AMERICAN ROCKIES
- Jackson Hole and the Tetons
The Old West lives on in the mountain valleys of Wyoming, where
elk herds and hardy homesteaders cross paths under the dazzling peaks
E
VEN BEFORE LANDING,
there are clues on the flight into
Jackson Hole that the
destination is an unusual one:
many of the passengers are
half-dressed in ski clothes, seemingly
determined to waste no time in hitting the
slopes of this Wyoming mountain resort.
On arrival, they are treated to one of the
world’s great airport views: the jagged,
snow-dusted spires of the Teton Range.
The airport is a rarity in that it lies inside
the boundaries of a national park. Since it
was set up in 1929, Grand Teton National
Park has grown to cover some 480 square
miles of mountains, plains and lakes onthe edge of America’s least populous state.
Jackson Hole accounts for the flat part of
the park, ‘hole’ being a settler term for a
valley ringed by high mountains, while the
Tetons provide the saw-toothed mountain
backdrop. Crowning it all is the 4,197-metre
peak of Grand Teton. The name ‘Teton’
might be derived from a Lakota Sioux word,
but the more popular explanation is that
French Canadian fur trappers called the
three most prominent summits ‘Les Trois
Tétons’ – the three breasts. The resemblance
is not strong; perhaps the travellers had been
starved of female company for some time.
Many of the park’s roads close in winter,
but one exception is Highway 26. The roadand the Teton Range run in parallel, so it’s a
good idea to do the sightseeing drive in both
directions, if only to even out the crick in
your neck. The view is what the inhabitants
of Mormon Row would have woken up to
every morning. This scattering of farmsteads
from the 1890s, now deserted, includes a
building dubbed ‘the most photographed
barn in America’. At this time of year,
however, with the access road snowed over,
this truly feels like a pioneer community.
From the closest driveable point along
Antelope Flats Road, it’s a 20-minute walk
across a white plain to these weathered
barns and cottages: an exercise that would
be a lot harder today if the snow wasn’t soA modern-day saloon on
the main square in Jackson.
ABOVE The John Moulton
Homestead on Mormon Row,
with the Teton Range behind it