Yellowstone, September 2019, Part 1

Barb and I traveled to Jackson Hole, the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Park. This post covers our first four days in Jackson Hole and the Grand Teton National Park. Part 2 covers our time in Yellowstone.

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This was our big trip of 2019. Barb and I could not agree on an international destination this year, and she had long harbored a desire to see bison and other large mammals in the flesh. I honestly believed I had been to Yellowstone as a child with Mom and Dad, but in recounting my youth and checking with Laurie, I don’t think we actually ever we went there. I’ve simply seen lots of TV documentaries, nature shows and things like “Supervolcano” which came out in 2005 and popularized the notion that Yellowstone is actually a massive volcano capable of planet-altering eruptions. That was something I never learned as a child.

So we decided on a week or so in Yellowstone. We made the decision in January-February of 2019, and I started researching various options for tours or self-guided travel. I found that the big hotels in the park, like the Old Faithful Inn were already booked. Tours through big providers like National Geographic or Tauck didn’t seem to be quite right, but gave me ideas for itineraries. I knew I wanted to spend at least part of the time in Jackson Hole and the Grand Tetons. Eventually, through TripAdvisor, I found the option of taking a four-day tour through Yellowstone and Grand Teton with Brushbuck Tours. We rounded that out with three additional nights in Jackson, Wyoming.

Saturday, September 7

We rose at 5:30am for our 8:15am United flight out of BWI. It was an easy drive to the airport and our flight to Chicago was on time. Sadly, it was a tight squeeze for me to get into the seat on the 737, but I managed for the hour or so flight. It was a quick connection of about 40 minutes to our flight to Jackson, and the gate was in a different United terminal, but we made it fine. Fortunately, there was a little more seat room on the A320 to Jackson plus there was no one in middle seat, so yay. With the window seat and a clear day, I once again contemplated how large, flat and empty our United States are as I listened to music and podcasts.

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Arrival at Jackson Hole airport was visually dramatic. The descent afforded good views of the Grand Teton mountains, as did taxiing on the runway. We deplaned via an outdoor ramp, also with great views, which is terrific on a nice summer day but I wonder what they do in less clement weather. Do they use the same system in winter?

As we got inside the airport there were folks from the Teton Raptor Center showing off a variety of live owls and hawks. It made for a pretty impressive reception, and a crowd at baggage claim at the same time.

We got our bags and found that there was no Avis counter at the airport, and no signs for one either. I happened to notice an Avis bus outside so we hopped on, getting the last two seats among a a bunch of not-very-happy-looking people. It was a fairly long 15-20 minute ride to the Avis office in the town of Jackson. The countryside was pretty wide open (and pretty) and we passed signs for Grand Teton National Park and the National Elk Refuge which made it reasonably clear that we were already on public lands. We didn’t see any elk, though.

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We drove through the small but bustling town of Jackson, got to a desultory little Avis office and were ushered off the bus into a long line at the counter to get cars. Not a good system. The clerk offered to upgrade me to a Mustang GT since he didn’t have any other sedans available. We and our luggage fit well enough. When I started the car it growled to life with a ridiculous roar. Barb and I felt embarrassed as we rumbled through town to our hotel, the Huff House.

I had chosen the Huff House Inn based on good TripAdvisor reviews. There were a series of cottages but our room, the Grand Teton Suite, in the main house was not ready when we arrived.

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We took the receptionist’s recommendation and walked a couple of blocks into the main part of Jackson, heading to Liberty Burger for lunch. We passed Jackson Square with its distinctive arches of elk antlers on each corner and stopped for an obligatory photo. We soon found the restaurant and I had a patty melt, while Barb had a burger and we shared onion rings. Not the world’s greatest but a passable lunch.

Before leaving home, I had made dinner reservations for Saturday, Sunday and Monday; over lunch I showed menus to Barb and she promptly rejected the first two. Her main complaints were that each place was too expensive and/or the food looked fussy. She couldn’t do anything about the Monday reservation since it was for the main restaurant at Jackson Lake Lodge and there was no other choice nearby.

