What no one tells you about visiting Grand Teton

hey I'm Cheryl from we're in the Rockies and my husband Matt is behind the camera and today we are at Grand Teton National Park and the whole purpose of our channel is to help people travel to the West so today what we want to do is tell you the things that nobody tells you about Grand Teton whether you're visiting or whether you're not it's either interesting or it's going to be super helpful the first thing I want to let you know is that Grand Teton is actually to me it seems like two parks I think of it's long and skinny and there's a north and south end the North End is where there's Jackson Lake and culture Bay and it almost kind of feels like a Lake Village People can vote there the whole town kind of has a lake town Vibe now you go to the southern part and that's where you see a lot of the very famous shots of like the molten barn and the Prairie and the Jagged Mountains coming up now don't misunderstand the Jagged Mountains are everywhere but the Prairie is in front of the mountains on the southern side and to be honest it's my favorite part of the park if you go up north there's a little more Forest that kind of a block of views and and so just to know that that Teton looks a little different but some of the most famous photo spots are on the Northern end of the park the next thing to know about visiting Grand Teton is you don't need a reservation many of the national parks have switched over to where you need a reservation to come into the park or to go on a certain hike none of that is true for Grand Teton National Park you do not need a reservation for anything unless you're going to like the mural dining room at night the next thing to know is that Grand Teton does not take a back seat to Wildlife to Yellowstone I honestly believe that you will see just as much if not more Wildlife here in Grand Teton we've been here for about two and a half days we've seen bald eagles moose elk deer Antelope beavers bison I mean and we've seen bear here before too but I mean especially if you want to see a moose Grand Teton is a place to see a moose you will see a lot of wildlife at Grand Teton National Park the next thing to know is that Grand Teton is small enough that it's not that big of a deal where you get your lodging where as Yellowstone is humongous Grand Teton is significantly smaller not nearly as wide and you can drive from one end of the park into the other in about an hour my personal preference I love to stay in gravant on the southern end but you know even if you're staying up north in culture Bay it's not difficult to get down to the southern end of the park and back up in one day so you can pick your lodging stay there for one stay there for your entire trip and be able to access a lot of things the next thing I want to tell you before I give this back to Matt to tell you the rest of the cool stuff about how to visit Grand Teton and the special tips we have is that Grand Teton is more than a day trip from Yellowstone I think a lot of times people like Yellowstone let's face it is the popular the popular Park everyone dreams of going to Yellowstone and a lot of times if people even make it down to Grand Teton it's an afterthought Grand Teton has so much to offer from the wildlife to the Views there's River Cruises hiking it is just an incredible Park that really deserves two to three days time not just a day trip from Yellowstone okay my name is Matt and I'm going to cover the rest of this list here for you I'm sorry if I have a little shade on my eyes hear from the build my hat but you don't want to see my hair right now so we've been camping for the last two days we're kind of a mess okay the next thing you need to know is just a little bit about the terminology so do you hear the terms Jackson Hole Jackson Grand Teton what do they refer to Jackson Hole is the entire Valley here in this area Okay Jackson Hole is the valley Jackson is the city that sits at the southern end of the valley and Grand Teton is the national park which takes up most of the Jackson Hole Valley also the Teton Mountains behind us but it does not Encompass Jackson the town Jackson the city of West Wyoming so just knowing the terminology will help you out a little bit okay the next thing to know is that it is expensive to visit Grand Teton and Jackson Hole now Grand Teton itself is not that expensive it just requires the national park pass to get in there which is 35 for a week 80 for the America the Beautiful pass that covers all the national parks for an entire year but the Jackson Hole area and Jackson the city are quite expensive this is a just a really kind of a popular tourist town basically and so the prices are quite expensive lodging it's not uncommon for lodging to be a thousand dollars a night or more cheap lodging around 400 a night now a lot of people are coming here for that upper end experience you know that ski resort resort resort Town type of an experience so think about what you want out of it what we usually encourage people to do is to at least maybe have get a little bit of a slice of something kind of nice like a river rafting trip or a horseback riding trip or bike riding or something like that think of Grand Teton as part of and kind of an adventure area you want to do some experiences in there to kind of liven your trip up a little bit also I've done a video on lodging a Grand Teton that tells you all that you need to know about lodging okay the next thing to know is that camping can be competitive and that's because the lodging is so expensive so people do like to camp in Grand Teton it's a great place to Camp because you can have moose one or right through your Campground really even Bears perhaps you know close by so it's a great way to kind of experience the wildlife and just you know the beautiful Valley of Jackson Hole so but it is competitive