When I said in the Yellowstone post that we only found beautiful campgrounds at the park, that was a bit of a lie. By the time we got out of the park boundary on our last day there, it was so dark that we couldn’t face finding a campground. So in our desperation (to eat and sleep) we pulled into the lay-by literally 5 metres outside the park’s south gate. Luckily there’s a 50 mile stretch of road between Yellowstone and Grand Tetons National Park so the NPS guys couldn’t get arsey with us about sleeping in a pullout. Winning!
Not wanting to get too cocky about the legality of our sleeping spot, we got up nice and early the next day to make a swift exit. And a good job we did, because as we made our way towards Grand Tetons, we were greeted with the most gorgeous view on that crisp morning:
Also, if we hadn’t gotten up early, we wouldn’t have had the time to fanny around trying to find an available campsite for the next few days, which is exactly what we did for the next 4 hours. Our inefficiency aside, I am so glad we ended up at Colter Bay campground- it’s a spectacular place and certainly one of our top campgrounds in America!
We settled into our space and wandered down to the beach. There, Aleks got chastised by an American lady for his typical British reserve when he said, “Ah, this is lovely”. She yelled back, “Lovely?! This is GORGEOUS!”
Two major hikes punctuated a few days of lazing at our campsite. The Grand Tetons (which, by the way, means “big nipples” in French) are a string of mountains with a stretch of water alongside. Our first hike was up a small peak on our side of the water called Signal Mountain, from which we gained a wonderful vista of the length of the park.
The second trek was more of a full-day affair, kicking off with a little ferry ride across the famous Jenny Lake to Cascade Canyon.
This hike was a funky one. The first half an hour was a nigh-on vertical zig-zag up from the lakeshore to where the valley truly began. From then on, the path flattened and calmly took you alongside the river carving its way through its neighbouring peaks. We witnessed lots of people giving up midway through that initial steep section. Our advice is, persevere and you will be rewarded with the gentle trail ahead! Eventually, the small patches of leftover winter snow grew larger until it blocked the way altogether. So after 4 hours of hiking, it was time to enjoy our lunch perched next to a waterfall, and turn back.
Our trip to the great nipples of America ended with a much-needed campfire and a few bacon. Perfect!
The Big Adventure 