Grand Teton National Park

 

Grand Teton is located just minutes from Jackson, Wyoming (12 miles). We visited Grand Teton National Park September 17th and 18th, 2020. We stayed in Jackson, at the Spring Hill Suites, which was very nice. We strongly considered alternative hotels, but ended up choosing Spring Hill Suites because of generous cancellation policy (due to pandemic uncertainty). The other places we would have liked to try were: Huff House Inn and Wyoming Inn.

We entered the park from the north, driving from Yellowstone (about 2.5 hour drive). When entering from the north, there isn't a formal entrance with a pay station. We drove to Jenny Lake trail head and boat access area. There is really nice shuttle (10 minutes and $10 one way) that will take you to the Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point trails. 

Jenny Lake & Cascade Canyon Trail

We knew that we wanted to hike to Hidden Falls and Inspiration point, and then continue on to the Cascade Canyon Trail. Since this would be a very long hike, we decided to take the boat shuttle to shorten the hike. There was a line, but it was moving pretty fast, as they have several boats.  The boats do stop running on September 30th.

 

Once the boat arrives and you start your hike, the trail slopes gently upward to Hidden Falls, then climbs more steeply to Inspiration Point. The hike to Hidden Falls is 1/2 mile, and another 1/2 mile to Inspiration Point. Here is the view from Inspiration Point:

We continued on to Cascade Canyon, however did not go all the way to the fork/end. Cascade Canyon lies between the Cathedral Group (Teewinot Mountain, Mount Owen, and the Grand Teton) to the south and the St. John group (Symmetry Spire, Rock of Ages, etc.) to the north. It is a beautiful canyon in the Teton Range.

When we returned, we hiked around Jenny Lake instead of taking shuttle, which was a 2.4 mile hike (counter clockwise from the West Boat Dock back to the Visitor Center at Jenny Lake). The total hike for us was about 8 miles, and an elevation gain of 1039 feet.

Sunset at the Tetons

Taggart & Bradley Lakes Trails

The next day we parked at the Taggart Creek parking lot. Taggart and Bradley Lake are 2 glacially formed lakes. This is a 5.5 mile trail with 585 feet elevation gain. Beautiful views of Nez Perce Peak, the Middle and Grand Tetons and Teewinot Moutain.  This hike took us 3 hours. We hiked counter clockwise, which I would recommend. Towards end of hike, the Beaver Creek section of the trail was very unpopulated. We did not see many people and concerned about seeing bears (we did not). We did see a lot of coyote skat.

When you take the counterclockwise route, you can extend the hike at Bradley Lake, if you want to see more of the lake.  We saw moose along the shore of Taggart Lake (across the lake). You can see the very low trafficked Beaver Creek Trail portion on the lower part of this trail map:

Driving Tour

There is a driving tour with multiple stops and views. Here is a scenic drive brochure with different stops: 

Recommendations in Jackson, Wyoming

Highly recommend eating dinner at Snake River Brewing. The food was excellent. We were here during pandemic and they were very accommodating and fast with our take out order. Also recommend visiting Jackson Square, there are cool arches made from elk antlers. The Albertson's grocery store is great for lunch food.

Next Time We Visit...

• Amphitheater Lake Trail - 10 mile round-trip, 3000' elevation change
• Paint Brush Canyon
• Hike the entire Forks of Cascade Canyon Trail
• Signal Mountain Trail

Yellowstone National Park

Visited Yellowstone National Park September 14-17 (Monday-Thursday), 2020. September is a great time of year to visit, and temperatures were comfortable during day in 70s and lows at night in 50s. There was some haze from the wildfires west of Yellowstone, and even though we visited during what should have been a low season, there were more people than we expected.

This post includes: Hikes, Places to Stay, Restaurants in West Yellowstone and General Tips.

Day Hiking in Yellowstone:

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

You can hike either the North Rim or South Rim (both offering multiple overlooks and stunning vistas). We hiked the South Rim, parking off of South Rim Drive. Hike was 6 miles and took us 3.5 hours (541 feet elevation change) We ate lunch at end of trail at Sublime Point and made our way back to the trailhead. Alternately, you can drive most of the North and South Rims and park and walk to viewpoints. We did this for the North Rim and saw Upper Falls View and Brink of Lower Falls. 

An excellent option is to hike to Uncle Tom's Point, however this is closed for a few years, and it is recommended to ask the park rangers when planning this hike. Uncle Tom's Point is a steel staircase to the base of the lower falls.

Just south of Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, you can drive and visit Mud Volcano and Dragon Cauldron, and Sulfur Cauldron. We drove even further south to see Yellowstone Lake, and as a result saw more wildlife.  As you drive, watch the river, as we saw a coyote drinking from the river. We also saw bison up close at Lake Yellowstone, and lots of elk on this drive as well.

Old Faithful & Upper Geyser Basin Boardwalks

We spent about 3.5 hours at the Old Faithful area, hiking the boardwalks which take you to more geysers. Also hiked to Observation Point (rise of 160 feet).  This is the Upper Geyser Basin, and you can walk to see Grand Geyser, Castle Geyser, Daisy Geyser and Riverside Geyser and information at the Old Faithful visitor center will give you estimates of their eruption times. Highly recommend seeing the Grand Geyser. The predicted time was a wide range, and I recommend you get there early, as it hard to predict (unlike Old Faithful).

Old Faithful has a lot of steam or mist which can obscure the view of the water. We hiked to Observation Point, which was about 2 miles round trip and has a great view looking down on Old Faithful. 