because so many people like us on this trip rather than paying 400 a night for hotels we paid 49 for campgrounds in the park two basic things to know about this inside Grand Teton National Park you need a reservation to get a campground they have all moved over to reservation uh on recreation.gov there are many campgrounds outside of the park on Forest Service land and those are all first come first served you just have to show up and help you get a spot during covet they were all insanely out of control it was actually really hard to find spots I think that's tampered down a little bit this year but you know you never know from year to year but that's kind of how that works now again I've done a whole nother video on what you need to know if you're camping at Grand Teton and in the Jackson Hole Valley okay the next thing to know is that it is open year round so Yellowstone mostly shuts down in the winter now there are activities you can do in Yellowstone like you can snowmobil in or take a snow coach in you can ski you can go to Lamar Valley I mean there are plenty of things you can do in Yellowstone in the winter but so many of those towns around the edge shut down and there's a lot of roads that are just closed off completely here in Grand Teton the highway that goes through it is a major thoroughfare like it has to be open all year long and it sits at a lower elevation than Yellowstone it's not quite as severe as Yellowstone in the winters and actually of course the Tetons it's the ski town so it is open year round for skiing some high-end skiing some of the most famous skiing in the country and then also they have a National Elk Refuge on the south end of Jackson where all the elk come down from Yellowstone to the Elk Refuge in the winter and kind of hang out there and Grace there for the winter so you can actually visit the Elk Refuge and take a sleigh ride out to see the elk uh there's quite a few different activities that you can do in the winter so just be aware that that could be a pretty fun like Thanksgiving or even a Christmas getaway for you okay the next thing you know about Grand Teton is that getting here takes some time and money actually just getting here it's interesting because it is on the east or sorry on the west side of the Rocky Mountains like Yellowstone is but to get in here is actually not all that easy you have to cross over the Tetons to get in or you're crossing over the Wind Rivers to get in from the east or you're coming down through Yellowstone on this uh from the north so it's actually kind of just tucked away in this little Valley here that takes quite a bit of time to drive to like if you're coming from Salt Lake City that's kind of the nearest major airport would be five hours or something like that Bozeman if you come from Bozeman Montana it's probably four hours or so from Bozeman takes a little bit of time to get here if you're flying here one thing we've learned is the people who are flying from the East it costs a fair amount of money to fly into some of these airports the closest airports are not all that large you've got Bozeman Montana Idaho Falls there's actually an airport in Grand Teton National Park the Jackson Airport that's a big airport that people fly into for Jackson and for Yellowstone as well but these are small airports so they end up costing a fair amount of money Salt Lake City a much larger Airport International Airport but it uh still tends to cost a little bit of money to get there and then you have that drive coming from Salt Lake City and the next thing though about Jackson Jackson Hole and the whole area is that it Jackson is a Love or a hate town I'm telling you there's nobody that's on the fence here about this you either love it or you hate it it's an old west town so a lot of people kind of dream of coming here and just getting a little slice of that kind of cowboy life but the thing is this is like the rich Cowboy life I guess this is sort of fake Cowboy life in a way I mean there's people that are coming in from California and buying up a lot of these homes and condos and stuff like that here in Jackson and the prices have just gone skyrocketed it's always been kind of a rich person's town a lot of Art and things like that mixed in with that old west which is actually kind of cool I think that's actually kind of cool but but most people you either love it or you hate it a lot of people are coming here for all this about Jackson and they get here and they're like this is it you know it's just kind of window shopping and it's really expensive and then other people just just love it they want to come here and enjoy being surrounded by the mountains while they're in this this little town so just for be before Warren if you have been to Jackson we want to know do you love it or hate it Cheryl actually hates Jackson she doesn't like it that much I think it's fine I actually like Jackson but just for for a short amount of time and then I want to get up into the hills here okay we have many resources for you if you're visiting Jackson and Grand Teton we have a playlist on YouTube Just binge that playlist and take some notes as you go we have a website we're in the rockies.com that you can go on there and find answers to your questions about Grand Teton and all that we have an itinerary a step-by-step itinerary on how to see the park and I make an audio guide for it that you can actually listen to me give you a tour of the park as you drive around check that out on our website we're in the rockies.com thank you so much for watching and until next time Go West Young Traveler

Channel: We're in the Rockies

Views: 31,902

Keywords: Grand Teton, Visiting Grand Teton National Park, Tips for Grand Teton National Park, Jackson Hole, Jackson Wyoming

Id: ab2FGDGz9ds

Length: 10min 14sec (614 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 23 2022