Grand Teton NP: Colter Bay, Wyoming - June 11th to 14th, 2021
You could spend just one day in Grand Teton National Park and see most of the sights, but we were glad we stayed six nights inside the park to thoroughly enjoy it. The first three nights were in the southern part of the park, camping in Gros Ventre. We covered those three days in a previous post. This post is about the next three nights when we camped in the Colter Bay Campground.
On Friday, we switched campgrounds from Gros Ventre in the south end of the park to Colter Bay Campground in the north. As we started out on Gros Ventre road along Gros Ventre River, Right Buddy (RB) spotted a moose. Of course she made Left Buddy (LB) turn around and pull over to the side so she could get out of the van to get some good photos. LB obliged since he was unwilling to stop when we spotted a moose along the river on the way to the campground a few days ago.
To get to Colter Bay, we took US 191 north, the east side of the park’s main loop. We were hoping to see wildlife again, such as buffalo, elk or antelope along the way, but no such luck that day. We did make one stop at Snake River Overlook since the morning is better light for taking pictures than the afternoon hazy light we had when we stopped there on Wednesday.
Colter Bay Village is on Jackson Lake. It is more of a resort with a lot more facilities and amenities than Gros Ventre. In addition to the large campground, there are cabins, a visitor center, gas station, grocery store, restaurant, marina, swimming beach, picnic areas, laundry, shower house, and hiking trails. The grocery store was not a typical campground store, but a fully stocked grocery store with fresh fruits and vegetables, a deli, and, most important of all, hand dipped ice cream. We were impressed with the store, except for the fact that they didn’t sell Coke in cans, only Pepsi. Well, our bodies will be better off if we don’t drink Coke anyway.
We spent the rest of the morning doing our laundry and taking well-needed showers. It was over a week since we had done either one. It was $3.50 to wash and $2.50 to dry so our three loads cost us $18 total. Then it was $5 per person for a shower. However, it was unlimited water and shower time unlike the coin-operated showers we have used before. It seemed rather expensive, but the added bonus was free wifi.
After everything was clean and we got caught up on some work on the wifi, we checked in to our camp site. Being on the shore of a lake, we were not expecting the camp sites to be so wooded. Most of the camp sites have shade, except ours, of course. There was a little shade, but we had a clearing from our site out to the west, which gave us a great view of a mountain peak. There are pros and cons to everything.
In the afternoon, we walked over to the grocery store for ice cream. LB had a cone with huckleberry and maple nut. RB had mint chip and chocolate. As we ate our ice cream, we walked down to the lake. It was such a pleasant setting. There is a trail that follows the shoreline. It is mostly shaded by trees. We ventured a little ways down the trail to the north. At one point we heard a humming or buzzing noise. We looked up to see a large swarm of bugs flying near the tree tops. We’re not sure what type of bugs they were.
Since our van side door faced west at our site, we put out our power awning to shade the van. RB liked not having the sun beating on her legs while she prepared dinner inside the van. We have not spoken highly of the power awning before, but it came in handy this time.
After dinner, we took a walk around part of the campground. A woman at one of the camp sites stopped us and asked if LB would help her raise up the Aliner camper. Her husband just had surgery the day before and was not allowed to lift more than 10 pounds. We gladly helped and had a lovely conversation with her and her husband. From the campground, we discovered a path that led down to the lake and picnic area. We’ll probably take advantage of that later.
On Saturday, we headed over to String Lake for a hike to Hidden Falls. There are quite a few ways to get to Hidden Falls. Hidden Falls is on the west side of Jenny Lake. There is a trail all the way around Jenny Lake which connects to the trail that encircles String Lake. These trails can be accessed from Jenny Lake Trailhead and Lupine Meadows Trailhead south of Jenny Lake, or String Lake Trailhead and Leigh Lake Trailhead north of Jenny Lake. There is also a shuttle boat that runs frequently between the Jenny Lake Trailhead over to the mouth of Cascade Canyon, not far from Hidden Falls. The fee for the boat is $10 per person each way or $18 per person round trip.
We chose to start at the Leigh Lake Trailhead because there is a large parking lot there along with bathrooms and we were coming from the north, from Colter Bay. When we drove by the South Jenny Lake Junction a few days earlier, where Jenny Lake Trailhead and the shuttle boat dock are, the area seemed packed with people struggling to find a place to park. When we arrived at the Leigh Lake Trailhead around 9:30 am on Saturday, there were plenty of parking spots to choose from. When we finished our hike around 1:30 pm, the parking lot was full.
