More Wows and a Yow!

Red Rocks in Wyoming in the Wind River Reservation

2019-08-31 Saturday

We woke up today expecting a long, scenic drive, and we were not disappointed! After getting gas (the prices are going up with each state we pass), we headed west toward Grand Teton National Park. We were not planning to visit the park, but the most direct road to our destination for tonight was right through the park, and through Jackson and Jackson Hole.

But before we got anywhere near that, we were already oohing over the scenery. The Wind River region is beautiful range land, with low rock formations surrounding it. The road went through the Wind River Indian Reservation too (and we saw a herd of antelope!) When the rocks suddenly changed to deep red (my favorites), we stopped at a pull-out to take some photos. They were absolutely beautiful.

The largest “city” on our route was Dubois, WY, which of course is really a smallish town, and is  dominated by the tourist industry. But because it was a holiday weekend, there seemed to be an awful lot of special things going on. We passed a church having a “dog wash” fund-raiser, and we would have stopped, except there was nowhere to park. We passed a trio of people dressed as pioneers (the sheriff waved to us), and all kinds of other things seemed to be bringing people to the sidewalks and streets. We finally pulled up at a curb which was large enough for us, and made ourselves some lunch there, because we wanted to take advantage of the good cell phone and wifi reception we were getting. I was able to add a few photos to yesterday’s blog, although not the scenery ones which needed emailing/downloading via wifi-- it wasn’t strong enough (I took scenery shots today with my phone to avoid that problem for this blog.)

Teton Mountain Range

We continued on after lunch, and were rising higher into the mountains and the national forest land. And then, we saw the incredible pointed peaks of the Tetons rising in the distance. Grand Teton NP has never been one of my favorite parks, but there’s no denying how amazing it is to see those craggy mountains. We drove on into the park, and were soon welcomed by a herd of buffalo grazing in a meadow not far from the road. Of course we had to stop to take photos, even though we’d already seen buffalo up close and personal in Custer State Park.

Joe and Cassie go out to look at buffalo

We wound our way along the base of the Tetons as we followed the road south to the town of Jackson. There we turned west again, and had one more hurdle to get over-- the Teton Pass at a mere 8,432 feet. We were not worried about it, because we’ve gone over lots higher passes--but not, it turns out, while towing a 3,000+ pound Jeep. Also the grade of the road on the way up (and down, for that matter) was a 10% grade, which is STEEP. We started on our way up, and soon felt very sorry for the line of cars following us-- we were chugging up the mountain in first gear! And even at that, we were not going the speed limit and the engine was really working hard. There was nothing to do about it-- there were no turnouts to let people pass until we’d been driving for perhaps 10 minutes. 

At last we came to a large turnout, and by that time we’d discussed unhitching the Jeep and driving in two separate vehicles. So when we saw the large area on the opposite side of the road, Joe turned into it, letting everyone get past us. We stopped, and looked down from this vantage point at the valley and road below us. It was SO far down there, it was no wonder that we’d had trouble getting up it--the steepness was apparent from above. So we unhitched the Jeep, and after carefully making sure we were on the same page as to our plans, I took my phone (which was virtually without any battery left), my handbag, and a walkie-talkie, and I got into the Jeep. Joe had the other walkie-talkie, and he drove ahead of me in the RV.

Looking Down from Teton Pass on the Road below

It turned out that this was a great plan, except we should have implemented it about 8,000 feet sooner. We hadn’t realized that we were almost at the peak of the pass! We soon came to a small pullout that had a lot of cars, and people looking at the view... the RV wouldn’t have fit into it, even without the Jeep. But from there, it was a downhill run. I followed Joe, making sure (via walkie-talkie-- a brilliant idea, and we could hear each other perfectly clearly) that he’d seen the road grade signs and the speed limits. We also exchanged occasional comments. And so we proceeded until we passed a “Welcome to Idaho” sign. Joe asked if I expected any more uphill climbs, and I didn’t, so when we came to a gas station, he pulled in with me behind him (he got gas while I parked on the side of the lot), and we re-connected our two vehicles.

Once we were back together, we discussed the fact that we will be encountering a number of other high mountains during the next few weeks. So we will plan to detach the Jeep at the BOTTOM, rather than when we are most of the way up, and drive the vehicles separately. Although we don’t like the idea of not being together, it’s clearly going to make it a lot easier for the RV to get over the mountain passes. I mean, we don’t even consider 8,432 feet to be that high-- last summer we went over 12,000 foot Independence Pass, a few years ago we went over the Red Mountain Pass at 11,018,  and we took Mo over the Tioga Pass (9,943 feet) to Yosemite (not once but twice!), and the Beartooth Highway at 10,900+ feet.  But the extra weight on the tail end of the RV is obviously a drag (literally)!

We still had an hour or so to drive, but the road was beautiful! To our surprise, we DID have a bit more climbing to do, but the ascent was not nearly as long nor steep as the Teton Pass had been, and we soon came into a beautiful plateau area full of golden cut wheat. This is one of my favorite “colors” on the road, and the fields just rolled away for miles, while the mountains rose up beyond them. Running beside us was the Snake River, which we discovered last year seems to be omnipresent in the state of Idaho. It is fast and beautiful in this part of the state, and we stopped at a wayside rest area to take photos of the landscape.

Looking Down at the Snake River Valley

It was only about 30 minutes from there to our campground tonight, a county park in Rigby, Idaho, with a large lake which includes a beach and campground. I had called a couple of days ago to see if they had any sites open, because of my concern about the holiday weekend, and the woman on the phone said she had one site, because she had had a cancellation that morning! So I grabbed the site for tonight and tomorrow night (I had researched the location a few months ago while planning my trip, so I had the info with me.) It is not our usual venue, being quite crowded with families and young people everywhere, and a bit noisy. On the other hand, the people next to us on either side are not very close. The campsites are on a loop road around the lake, and we are not on the “lake side” of the road, so when the sun set a little while ago and looked so nice over the lake, I couldn’t get a photo without it mostly including RVs, campers, and tents. But we are fine here--we have water and electricity, there’s plenty of room for our Jeep in our site, and we are in a suburban area. There are museums near by, and we have a LONG shopping list which must be tended to tomorrow. So museum and shopping is our current plan for the day.