TRAVEL3 - Tetons/Yellowstone/Crazy Horse/Mount Rushmore

In late September, Pat and I visited the northern Rocky Mountains of Wyoming and the Black Hills of South Dakota on an eight-day Tauck tour.  We flew into Jackson, Wyoming, toured around Grand Teton National Park, bussed north to visit nearby Yellowstone National Park, and from there continued about 500 miles east to visit the Crazy Horse Memorial and Mount Rushmore, before flying back to Tucson from Rapid City, South Dakota. 

The route of our Western National Parks and Memorials tour.

We selected late September for the trip in hopes of seeing fall colors and thankfully caught the aspens, cottonwoods, and willows “at their peak color,” except for the high altitudes in Yellowstone.  We “roughed” it in the national park lodges where there was no TV or Wi-Fi, and limited electric plugs for our multiple electronic devices.  The weather was sunny and clear in the Tetons, but cold and blustery with snow and sleet around Old Faithful in Yellowstone, then nice again through Yellowstone until we reached the Bighorn National Forest in mid-Wyoming; from that point on we experienced light snow until fully clearing in Rapid City.  We saw all kinds of animals in the wild, including bald eagles, elk, moose, bison, pronghorn sheep, deer, and coyotes.  All in all, it was a wonderful trip; we returned to Tucson with about 600 photographs - a few of which are shown below.

Grand Teton - Established as a National Park in 1929

We spent three nights at the Jackson Lake Lodge which opened in 1955.  We enjoyed walking around the lodge to viewpoints of Jackson Lake and the jagged Teton Mountains in the distance.  On our own the first day, we took a powered-boat cruise from Colter Bay on Jackson Lake.  Next day we took a raft trip down the Snake River where we saw several bald eagles and a herd of pronghorn.  We toured the small town of Jackson and stopped by the picturesque Mormon Historic District to take photos of homestead complexes that date from the early 1900s.  On our last morning in the Teton National Park, we bussed closer to the mountains to stop at beautiful Jenny Lake for photo opportunities.

Taken from near Jackson Lake Lodge, this photo looks across sagebrush flats to Jackson Lake and the Tetons in the distance.  Note the fall colors in the foreground.

The Marina at Colter Bay with the Tetons in the distance.

Pat took this photo of a mature bald eagle from our bouncing raft on the Snake River.

There is an arch of elk horns like this one at each corner entrance to the central park in Jackson, Wyoming.

The John Moulton Barn on Mormon Row at the base of the Grand Tetons.

I jumped up from dinner at Jackson Lake Lodge to get this "target of opportunity" sunset photo.

Same sunset as above; a little farther into it.

The best photo of us from the trip, with beautiful Jenny Lake and the Tetons in the background.  The photo was taken by our Tour Director!

Yellowstone - Established as a National Park (first in U.S.) in 1872

We spent one night at the Old Faithful Inn, opened in 1904, and one night in the Lake Hotel, opened in 1891 - pretty Spartan accommodations, but we survived.  I found it a little disconcerting that most of our visit in Yellowstone was spent within the 34x45-mile caldera (crater) of a huge underground, dormant volcano.  Our first remarkable viewing sight was the famous Old Faithful Geyser that erupts about every 90 minutes to a height of up to 185 feet.  Over several bus stops, we visited examples of four Yellowstone thermal types:  geysers, steam vents, hot springs, and mud pots.  The touring highlight for us was probably the up-to-1200-feet deep Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and the dramatic upper and lower waterfalls on the Yellowstone River with drops of 109 feet and 308 feet respectively.

We took this photo of Old Faithful Geyser  from the second-floor porch of the Old Faithful Inn.

This is one of Yellowstone's large areas of thermal activity; note the steam vents in the background.

The beautiful Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River in the Grand Canyon Canyon of the Yellowstone.

Pat used her IPhone fish-eye adapter lens to capture this view of the Yellowstone River.

Yellowstone to Mount Rushmore

We spent two days bussing from Yellowstone to the Black Hills of South Dakota.  I was surprised at the high speed limits on Wyoming roads, 80 mph on interstates, 75 mph on some paved two-lane roads, and even 70 mph on winding mountain roads.  We stopped in Cody, Wyoming to visit the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, displaying the “world’s largest collection” depicting the culture, history, and art of the west.  We continued eastward and stopped at the TA Guest Ranch, a working cattle ranch that played a role in the 1890s “Johnson County War,” an historic conflict between established cattle barons and newly-arrived homesteaders and small cattle ranchers. We stayed that night at another nearby guest ranch in Ucross, before continuing the next day to the Black Hills.

Crazy Horse Memorial

We spent the morning bussing through the lightly snow-covered Black Hills of South Dakota on our way to the Crazy Horse memorial.  As we approached the giant sculpture, the ground fog thickened and we feared that we would not be able to see the memorial from the Visitor Center a quarter of a mile from the mountain sculpture.  But our luck held, and the fog lifted while we were eating lunch to make the enormous unfinished stone carving visible.  (Note:  I wrote about the history of the Crazy Horse Memorial in my July 31^st blog.)

The unfinished Crazy Horse Memorial can be seen in the distance about a quarter of a mile away behind the snow-covered foreground.

Mount Rushmore

After viewing the Crazy Horse Memorial, we continued to Mount Rushmore, only a few miles away.  Viewing was spectacular and I satisfied a long-standing must-do on my “bucket list.”  Fog was no problem, but one of the access trails to the foot of sculpture was closed due the recent snow.  (Note:  I wrote about the history of Mount Rushmore in my August 5th blog.)

The imposing carving of four U.S. presidents - George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln - at Mount Rushmore.