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We walked a little further up the main street to the Jackson Hole Visitor Center where we first stopped to see another display of raptors from the Teton Raptor Center. These people get around. The birds were cute and it was interesting talking to the handlers for a few minutes. We won a highly valued bison pen for Barb by answering trivia questions at the end.

Inside the Visitor Center, Barb engaged in a long talk with a nice older lady at the front desk who gave us ideas of where to go and what to see in the area. I already sort of had ideas, but Barb loves to get first-hand recommendations from locals. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it tends to render moot the research I do — I am not a reliable source of information for her. We asked whether the center had any films and we ended up watching a wildlife video together with her. I meant to write down the woman’s name but promptly forgot. We do know, however, that she’s from the Chicago suburbs and her husband passed away not long ago. Barb tends to extract details like that.

The Visitor Center is at the north end of town and has a viewing area looking out over an open valley that turned out to be the National Elk Refuge. Signs indicated that it was mostly a winter feeding ground for elk and other wildlife. We were a couple of months too early for them.

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We wandered back through town, hitting some shops where I took Barb’s photo with a bison so she could send it back to folks at work. Everyone had warned her not to pet the bison, so that’s the first thing she did, albeit a stuffed one.

Back at the hotel, we were able to get into our room and unpacked. Barb got alternative dinner recommendations from Marina, our front desk lady. I canceled the reservations I had made and Marina made a new one for us for the next night at a restaurant on the town’s square.

It was only about 4:30pm so we decided to take a drive to orient ourselves to the Jackson area. The visitor center lady told us a local ski center had a free cable car after 5pm to its mountain restaurant which was a good place to get a view of the valley. That was a better deal than the $35 gondola ride I had heard about that went all the way to the top of the mountain for 360-degree views. And today was probably a better day to do it than tomorrow which threatened to be cloudy and rainy. She also suggested we try to see animals at dusk near one of the rivers just out of town. She marked both sites on a tourist map and Barb navigated as we headed out. 

Using the map the lady at visitor center marked up, we set out for Teton Village. The map quickly proved to be absurdly not to scale as we headed well past the airport, then down a winding little road that turned to very bumpy gravel before finally getting to Teton Village. The Mustang was not really built for that kind of travel, and I became increasingly uncomfortable and irritable. At one point, we noticed a bunch of cars parked by the side of the road and people gathering with binoculars and cameras, but I was too grumpy and focused on our gondola mission to stop.

It was close to 6pm by the time we got near Teton Village. Traffic slowed for a major bicycle race that had its finish line in the village, clogging up the small road and filling the parking lots. It was hard to figure out where the gondola was or to find a free parking spot. I was getting very testy and Barb was chirping back. The situation, and my getting tired, brought out each of our passive aggressive worsts.

Eventually, after asking at one of the hotels, we found a parking spot and the gondola. We rode up the mountain to about 8,000 feet for what turned out to be a pleasant enough but fairly ordinary view. It turned out the larger, fancier gondola that went to the top of the mountain wasn’t even running, so that wasn’t an option anyway. We stayed up at the restaurant terrace for a while, contemplated the various ski, hiking and mountain bike runs, and agreed that none of those activities were for us. We were getting colder as the sun was setting (cleverly not having brought our jackets from the car), before catching a ride back down.

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We got back to our car after 7pm, and had to decide what to do next. The directions for the animal viewing area would have put us back on the small bumpy road and I didn’t want to do that. We elected to head back into town, going the other direction this time. It was a much smoother and shorter 25 minute ride. We found a grocery store in town to stop and get some Cokes.

Nearby, we saw a sushi and noodle place (Noodle Kitchen) and Barb perked up. It wasn’t exactly what I had in mind for dinner, but at that point I was tired and not very hungry. We decided to eat there. Barb got a popcorn shrimp appetizer and side of fried rice. I got dumplings and a salmon roll. The shrimp order was large so we battled through that and my appetizers and took home the rice. The dumplings and salmon roll were mediocre at best but I wasn’t hungry anyway. Just tired and ready for bed.

