Guide to Grand Teton National Park, USA
Situated in the heart of North-Western Wyoming, the Grand Teton National Park is recognised as the American National Park. You will find here the very famous Teton range which is one of the major peaks in this approximately 310,000 acres expansive park.
The tourism industry in the USA is known to serve millions and millions of foreign and non-foreign tourists every year. The tour and travel arrangement improved in the United States towards the late 19th century in the wake of rapid urbanization. By 1850, the USA started to serve both the tourists coming from across the world as well as concretized its own legacy in the form of natural wonders, architectural heritage, remains of history and revived recreational activities. The locations where development began to seep in full flow was Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, New York, Washington DC and San Francisco. These were the primary locations that witnessed a rapid transformation in every sense of the term.
As the world started to recognise the wonders of America, both in terms of industrialization and metropolitanization, the government started to preserve and conserve famous tourist locations. These tourist locations included the heart-wrenching hills, parks and other naturally occurring beauties such as falls, lakes, forests, valleys, and more.
Situated in the heart of North-Western Wyoming, the Grand Teton National Park is recognised as the American National Park. You will find here the very famous Teton range which is one of the major peaks in this approximately 310,000 acres expansive park. The Teton range stretches to 40-mile-long (64 km) approximately. The northern portion of the park goes by the name of 'Jackson Hole' and primarily harbours valleys.
The park is situated approximately 10 miles south of the very famous Yellowstone National Park. Both the parks are connected by the National Park Service and are looked after by John D Rockefeller Junior Memorial Parkway. You would be surprised to know that the entire coverage of this area constitutes become one of the world's widest and most consolidated mid-latitude temperate ecosystems. If you are planning to take a tour of the USA, Grand Teton National Park is one of the locations you cannot afford to miss. To know all about the park, starting from its origin to its present-day grandeur, follow the article below so that when you reach the location, you are pre-informed of its details and might not need a tour guide. Happy surfing through the park!
History of The Grand Teton National Park, USA
The first registered civilization to exist in the Grand Teton National Park was Paleo-Indians, dating back to approximately 11 thousand years. During that time, the climate of the Jackson Hole Valley was considerably cold and more of Alpine suited temperature. Today the park experiences a semi-arid climate. Earlier the kind of humans who would harbour the Jackson Hole Valley were essentially hunters and were migratory in their lifestyle. Given the fluctuating cold climate of the region, if you visit the park today you will find existing fire pits and tools meant for hunting purposes near the shore of the very famous Jackson lake (which is also a very common tourist spot for the scenic beauty it entails). These tools and fireplaces were later discovered with time.
From the tools discovered from this excavation site, some of them belong to the Clovis Culture and later it was understood that these tools date back to at least 11,500 years. These tools were made from certain kinds of chemicals which prove for the sources of present-date Teton pass. While the obsidian was also accessible to the Paleo-Indians, the spears found from the site hinted at them belonging to the South.
It can be fairly assumed that the channel of migration for the Paleo-Indians was from the south of Jackson Hole. What is interesting to note is that the migratory pattern of the native American groups was yet to change from 11000 years to 500 years ago, also reflecting the fact that through this passage of time no form of settlement was made on the lands of Jackson Hole.
Explorations and Expansions
The first unofficial expedition made to the Grand Teton National Park was by Lewis and Clark who passed North of the region. It was the time of winter when Colter passed the region and was officially the first Caucasian to tread upon the soil of the park.
Lewis and Clark's leader William Clark even provided a map that highlighted their previous expedition and showed that expeditions were made by John Colter in the year 1807. Assumingly, this was decided by Clark and Colter when they met at Saint Louis Missouri in the year 1810.
However, the first-ever official government-sponsored expedition to happen in the Grand Teton National Park was in the year 1859 to 1860 called the Raynolds Expedition. This expedition was headed by the army captain William F. Raynolds and was guided on his path by Jim Bridger, who was a mountain man. The journey also included naturalist F Hayden who later organised other respective expeditions in the same area. The expedition was planned to discover and explore the area of the Yellowstone region but due to heavy snowing and the unbearable cold climate, they had to abort the mission for safety purposes. Later, Bridger took a detour and guided the expedition south across the union pass leading to the Gros Ventre River and ultimately exiting from the region over the Teton pass.
The commemoration of the Yellowstone National Park was officially done in the year 1872 towards the north of the Jackson Hole. Towards the end of the 19th century, it was planned by conservationists to include the stretch of the Teton range within the expandable boundaries of the Yellowstone National Park.
Later, President Franklin Roosevelt got the 221,000-acre Jackson Hole National monument sculpted in the year 1943. This monument at that time aroused controversy because it was constructed on the land donated by the Snake River land company and covered the property provided by Teton National forest as well. During that time, members of the Congress party constantly made attempts to get the monument removed from the property.
Post World War II, the public of the country supported the inclusion of the monument to the park's property and although there still was opposition from the local parties, the monument was successfully added to the property.
It was John D Rockefeller's family that owned the JY ranch bordering the Grand Teton National Park towards the Southwest. The family chose to hand over the ownership of their ranch to the park for the construction of the Lawrance S Rockefeller reserve in November 2007. This was dedicated to their name on June 21, 2008.
