Grand Teton Aug. 15-19, 1998 [Grand Teton Gallery] [Back to Photo Page]

Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks have been on my wish list to visit for a long time. Thanks to the slow down of semicondcutor industry, we have to take one week off in this quarter, so we came up with the plan of this trip. We had six people in our party: Clare, Linus, my mother-in-law, my friends: Lih-Huah and Cheng-Ping, and myself. We stayed 3 nights in Grand Teton and 4 nights in Yellowstone.

Getting there ...

We had an early morning flight from San Francisco to Salt Lake City, and had a rental car from the SLC airport. It took us about six to seven hours to get to Grand Teton, and it was already in the late afternoon when we got there. We stopped by the Snake River overlook to check the spot for sunrise for the next day. It was cloudy and began to rain when we got to the Colter Bay Village. The sky was cleared up when we had dinner, and it was probably the most beautiful sunset during our entire trip. But it was too late for me to grab my camera ...

The Second Day ...

• After consulting with the people in the Colter Bay Village, we decided to go to the Oxbow Bend for the sunrise. Oxbow Bend has a great view of the Mt. Moran with good reflection in the Snake River. The sky was clear before sunrise. The light was turning from pink (the photo on the top) to gold, and the mountain was gradually covered by the fog floating above the river.

• Swan Lake and Heron Pond Trail
  

  This trail is an easy walk in the Colter Bay area. It starts from the shore of the Jackson Lake with a view of Mt.Moran, and winds through forests and lakes. Clare said she saw two Coyotes, a black bear, and a dozen of pelicans on this trail 3 years ago. But all we saw were two lonely swans in the lake.

• Signal Mountain
  

  Although the Signal Mountain is not that high (7593 ft), it really stands out among the surrounding terrains. Signal Mountain Road climbs 1000 feet in 5 miles to areas which offer panoramic views of Jackson Hole, Jackson Lake, and the Teton Range.

• Jenny Lake
  

  We had our lunch at the Jenny Lake Lodge. We stopped by the Jenny Lake turnout and walked down to the lake. Linus liked to play with water and he was all wet. We originally planned to take the boat and went to Hidden Fall. But the weather was not so good and there was raindrops occasionally. We thought we should delay riding the boat to the next day if the weather was better. In fact, we were caught by a heavy rain the next day (see the third day below).

• Menor's Ferry Historic Site and Grand Teton Vistas
  After changed our plan, we visited Menor's Ferry, Chapel of the Transfiguraion, and many vista points along the roads. When I was driving back to the Colter Bay Village, I was caught by a police just north of Cunningham Cabin because of speeding (68mph @ 55mph zone). The policeman was so nice that I was only given by a warning :-)
  

• Sunset at Willow Flat
  We went to Willow Flat to wait for sunset. The weather was too good to have a nice sunset with changing colors.

The Third Day ...

• We got up early and drove to Teton Point for sunrise. The weather was VERY bad. It was cold and rainy, and we couldn't even see the mountains sometimes. When the sun came up from the distance mountains, the sky opened up a small hole for less than a few minutes, and I got this shot.

• String Lake and Leigh Lake
  

  We stayed in our cabin till almost 10am because of heavy rain outside. We decided to take a short walk in the String Lake area in case if it was rainy again, we could run back to our car. The lake was calm and quiet. The peaceful water gave the forest a perfect reflection. We hiked along the water to the intersection of String Lake and Leigh Lake. A few more steps brought us to Leigh Lake with much open space and a view of mountains. As we expected, it was rainy again while we took a break at Leigh Lake. Fortunately, it only last a few minutes and the sky began to clear up. We had our lunch at the picnic area near String Lake, and thought the weather was finally getting better. It turned out it was the worst weather forcast we've ever made ...

• Hidden Fall and Inspiration Point
  
  We decided to take the Jenny Lake shuttle boat and went to Hidden Fall and Inspiration Point because the weather looked fine. Riding the boat took about 15 minutes. The trail to Hidden Fall climbs 150 ft and it was not very difficult. The fall is "hidden" behind the main trail and many trees. We continued to walk up to a flat area with a good view of Jenny Lake, and my family decided to stop here to let Linus play some rocks. Only Lih-Huah and Cheng-Ping continued to hike up to the Inspiration Point.

There were already many people at the boat deck waiting for the returning boat when we walked down there. There were 3 boats left before we can get on the boat. Just right after the last boat left, a thunderstorm suddenly moved in. Everyone put on his or her coat, and we took out the umbrella and surrounded Linus in the center. The heavy rain and hail last more than 10 minutes and everyone was totally wet except Linus. We could see the cloud move fast away from us, and the rain flied above the lake. The rainbow showed up and it was sunny again. It was the most exciting experience we had in this trip, and most unstable weather we've ever seen.

• Sunset at Willow Flat again. Well, the condition was even worse than the day before. The sky just remained pale and turned dark directly. We did find a herd of elks in the distant meadow though.

The Fourth Day ...

We went to Teton Point again for the sunrise. It was cloudy with isolated thunderstorms. We still didn't get a typical sunrise picture, instead we were rewarded a photo with rainbow. We headed toward Yellowstone after breakfast and begain another journey. (Before we departed to Yellowstone, my Canon A2 was totally not working. I think it was because my bag was wet and the camera had a poor contact somewhere. Although it was back alive about one hour after I took it out of my camera bag, I was considering a second camera body seriously ...)

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