August 6, 2022 @ 08:20 MDT
Site Visit #41
According to park brochures, Grand Teton National Park has magnificent and rugged peaks rising thousands of feet above the broad valley below.
I never saw them.
Our morning dawned gloomy and overcast as we packed up our car and departed Grant Village in Yellowstone National Park. The plan was to head south out of the park, and into Grand Teton, spend much of the day in the park, then head east for a few hours to cheaper overnight accommodations.
It began raining shortly after we left, and would continue to do so on and off all day. As we reached the end of the John D. Rockefeller, Jr Memorial Parkway and entered Grand Teton, we found the famed mountains shrouded in low-hanging clouds.
We made several stops, including the Jenny Lake Visitor Center, in hopes of catching a glimpse of the mountain tops. On a few occasions, we did see a faint silhouette of the distant peaks poking through the fog. But for the most part, we saw fog and clouds.
The good news was that both my traveling colleague and I had been here before and had seen the park in nearly ideal weather. Today’s weather actually gave us a chance to see the park in a different way, and we agreed that the rain and fog hanging around the mountains were scenic in their own way. Maybe not as scenic as the park on a clear day with a deep blue sky, but we both got several good photos showing the park in a way many visitors never see.
We left the park near its southern end, and headed north along US 26, paralleling the park for several miles before turning east. Along this route, we stopped at a few pull-offs to look back at the mountains from a distance. The low clouds were beginning to break up and we would see a peak poke through from time to time.
It was a bit tricky getting photos of these glimpses. The wind was strong and the clouds moved quickly. A view of a full mountain would open up, and be gone almost as quickly as I could raise my camera to take a picture. Nonetheless, it was a nice final view of the park as we started our trek back east.
Steve
