Gobsmacked

Lake Yellowstone Hotel to Jackson Lake Lodge, Wyoming. Saturday, June 22, 2024.

I was wrong before. This was actually my eighth trip to Yellowstone (I’m Yellowstone the Eighth I am). Even more reason to be blasé about it. Breakfast at the hotel was very nice, as was the view of the lake.

Rounding the corner of the lake at West Thumb, I figured I might as well see one thermal feature, even if there weren’t any geysers.

Took a pass on Old Faithful, but at least I drank the root beer.

Crossed back to the western side of the divide, this time there was a sign to acknowledge it

and then a 1200 foot swoop down to the Tetons.

Yellowstone and the Tetons go together like peas and carrots, it’s rare to see one without the other, so this was also my eighth trip to the Tetons. I thought I could be blasé about them too, but not a chance. Rounding the bend and getting that first view of them leaping out of Jackson Lake, I was gobsmacked all over again.

In a previous post I described that Road to Damascus epiphany I felt when viewing them for the first time in 1970. Yeah, like that.

When I climbed the Grand in 1977, I wanted to have a celebratory dinner at the posh Jackson Lake Lodge, in the Mural Room with its massive windows.

A starving student between college and medical school, I certainly couldn’t afford it, but I think I even tipped the maître d’ for a mountain view. I should’ve been more specific. The mountain we got a view of was Signal Mountain, a low green hill behind the lodge.

47 years later I can afford it, now that there’s no chance of me hauling my butt up that peak again. They sent me behind the right window this time, and I lingered as long as I could over dinner, just staring.

The sun was setting, and every minute the lighting was different. I wished I had a proper camera. Claude Monet painted the same façade of the Rouen Cathedral 30 times, to catch it as the light changed. This central cluster of peaks, Teewinot, Grand Teton, and Mount Owens (in front of the Grand, hard to see as a distinct peak from this angle), is often referred to as the Cathedral group.

I wasn’t the only one taking pictures. I lingered until after sunset.

and scrambled to be first in line for a breakfast window as well.

The most expensive hotel so far, and the rooms were weren’t even in the main lodge, but in cottage outbuildings. Oh well, as the expression goes, location, location, and location.

Distance 66 miles, 2,228 total. Time 10 hours with stops. Elevation gain 2,345 feet

©️ 2024 Scott Luria