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Geography of the land covered
Situated in the heart of the North-Western region of the USA, the Grand Teton National Park has located in Wyoming. As we already mentioned above, the northern region of the park is shielded by the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Memorial Parkway, which is taken care of by Grand Teton National Park. On the southern portion of Grand Teton National Park lives the very aesthetic highway bearing the same name.
Did you know that the Grand Teton National Park stretches to approximately 310,000 acres? Whereas, the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Memorial Parkway stretches to almost 23,700 acres. A huge chunk of the Jackson Hole valley and possibly most of the visible mountain peaks peeking from the Teton Range are within the park.
The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is spread out to areas of three different states and forms one of the biggest, consolidated mid-latitude ecosystems that breathe on earth today.
If you happen to be travelling from Salt Lake City, Utah, then your distance from Grand Teton National Park would be 290 minutes (470 km) by road and if you happen to be travelling from Denver, Colorado then your distance by road should be 550 minutes (890 km), by road
Jackson Hole
Jackson Hole is primarily a deep beautiful valley which has an average rise of about 6800 ft., an average depth of about 6,350 ft. (1,940 m) and is very close to the southern park boundary and is 55-mile-long (89 km) in length with a width of about 13-mile (10 to 21 km). The valley is situated towards the east of the Teton Mountain Range, and it slides downwards to 30,000 ft. (9,100 m), giving birth to the Teton Fault and its parallel twin marked towards the east side of the valley. This makes the Jackson Hole block being called the hanging wall and the Teton mountain block remembered as the footwall.
The region of Jackson Hole is mostly flatland with a mere hunch in altitude stretching from south to north. However, the presence of Blacktail Butte and hills like Signal mountain goes against the flatland definition of the mountainous stretch.
If you wish to witness the glacial depressions in the park, you should head over to southeast of Jackson lake. There you will find numerous dents which are commonly known as 'kettles' in the region. These kettles are born when the ice sandwiched within the gravel concrete gets washed out in the form of ice sheets and gets settled in the newly formed dent.
Teton mountain range
The Teton Mountain range stretches from north to south and peaks from the soil of the Jackson Hole. Did you know that the Teton mountain range forms the youngest mountain range to have ever fully developed in the Rocky Mountain chain? The mountain has a westward inclination where it weirdly rises from Jackson Hole valley lying east but is more pronounced towards the Teton valley in the west.
Geographical assessments made from time to time suggest that numerous earthquakes occurring in the Teton fault caused the gradual displacement of the range towards its western side and a downward shift on the eastern side, with the average displacement being one foot (30 cm) occurring 300 to 400 years.
Rivers and lakes
When the temperature of the Jackson Hole began to slip down, it led to the rapid melting of glaciers and the formation of the lakes in the region, and among these lakes, the largest lake is the Jackson Lake.
The Jackson lake is located towards the northern bent of the valley which is about 24 km in length, 8 km in width and is about 438 ft. (134 m) in depth. But what was constructed manually was the Jackson Lake Dam which was created at a level raised to approximately 40 ft. (12 m).
The region also harbours the very famous Snake river (named after its shape of flowing) which stretches from north to south, cutting through the park and entering the Jackson lake situated close to the boundary of Grand Teton National Park. The river then goes ahead to join the waters of the Jackson Lake dam and from that point, it heads southward narrowing through the Jackson Hole and leaving the region of the park for the west of the Jackson Hole airport.
Flora and Fauna
Flora
The region is home to more than a thousand species of vascular plants. Due to the varying altitude of the mountains, it allows wildlife to prosper in different layers and breathe in all ecological zones, which includes the Alpine Tundra and the Rocky Mountain range allowing the fruition of truce in forests while down on the bed of the valley grows a combination of coniferous and deciduous trees accompanying the sagebrush plains thriving on alluvial deposits. The varying height of the mountains and that the varying temperature plays a significant role in the growth of the species.
At a height of about 10,000 ft. which is located just above the treeline blooms the Tundra region of the Teton valley. Being a treeless region, thousands of species such as moss and lichen, grass, wildflower, and other recognised and unrecognised plants breathe in the soil. In contrast to this, trees such as Limber pine, Whitebark, Pine fir and Engelmann spruce grow in good numbers.
In the sub-Alpine region, coming down to the bed of the valley we have blue spruce, Douglas fir and lodgepole pine inhabiting the area. If you move a little towards the shore of the lakes and the river, you will find cottonwood, willow, aspen and alder flourishing on the wetlands.
Fauna
One of the major tourist attractions of the Grand Teton National Park is its sixty-one varied species of animals that it harbours at sporadic locations. These species include the exquisite grey wolf which is known to have been erased towards the early 1900s but made a comeback to the region from Yellowstone National Park after they had been restored there.
Other very common occurrences in the park for tourists would be the very adorable river otter, the bagger, the marten and the most famous coyote. Other than these, a few other rather rare occurrences are chipmunk, yellow-belly marmot, porcupines, pika, squirrels, beavers, muskrat and six different species of bat. For mammals of larger size, we have the elk which now exists in thousands in the region.
Oh, if you are into bird watching and love knowing and viewing birds, then this place would prove to be of great adventure as around 300 odd species of birds are sighted here regularly and this includes the calliope hummingbird, the trumpeter swans, common merganser, harlequin duck, American pigeon and the blue-winged teal.
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Home to more than four hundred national parks spread across its fifty states, no list mentioning most astonishing parks in the United States may ever be complete. Read more at Travel Guide to Famous National Parks in USA
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