We were finally back in our room by about 9:30, found Harry Potter on TV (of course), and finally headed to bed by 10:30 or so (12:30am east coast time, after having gotten up at 5:30am). We both noticed that the air conditioner/heater unit in the room blew directly on us in the bed, but there didn’t seem to be anything we could do about it.

My lesson learned is that we probably tried to accomplish too much in that first day. And that Teton Village is further away from Jackson than I thought, no matter which direction you go. And that I should check directions myself before heading out on a drive. And not to sleep in a draft. Make that several lessons.

Sunday, September 8

I woke up around 6:30am, after nearly 8 hours of pretty good sleep. I felt a little better but also had the scratchy throat beginnings of a cold. The Inn served breakfast and we had reserved a spot at 8am. We’d pre-ordered french toast for Barb and salmon eggs Benedict for me. Both were quite nice and civilized.

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It was a fresh day, cloudy but not yet rainy. We headed out, this time to the main Grand Teton National Park visitor center, the Craig Thomas Discovery and Visitor Center, which we had passed on last evening’s adventures. It was very good, with lots of displays, and a good 20-minute movie that finished with the curtains opening on a grand view of the Grand Tetons, diminished slightly by the gray clouds. We stayed at the center for more than an hour, including a helpful 20-minute ranger talk explaining the geology of the mountains and suggested sights to see.

Per the ranger’s suggestion, we decided to head up to the Jenny Lake Visitor Center and then drive the Jenny Lake loop. The skies were cloudy, verging on rain, and the Tetons were imposing but not quite awe-inspiring. Barb said they didn’t hold a candle to the Alps and found it hard to see what the fuss was about.

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The Jenny Lake Visitor Center was smaller and less informative than the Craig Thomas one. Jenny Lake itself was also rather smaller and less magnificent than I’d expected. The loop drive also turned out to be mostly through trees. We skipped the one pull-out that offered a view of the lake and mountains, which in retrospect was a mistake but at the time we felt we’d seen what we needed to.

We drove over to the Rockefeller Preserve Center, where it was fully raining and they reported recent bear activity so some of the paths immediately around the Center were closed. It was OK, we wouldn’t have been on them anyway. We stayed a while to dry off, enjoyed the rather unique audio room with sounds of nature as well as the library with a nice fireplace. But all in all, there was not much to see in the Center. It does preserve the legacy of the Laurence Rockefeller family who used to come here in the summers and enjoyed the trails up to Phelps Lake. It turns out the bumpy gravel Moose Wilson Road we went on yesterday, which goes past the Center, was actually mandated by Mrs. Rockefeller to be kept in a natural state to remind visitors of the remoteness of the area and show how all the roads used to be. It’s an effective but joltingly annoying lesson.

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We decided to avoid the bumpy road one more time and instead headed north for the Antelope Trail loop drive, despite the rain. Here, we finally saw some large mammals — two clusters of maybe six pronghorn antelope grazing in the distance. We couldn’t see the prongs very well, but could see their white butts. But it was too wet and not special enough to stop for photos, plus they were a long way away and I didn’t have my zoom camera handy. Fortunately, we would see plenty more antelope in the coming days.

While we were driving, the tire pressure warning light on the Mustang came on. My own car does this from time to time; it’s annoying but not critical. Nevertheless, it gave me a reason to take the car back to Avis and see if they could either get it fixed or give me something more to our liking.

We headed back into Jackson, stopping at the Creekside Deli for sandwiches. We took them back to the hotel and ate around 3pm. I took the Mustang back to Avis and was able to switch to a Hyundai Elantra without any hassle. It was a much more boring car, but felt much more reasonable for us. Take that, Detroit. And testosterone.

While I was gone, Barb went souvenir shopping at Jackson Square where she found there was a street food festival and art fair. Oh well, who knew? That would have been a better alternative for lunch, but we missed out.

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I got back to our room in time for a rest and to watch Rafael Nadal win the US Open. Barb went to the Huff House living room, checked her email, and started working on one of the hotel’s jigsaw puzzles.

