PLAYING TOURIST

After over 10 straight days with some rain, the Gros Ventre River is rising to the top of its banks.  Our campground is located along this river, although our campsite is over 400 yards from the river's edge.  The rain has caused the snow in the higher elevations to melt quicker than normal, so the snow melt and rain water combined has caused near flooding conditions in the Jackson area as well as much of Wyoming. 

On one of our days off we hiked partially up one of the mountains from the Lupine Meadow trail head in the park.  You can see I am wearing sunglasses in this photo--yea, no rain yet on this day.  The stream below the bridge contains more snow melt flowing down to the valley floor and into the Snake River.

The Teton Mountains were created by huge glacier ice fields many millions of years ago.  Here is an example of the huge rock areas created by these ice fields.

On our way back to our campground, we saw another cute baby bison.  Notice the horns on the adult bison as well as the difference in color of the two bison.  These bison were right along the side of the road.  

On our other day off we took a tram tour at Teton Village.  Teton Village is a large ski resort on the west side of the Teton range about 12 miles from the town of Jackson.  This first picture is from the gondola before the tram ride began.  The tram took us up over 4,000 feet to the top of Rendezvous Mountain, which has an elevation of 10,450 feet.  The temperature at about noon at the top was 38 degrees while the temperature at the bottom was a balmy 55 degrees.  Once all the snow melts (July according to one of our hiking books), you can take the tram to the top and hike down the 7.4 miles or do the trip in reverse.  Due to the steep incline the difficulty rating for this hike is "strenuous".  We will pass on this hike.     

The gondola holds several dozen passengers.  Yes, that is snow below the gondola.  This picture was taken as the tram entered the docking station. 

Near the top of the mountain we saw the beginning of this advanced ski run.  Skiers actually jump down into this 70 degree drop area just to the left of the huge rock face on the right of the picture.  This is not our idea of fun. 

There was over eight feet of snow piled at the top of the tram ride.  The "closed area" signs are to keep visitors from wandering into deep snow and possibly falling down the mountain, at least until they hit a tree. 

After our long day of playing tourist, we went to the Snake River Brewery where we found out they have begun to have live entertainment on certain afternoons.  Below is a quartet playing in front of the huge stone fireplace.  The music was Celtic tunes played on string instruments and a squeeze box, which blended nicely with the crowd of mostly locals and some tourists.  We have been to this local brew pub every week we have been in Jackson.  I wonder if we can be called "semi-locals" yet?  We do visit other restaurants also but the one constant each week is this great micro brew pub.

Ready for a cold one?