Our hike started out following the eastern shore of String Lake. The lake was more peaceful this time, with no screaming teenagers running around like on the previous Wednesday. A great blue heron was wading along the shore. At the end of String Lake we crossed a bridge and followed the short connector stream over to Jenny Lake. A deer was quietly grazing on the slope not far above us.
There was a loud, sharp, piercing chirp. What was that? A few seconds later we heard it again. We looked around searching for the source of the sound. The source was a marmot, standing up on a large rock nearby. As we stared at him, he let out a few more chirps before scurrying off.
Once we reached Jenny Lake, we found ourselves walking through a large open area, an old burn area from the Alder Fire back in 1999. Vegetation had returned, but not many trees. The brush and wildflowers were dotted with the broken off tree trunks of the burned out trees. A large bird flew by, possibly an osprey. We watched it dive down to the water’s surface to try to snag a fish out of the water. It was too far away to tell if he caught anything. Before we reached the west side boat dock, the trail returned to the woods, crossing over some small streams with the peaceful sound of the water trickling over the rocks.
We didn’t see many people on the trail until we reached the west boat dock. Then there were crowds of people. The trail up to this point was mostly flat, but as we headed up Cascade Canyon to reach Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point, the trail started to climb. First there was a long series of cascading falls along the large, gushing creek. Was that Hidden Falls? Nope, keep going. At a bridge, the trail forks. To the left is Hidden Falls, straight ahead is Inspiration Point. The falls are visible just to the left of the bridge, but the trail continues a short distance with a better view of the falls. Hidden Falls is a tall drop, not a cascade. It was definitely worth the trip to see, no matter how you got there.
A couple we spoke with near Hidden Falls said they saw a bear along the trail from String Lake that morning. We were probably just half an hour behind them as they were on their way back down. We were prepared with our bear spray in our pack hip belts, but we did not see any bears.
After the falls, we continued up to Inspiration Point. The trail turned pretty rough and rocky, but not loose rocks. From Inspiration Point, you can see out over Jenny Lake and across the whole valley. Someone we passed the other way said the canyon beyond Inspiration Point was well worth the time with beautiful scenery. They said they saw a couple of moose. We decided we had gone far enough for the day and headed back down after eating our trail snack at Inspiration Point. While we were at Inspiration Point, we could see a flock of American white pelicans soaring high over our heads.
On the way back down, the crowds of people were growing thicker until we got past the boat dock again. When we passed through the burn area, we happened to glance up to the top of a dead tree. There was an osprey perched on a short, dead branch at the top, with a nest below it at the top of the dead trunk. In a neighboring dead tree, another osprey was eating his lunch. Back along String Lake, a great blue heron landed high in a tree. Perhaps it was the same one we had seen at the start of our hike.
We completed hike #17 of our 52 Hike Challenge in three hours and 45 minutes with an elevation gain of 719 feet.
After eating our lunch in the van after our hike, we headed back to Colter Bay and, you guessed it, hand dipped ice cream from the Colter Bay store. The afternoon was spent catching up on work before making dinner. We ended the day with a stroll around the campground.
We decided to take it easy on Sunday, our last day in Grand Teton. Well, that was the plan anyway. We hiked right from our campground, planning only to go a few miles. Starting out on the Lakeside Trail first thing in the morning, we walked out to the point near the marina. Then we continued past the marina and on to Heron Pond and Swan Lake. Returning to the marina area, it was a total of 6.5 miles in three hours, but was only a 328 foot elevation gain, so a pretty flat trail. We counted that as hike #18 of our 52 Hike Challenge. However, we were tired and wouldn’t exactly call that a relaxing day.
Since RB needed to make a phone call in the afternoon and needed the Colter Bay wifi near the laundry facilities to do so, we decided to treat ourselves and buy our lunch at the Colter Bay Cafe. We were prepared for it to be pricy, but we were still sticker-shocked. It was $45 to $50 for a turkey club sub and a pulled pork sub along with two bags of chips and two bottles of soda. Perhaps we are just getting old and judging prices based on the past instead of the present.
The rest of the afternoon, we relaxed back at our camp site before taking a walk back over to the grocery store for ice cream. You can never have too much ice cream! This time RB had the huckleberry cheesecake and moose tracks, while LB just had vanilla. The huckleberry cheesecake was a little too sweet for RB’s tastes. She preferred the plain huckleberry over the huckleberry cheesecake. We ended the day just like the other days, with a stroll around the campground.
Six nights inside Grand Teton National Park seemed perfect for us. There are still more trails and places to explore, so we will come back someday. For now, we were ready to move on north, up to Yellowstone National Park.
Check out our related video: Grand Teton NP: Colter Bay, Wyoming
(RB)