We had dinner that night at 6:00pm at The Local. I had a nice porterhouse steak with a pepper sauce and some local rye whiskey. Barb had trout fillet and was somewhat dismayed to find that mountain trout come out a little red and tasted quite like salmon. She wanted something a little whiter and lighter.

We had made the dinner reservation early in case we wanted to go out in the evening to try to see animals. As it turned out, it was still a little rainy, we were tired, and the Huff House was a very hospitable place to hang out. Barb settled back into the living room and worked on her puzzle. I hung out in the room and stumbled upon the PBS broadcast of Country Music: Live at the Ryman, an all-star concert celebrating Ken Burns’ documentary. We were both very happy.

Monday, September 9

The head cold fully arrived for me on Monday. Stuffed sinuses, sneezing, the works. Nevertheless, we enjoyed one more nice breakfast at the Huff House (eggs Benedict for both of us) and decided to stay in the Inn’s comfy confines for as long as we could that morning. Barb checked emails and finished her puzzle while I read my book, The Expanding Blaze.

I noticed the view out the Huff House window was of a construction site with a basement foundation already set. I asked the innkeeper about it and she said that within a week it would be a new section of the Inn. Evidently, the next door house of a dentist went on the market the previous year and the owner of the Inn bought it as a defensive measure to make sure no one else built there. After sitting on the property for a year, they decided they needed to do something with their $1.2 million view of the ski slope. The Inn’s 20 or so new rooms were prefabricated and already sitting in a lot nearby, ready to be placed. They said if we came by next week, we would see the new building. I resolved to do so.

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At precisely 11:00am, we checked out of Huff House, thoroughly pleased with it. I wrote a TripAdvisor review mentioning the receptionist Marina, breakfast server Mona (from Romania on a temporary visa, as were many of the servers and housekeepers we encountered in Jackson) and the cook, Chico, so they would then get $5 each, said the innkeeper.

We drove up to Jackson Lake Lodge, and on the way encountered Barb’s first herd of bison. It was very exciting, they were very close to the road — a couple of hundred bison scattered over the terrain. Barb was thrilled, which was great to see. I tried taking some pictures with my new zoom camera and found I still had a learning curve to climb. I hoped for another chance.

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We checked into the lodge around 1pm and got into our room on the main building’s third floor. The Jackson Lake Lodge (TripAdvisor, website) is old, built in 1955, and I was surprised there were only about 50 rooms in the main building on a single floor. There are lots more rooms in nearby cabins that Barb was glad not to be in. There was no TV in the room, so that was a bit of an unusual circumstance for us, but the lodge did have reasonably good wifi which was a plus. The highlight of the lodge is its second floor lobby with a terrific view of the Tetons and Jackson Lake.

We had a quick lunch of leftovers from the previous couple of days, then headed down to Colter Marina for an afternoon boat cruise of Jackson Lake, which I had booked ahead. The cruise was largely uneventful and a bit of a disappointment: an older boat, an older captain Joe, a young, personable first mate Kristi who did the talking (and reminded us of Kristen). We basically went across the lake, got close to the mountains on the other side for a few minutes of good views, saw an osprey nest that Captain Joe pointed out, then motored back to Colter Marina. In all, the cruise was about 90 minutes and nothing much to write home about.

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I was confused to learn that Jackson Lake and the Snake River, which were on the east side of the Grand Tetons and, effectively, the Rocky Mountains, flowed westward into the Columbia River and eventually the Pacific Ocean. I knew generally about the Continental Divide but didn’t understand the specifics of why things seemed backwards here. I was getting tired and didn’t think Kristi was the right person to ask, though, so I figured I’d save the question for our Yellowstone guide.

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We tried the Colter Bay visitor center after boat ride but it had just closed, so we went back to the lodge where Barb settled into emails while I took a short walk to Lunch Tree Hill where Rockefeller got the inspiration for the park and lodge.

This is the spot where Yellowstone Superintendent Horace Albright brought John D. Rockefeller, Jr. to picnic in 1926 and begin persuading him to help preserve the Grand Tetons as a national park. Rockefeller ended up creating a shell company to buy properties anonymously and eventually (after a threatening letter to Franklin Roosevelt to agree to back a national park) donated them to form the Grand Teton National Park. I have mixed feelings about the methodology used to create the park, but I am glad for the result. As Barb later pointed out, it was better than Disney buying the land and creating a massive theme park.