Highly recommend walking the boardwalks to see Morning Glory Pool:

Grand Prismatic Spring and Midway Geyser Basin Boardwalks

These are hot springs, and when we first visited it was early in the morning, and the air was much cooler, and as a result there is a lot of steam coming off of the springs.  We returned later in the day and the view was much better.  Grand Prismatic is not to be missed, and I recommend hiking to the overlook (you need to park at Fairy Falls trail parking lot).  We were tempted to hike to Fairy Falls, but did not have time. 

Here is the view from the Grand Prismatic overlook:

Before sunset, we drove the 2 Firehole one way drives - Firehole Lake drive and Firehole Canyon drive. There are more boardwalks and pools and geysers to see from these drives.

Places to Stay in West Yellowstone

Due to Covid-19, almost all of the lodging inside the park was closed. We would have preferred to stay at Old Faithful Inn but it was closed. We decided to stay at Kelly Inn, but Explorer Cabins and Golden Stone Inn were close behind.  We really liked Kelly Inn and would definitely stay there again.  West Yellowstone is a short drive away from the park, however I recommend you get up early and enter the park as early as possible, because traffic starts to back up from cars stopping for wildlife viewing (shortly after the entrance).   

Restaurants in West Yellowstone

For casual and fast, we highly recommend this food "bus": Las Palmitas.  For excellent food (we were able to get takeout due to Covid-19), highly recommend Madison Crossing.

General Tips

Cell Phone Service in Yellowstone

We were surprised to find that we did sometimes have cell phone service inside Yellowstone. Here is a map of coverage areas. Please note, even though there is coverage, it is very weak and slow, but good enough for texting, directions (google maps), and email.

Bucket List / Next Time We Visit

• Fairy Falls Trail
• Uncle Tom's Trail
• Mount Washburn
• Specimen Ridge

Mount Rainier National Park

We visited Mount Rainier National Park in September 2020. This is an incredible national park with hikes offering waterfalls, old growth forests, and awesome mountain views. The mountain is 14,410 feet and often visible.

We stayed at Nisqually Lodge in a very small town called Nisqually. It is about 15 minutes from the southwest entrance to the park off of highway 706. Nisqually is about 2 hours from Sea-Tac airport.

The hotel was okay but next time would probably stay someplace else. First choice would be a stay at Paradise Inn (inside the park). We would also consider one of the log cabins in Ashford or Nisqually, or the Paradise Village Hotel in Nisqually.

The wildflower season was over when we visited, however we did see a few in the meadows off of Skyline Trail. Looking forward to returning when there are more wildflowers, which is mid-July to mid-August.

Here was our itinerary for our 3 day visit. There are details on the following hikes:

• Comet Falls
• Narada Falls
• Grove of Patriarchs Trail
• Mount Fremont Lookout Trail
• Skyline Trail

Day 1

Decided to do the Comet Falls hike. The trailhead parking is small and it was full so we parked at Christine Falls and walked to the trailhead (very short walk). We saw many waterfalls and even a rainbow at the bottom of the huge Comet Falls. We continued on the trail to the Van Trump Park, a meadow at the top of the falls. There was a huge elevation change on this hike and we were rewarded with views of Mount Rainier. 

Comet Falls with the Van Trump extension was about 4 hours and about 5 miles and 2150' elevation change. After we stopped at the Paradise Visitor Center then drove to Reflection Lake pullout. Then we hiked to Narada Falls which is a .1 mile hike down to the bottom. On our way out of the park we stopped in Longmire and ate dinner at the National Park Inn which was delicious. After dinner we drove and checked into Nisqually Lodge

Day 2

Early morning we left for Sunrise Visitor Center which is an almost 2 hours drive from Nisqually. Instead of taking the park road, we alternately went a little south to highway 12 to highway 123.  This road is very isolated (make sure you have gas) and there weren't many potholes, but there were a few that were huge and hard to see since the evergreens are so tall and it is very shaded on the road.

The wild fires caused a lot of smoke and haze so we did not get to see the view. We did hike to the lookout, 5.6 miles and 3 hours 20 minutes, elevation gain approximately 900 feet.

After finishing Fremont Lookout hike we then drove to Grove of Patriarchs, stopping at Lake Tipsoo (can see Mount Rainier in background) on the way.  

Grove of Patriarchs Trail

Grove of Patriarchs is an incredible 1000 year old forest. We spent about an hour here and hike was 1.1 miles.  There is a really cool suspension bridge on the hike as you walk along the river.

Day 3

Started the day with breakfast at Ukrainian Restaurant at Paradise Village in Nisqually and food was great. Drove to Paradise Visitor Center and hiked the Skyline Trail. It is a 5.5 mile loop trail and we saw lots of butterflies and marmot. You are able to get very close-up to Mount Rainier and total elevation change is 1,700 feet (took us about 4 hours). We hiked the trail clockwise and really liked that the views of the mountain come quickly, going this direction. 

Saw lots of Marmots eating and getting ready for winter.

In the middle of the hike there is a small bathroom.

Bucket List for Next Visit

• Tolmie Peak Fire Lookout (views of Eunice Lake and North side of Rainier)
• Sourdough Ridge Nature Trail
• Reflection Lakes at sunrise or sunset (if water is calm enough, can see reflection of Mt. Rainier)
• Naches Peak Loop
• Mount St. Helens Science & Learning Center is nearby (www.mshslc.org)