Grand Teton - Yellowstone Visit Guidance

I would echo a little more time in Yellowstone, one extra day and one less in Grand Teton. Yellowstone is awfully large and to do it justice will take all of five days or six. But to use that much time you will need to get out of the vehicle and hike around the features and take a bunch of pictures, etc. There are so many more features in Yellowstone than in Grand Teton, but my personal belief is that Grand Teton is much more magnificent with Jackson Lake, Jenny Lake, the Tetons right on the shore of them. Stay in Colter Bay, dry camping, there are about 300 sites available for dry camping about half do not let you use a generator, if you planned on using it. If you have a Senior Pass, the price is only $10.50 per night for the dry camping. There are bathrooms at every loop and loop J now has electrical for handicapped folks, but there are about ten to twelve spots and I would guess they will not be filling up. While in Grand Teton, make sure you take the cruise on Jackson Lake out of the marina. They even have an evening cruise that stops at Elk Island, in the shadow, almost, of Mt. Moran. and serves dinner on the shore. Jenny Lake has a boat that goes to the far side of the lake and let's you get to Hidden Falls which is beautiful, and not a very hard hike. Then you can go to the newest part of Grand Teton, the Laurence Rockefeller Reserve and hike into Phelps Lake and see how they took a family ranch area and totally turned it back to nature. There were, I believe, 33 buildings there and you will really have to look hard to find evidence of them. Then you can go to the Gros Ventre Slide area where they had one of the largest landslides in the US that helped form a lake back by the slide area. While you are driving around you will probably see Grizzly Bears, elk, moose, deer, antelope. We saw a black bear by Jenny Lake and I got to within about 50 yards of him before spooking him off, got one good picture. And, one evening you can drive into Jackson and go to the Bar J Chuckwagon dinner. They serve about 600 people in 20 minutes with pretty good food and then the Bar J Wranglers entertain for about 1 1/2 to two hours with great music and humor. The whole family can enjoy it, no matter the age. Prices are less than $30 for steak and the show per person. We try to get up there once a year just to go there.

If it seems that I am focusing on Grand Teton, I am. I believe it's one of the prettiest places we have ever been to. We go up there three or more times a year and usually spend our anniversary there in July. We go to Leeks Pizza at Leeks Marina, get pizza and beer, sit on the deck and look out over the lake at the Tetons. It doesn't get much better than that.