Though I was not feeling my best, and the nearly 7,000 foot altitude slowed me down, I’m glad I took this short uphill hike. The views were quite spectacular, even better and more peaceful than those from the lodge.

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The view was made even more interesting when a fellow walker pointed out a moose in the distance on Willow Flats. I practiced with my zoom camera to get a little bit better view.

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The guy turned out to be a good spotter. A little while later, on the lawn by the lodge, he drew a crowd by pointing out moose and elk through his high powered binoculars and a scope set up with an iPhone for pictures. I got a few shots and called Barb down to have a look before dinner. She also got to see a fuzzy representation of a moose. Two large mammals in one day!

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Barb went back inside while I stayed for the sunset which was dramatic and quick.

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The sunset was punctuated by another moose spotting, this time a mother and calf.

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I caught my final sunset shots from the Mural Room where we would have dinner. They held a window seat for us where we could see the last of the sunset’s colors. Our waiters from Spain were pleasant. I had a good trout and corn bisque and then bison steak frites. Barb had a shrimp cocktail and caesar salad with trout. All was quite good. 

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I checked for stars after dinner but there were just enough fuzzy clouds to make it not worthwhile. Otherwise, the sky and valley around the lodge were very, very dark. It would be nice on a clear night. I headed back to the room by 9:00pm or so, and was in bed by 11:00. I found an episode of “Murder She Wrote” through Xfinity on my computer for Barb, which made it easier for her to go to sleep. I had a fitful night trying to sleep but eventually nearly 8 hours elapsed. I decided I would need to get some cold medication in Jackson the following afternoon.

Tuesday, September 10

We had a basic breakfast in the “diner” at the Jackson Lake Lodge. Barb had pancakes (huge) and I had a healthy fruit bowl since I was still feeling pretty poorly. We gathered ourselves and headed over to the Colter Bay visitor center to see what we missed the day before. There wasn’t much to it, but for a little display of native American art and, of course, a gift shop.

We then drove a few miles to Signal Mountain, winding up to the top for a view of the whole Jackson Hole valley (a redundancy…a Hole is by definition a valley). From the top, we could see the bison herd we’d seen the afternoon before, in almost exactly the same location. Not a whole lot else other than a view of the valley. There was a cell signal at the top which was probably not what they named the mountain for but was welcome nonetheless. We decided the separate view toward the Tetons was not worth the effort since it was cloudy in that direction and parking was limited.

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We headed back toward Jackson, deciding to drive past the bison again rather than taking the inner route by Jenny Lake. The bison were very cooperative for photos, and I got a little better with my zoom lens.

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We drove back into Jackson, where I dropped Barb off at the Parkway Inn around 1:00pm. Unfortunately, our room would not be ready until 3:00pm, but we unloaded and Barb hung out in the lobby and used their wifi while I returned the car to Avis.

I drove first to Albertsons and bought a bundle of cold supplies — daytime and nighttime pills, cough drops and Kleenex. By the time I got out, the dark clouds started to unleash a violent torrent of rain and lightning. I drove a short distance to a gas station and filled the tank while wondering how safe it was to stand under a canopy with lightning striking very nearby. I survived and drove around the corner to Avis just as the rain was letting up. Gotta love mountain weather — the storm lasted all of 10 minutes. Returning the car was easy, but I had to wait a while for a taxi (and being told by a fellow renter that Uber was the way to go around Jackson — I still haven’t succumbed to Uber). The taxi turned out to be an airport limo that cost me $12 bucks to go two miles to the hotel. Oh well, maybe Uber is in my future after all.

