Grand Teton National Park

“Begin Again” - The Grand Tetons from across Jackson Lake

If you love jagged edge mountains as much as I do this should be one of your favorite parks. I’m sure I’ve only scratched the surface of this place, but the views are amazing almost anywhere you find yourself. The top picture here was taken on a beach off the side of the road that travels along Jackson Lake, and you have this view for most of that drive. The park is situated just south of Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming and may be overshadowed by the more famous park. I’m not here to say one is better than the other, I love them both, but it usually seems easier to find yourself alone with the mountains down in the Tetons. It’s easy to visit both parks on the same trip anyway, so there’s no need to decide between them. On the trip where these photos were taken my friends and I only spent a day here, I wouldn’t say that’s enough time but you can definitely still see a lot.

“Falling” - Water falls running down the side of the mountains from south of Jenny Lake.

All of the pictures in this post are from my most recent trip to the Tetons in October 2018. It was my second time visiting but the first time I really took the time to enjoy it. We drove into the park from the south through Jackson Hole. From there you’re greeted with amazing close up views of the mountains right from the road and pull offs. I used a telephoto lens for the image above to bring out the waterfalls coming down the sides, taken at one of those pull offs.

“Introspection” - Grand Teton from across Jenny Lake.

Most of this trip was spend around Jenny Lake, a beautiful area south of the larger Jackson Lake. Above was one of my first views in the area, not far from the visitor center. There are plenty of trails around but I think some of my favorite views are a few hundred feet from the parking lot.

“Hidden Falls” - Off of a trail near Jenny Lake.

That trail we took went to Hidden Falls, a waterfall somewhat into the woods along the lake. Now I thought it was about a 1 mile hike, but somehow I had read the map from the other side of the lake and it was actually closer to 6, my friends didn’t trust me to read the maps after that. Still it wasn’t a bad hike and you have some great views of the lake and eventually the waterfall at the end. Just make sure you’re prepared for a little more than a quick walk in the park unless you actually know where you are.

“Jenny Lake” - A view of the mountains across Jenny Lake from some paths near the visitor center.

And here’s another shot from Jenny Lake, appropriately called Jenny Lake because I thought it kind of captured the essence of the area. We left from here and drove north alongside Jackson Lake while the sun began to set. With a few stops along the way including the one where I took the picture at the top of this post we had driven through the park by nightfall. I think that’s one of the great appeals of this park, most of what you want to see is readily accessible, and if you want to see a bit more there are plenty of hikes to gorgeous spots as well. We only spent one full day here, I could definitely spend more but any amount of time seems to be worth it.

Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

Outside of Paria

The Grand Staircase-Escalante is a large National Monument in southern Utah. It was originally established in 1996 by President Bill Clinton as a 1,880,461 acre monument managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM,). In 2017 President Donald Trump reduced the size of the monument to 1,003,863 acres. There are 3 distinct areas of the monument, the Grand Staircase, Kaiparowits, and Escalante Canyon. It's one of the more diverse monuments and is most often characterized by it's colorful cliffs, slot canyons, and various desert monoliths.

I went there for the first time in March 2017 and spent some time in the Paria area, which is basically this road leading to the remains of a ghost town. I thought it would actually be a ghost town with buildings and what not but it's really just some markers of where the town used to be, although the graveyard is still there. The easily definable layers in the cliffs and the vast stretches of the plateaus and mesas in this area give a clear view of the staircase that gives the monument it's name. You can see an image I captured from just off the road here on the top of this post. And keep in mind this "road" is not for the faint of heart. It seems like a normal dirt road when you first start out but around a particular corner the you'll find yourself driving on the top of these cliffs that drop off on either side. It's really not as bad as it feels once you step out of the car though, and in my opinion the best views are from the side of this road.

Toadstool Hoodoos

I was back in the staircase almost exactly one year later (this past March) and hiked into the famous Toadstool Hoodoos. This is one of the more surreal places in the area in my opinion. It's maybe a mile hike into the back area where you reach a plateau lined with cliffs and these odd shaped monoliths jutting out all over it.

The hike isn't all too strenuous, but does require you to either not mind walking on a one foot wide path with a 30 foot drop on either side or find a way to climb up a 5-10 foot cliff. Either way being there is definitely worth it.

That's all I've seen so far of this monument, I'll just keep chipping away at seeing little pieces of it. The small sections I have seen are definitely worth a visit though.

My National Park & Monument List