Travel + Leisure: Guide To Grand Teton National Park

Above, the Grand Tetons reflected on Jackson Lake. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

For those thinking on what to do and where to go this summer for a vacation trip, Travel + Leisure has posted a guide on Grand Teton National Park to help with the decision-making.

Grand Teton National Park is virtually next door (to the south) to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. I have been there several times, most recently in 2019.

The guide starts with:

There are few national parks as recognizable, or as photogenic, as Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park. The steep, craggy, and commonly snow-capped peaks of the northern portion of the Teton Range tower over the park’s glorious alpine lakes, rivers, and impressive wildlife population that includes moose, grizzly bears, bison, and wolves. 

The park didn’t take its current expanded form until 1950, following its official establishment in 1929, but this part of the country has been drawing visitors for thousands of years. If you spend even a couple of hours taking in the majestic scenery — whether you’re taking an ice-cold dip in Jenny Lake or experiencing an unforgettable sunrise at Schwabacher Landing — you’ll quickly understand why. 

Thanks to continued conversation efforts, Grand Teton National Park has maintained a natural, rugged beauty that captivates more than 3 million visitors every year. It’s also one of the top attractions for travelers coming to Jackson Hole (the town of Jackson is just a 10-minute drive from the Moose Entrance Station). Given the park’s popularity and proximity to hundreds of square miles of sheer wilderness, it’s critical for visitors to enter the park prepared. That means not only knowing where to go and how to keep themselves safe, but also understanding the importance of respecting both the ecosystem and fellow travelers. “Ultimately, we are all stewards of the natural world,” explains Cathy Shill, founder of The Hole Hiking Experience. “We need to be visitors to the landscape.”

To develop a comprehensive guide explaining what that entails, we tapped Shill, as well as Monica Robinson, a naturalist guide with Jackson Hole Wildlife Safaris, to give us the lowdown on everything you need to know before visiting Grand Teton National Park.

To read more, go here.