
hall, and some rusting bodies of automobiles. No wonder he dreamed
unhappily. But “some wise direction” did come. All the old blight along
the highway has been removed and today there is a small ranger station,
a tents-only campground, camper store, a small visitor center, and a
small boat dock.
“The American public will not leave Jackson Hole alone; nor can we ask
them to,” my husband, Olaus, wrote in 1943. “They will be coming in
increasing numbers. In any situation involving large numbers of us, some
regulation becomes a necessity, whether we like it or not.... It should
be our ambition to assist all agencies to keep intact this one segment
of America that we boast of as ‘the last of the Old West.’”
The Indians hunted and fished in this valley for all those hundreds of
years and left no mark. The white man has been here less than one
hundred and has left many marks. Today we have enlarged Grand Teton
National Park, and the staff of the park now copes with a flow of nearly
three million visitors each year.
On the edges and outskirts of the park, we still have the cloud of what
Robert Righter describes in his history of the park as “the threats of
subdivision and mammonism.” Righter bemoans the damper such activities
can put on the human spirit otherwise inspired by the mountain range.
“It seems important,” he says, “that future generations know that the
Park commemorates not only the grandeur of nature but also the spirit of
men acting for a noble cause; it is a park not of chance but of man’s
design.”
Today, come to this national park with an open mind, open eyes, and an
open heart. Leave your conveyance; walk the trails up into the canyons,
around the lakes, into the hills, canoe on some of the lakes. Stand
quietly at dusk by a beaver pond and you may see a moose or two or
three, some ducks, a great blue heron, a pair of trumpeter swans. The
list is long of what may be seen. And the list is equally long—or
longer—of what may be heard if you stand quietly: the song of the
Swainson’s thrush or the ruby-crowned kinglet, the raucous conversation
of ravens, the chatter of pine squirrels, the rattling call of sandhill
cranes.
Go by foot or canoe or kayak or on a quiet horse or, in winter, on
cross-country skis. You will sense the full and busy and yet harmonious
life pattern of the wild ones. It will come to mean something very
special to you, for it is a balm and a benediction. It is a reminder of
your primeval roots. Stand at the edge of some woods at night and hear a
great-horned owl hooting; perhaps, if you are lucky, coyotes singing;
or, after September 1, some bull elk bugling.
Be glad they are all still here. These quiet adventures will remain with
you always. And think then, too, what might have happened in this
valley, and what gratitude we owe a few.