Grand Teton National Park

 Grand Teton National Park is in the northwest of the U.S state of Wyoming. It encompasses the Teton mountain range, the 4,000-meter Grand Teton peak, and the valley known as Jackson Hole. It’s a popular destination in summer for mountaineering, hiking, backcountry camping and fishing, linked to nearby Yellowstone National Park by the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Memorial Parkway. ~ National Park Service

We got some advice from a local geocacher: the sky might be less smoky earlier in the morning AND you might have a better chance of seeing wildlife earlier rather than later. We were on the road before 9 on Friday morning. Our first stop was Teton Village.

see all those ski slopes?

A warning for all the hikers and campers in the Grand Teton National Park. We did not see any grizzly bears.

The road through the lower end of the Teton Park area.

Justin, the park employee and local geocacher, was right. That is Mt. Teton in the center of the photo.

The sky was far less smoky than on Wednesday when we arrived.

This was the line-up to enter the national park.

This was Wednesday's photo. On Friday we were hours earlier and our location was near the tree line just at the base of the mountains. This photo was taken from the highway, maybe 5 or so miles farther away.

We stopped at an informational sign displaying and explaining the receding Teton Glacier. 

My red arrow is pointing to the Teton Glacier. There just has not been the snow pack in the last 30+ years to help maintain the glacier's volume. And yes, warmer temperatures affect the glaciers. This is what I learned about glaciers:

What are Glaciers?
Glaciers must meet three main criteria in order to be characterized as glaciers:
1. They must be made of ice. (They also contain air, water and rock debris but they MUST contain ice crystals)
2. They must initially form on land (they cannot start out forming over water) and may eventually extend out into water.

3. They must move! (If a patch of snow or ice does not move it is not a glacier.)

Mt. Moran is a 'flat' topped mountain in the Teton range because it's top was once a lake bed and beach!

Jenny Lake named for the wife of Beaver Dick Leigh. Their bronze statues were seen while geocaching in Jackson and in a post from Saturday, August 10. It is a glacial fed and spring snow melt lake.

another view of Jenny Lake

Mount Moran with its glacier (not a natural arch) in the center.

No wildlife sightings on Friday. We did see some tour vans with tourists hoping for a sighting of elk or bison or grizzly.

We camped near Wilson, a 'suburb' of Jackson for four nights.

This was the view of Teton Mountain on Sunday morning when we left the Jackson Hole area. It was about 9:30 in the morning and the photo is through the windshield. No smokey skies...yet.

We got lucky and saw the herd of bison near Moran when we left on Sunday. 

I am glad we visited the park. It is so different from Yellowstone National Park, which I knew it would be. Other than the majestic mountains, the park itself is unostentatious, in my opinion. I learned a lot from the display signs. We probably would not have stopped and read each of them if not for geocaching.