It was close to 2:00pm and we still didn’t have a room ready, so we took the front desk lady’s recommendation (and Yelp’s) and went to the Silver Dollar Bar and Grill at the historic Wort Hotel, a few blocks away. I ordered a bowl of chili and Barb got a hot dog. Barb was intrigued by the history and decorations around the hotel and after a few minutes started wandering. After 15 minutes or so she came back and we still didn’t have food, so she went further afield into the hotel. Not long after she left, the food arrived but it was another 10-15 minutes before she wandered back, by which time my chili was long gone and her hot dog not very hot. She plowed through most of it and the potato salad, but by the time she finished, it was nearly 3:30 and time for our tour, so we rushed back over to the hotel, checked in and dropped our luggage in what turned out to be the largest suite in the hotel. It was very nice, with a big bedroom and living room, kitchen area and two bathrooms. Too bad we would only be in it for a short evening. We then rushed downstairs to meet our Brushbuck tour guide and group.

Our guide was an older cowboy-looking fellow named Kevin Millard (see his Flikr album of wildlife photos, which I found later). There were five other folks in our group whom we would get to know over the next four days. We clambered into the van that would be our transport and randomly landed in the seats that would be our main home for the rest of the week.

Kevin took us on the road toward Teton Village for an afternoon tour of Grand Teton National Park. Kevin promised this tour would focus on seeing large animals as well as the sights. The first thing we did was go right back to the same winding gravel Moose Wilson road that Barb and I had done on Sunday and almost came to blows over. 

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The road was a little easier with Kevin driving, but no less bouncy in the back. Soon, however, it became clear that Kevin would help us see far more than we did on our own. We came across a small black bear working on a berry bush at the side of the road, almost too close to get a picture before he disappeared.

A little further ahead we stopped at the pullout that Barb and I had passed on Sunday. Kevin led us a few steps to a ridge overlooking a series of beaver ponds and small meadows. I couldn’t see anything other than ducks on my own (though I saw some ripples in the water that I thought might have been beaver but I was too shy to ask about), when Kevin soon identified an elk in the shadows. (“An elk” always reminds me of a Monty Python bit. Anne Elk.)

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He then spotted a mother moose and young moose lying deep in the grass. We stayed in the area for a good 30 minutes, getting used to our binoculars, Kevin’s more powerful scope, and started to get an eye for picking out animals in the wild.

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Kevin explained a little bit more about how the beaver had been nearly hunted out of existence in the 1800s, made a comeback, then nearly died out again in the 20th century. They were making a comeback again, and their dams helped create a marshy environment that attracted other animals. He also said the dams would frequently cause floods on the road, so there was an ongoing cat and mouse (beaver and ranger?) game being played to convince the beavers where not to build dams. The beavers generally won.

A little further up the road, we came across some pronghorn antelope in a field. I was actually the one that first spotted them from the van.

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It was a good large-mammal start to our tour. With the light fading, Kevin got us back to the hotel by about 8:00pm, telling us that he would pick us up at 6:30am the next morning. It seemed awfully early but his goal was to see more animals in the early morning light, then forge our way into Yellowstone. It was not to be the last of our early mornings.

Barb and I decided to grab a light dinner at the closest place, a Japanese restaurant, Kazumi. She ordered shrimp tempura appetizer and miso soup. I had a ramen noodle bowl. The resulting meal was serviceable; the food was not great but the broth was good for my cold. Our waiter wore a Spiderman t-shirt that Barb commented on, which launched him into a long discussion of Marvel movies — which were best and what we should see, which ones had credible fights and action sequences, and so on (the ultimate fight in Avengers End Game was far too short, by his reckoning). He came back at the end of our meal and went on an even longer discourse on other films, recommending Tom Cruise’s The Last Samurai (very spiritual, with good fights, he said), Pacific Rim, and oddly, Goodbye Christopher Robin, the Pooh film, which he felt had real depth. Barb played along, egging him on. I was politely silent but wouldn’t want to see any of the films discussed. The film discussion delayed us at least 20 minutes, by which time it was raining again and we got pretty wet hustling back to the hotel. Not good for my cold, negating any good that had come from my soup. Barb still had an hour or more of emails to go through, but I was able to get a shower and head to bed, dosed up on nighttime cold medicine. Our 5:50am alarm would come awfully soon.

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Yellowstone, Part 2

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