July 3 - A Final View of Old Faithful and onto Grand Teton National Park

As usual, we were up a little early for our transition day to Grand Teton National Park. On the way out of YNP, we stopped at Old Faithful to finish our touring of the Lower Geyser Basin. 

We parked and made the long walk to the Lower Geyser area. We got a surprise bonus treat when we saw Sawmill Geyser erupting continuously the whole time we were there. Part of the area was unavailable for viewing, so we decided to head to Old Faithful to see it erupt one more time. On our way there we got another bonus seeing Lion Geyser having a nice eruption. We saw Old Faithful, which had four false starts before finally going off fully.

Castle Geyser

Runoff from Old Faithful into the river

From there we headed south to Grand Teton. We stopped at a few pull-offs for the views, and we searched mightily for wildlife. The Tetons were spectacular, but the sky was really overcast making the views a bit less showy than we knew they could be. However, the wildflowers were the prettiest we had seen - so many in number and variety!

We enjoyed a picnic lunch near the top of Signal Mountain where we drove seeking wildlife and a view. It started to rain as we finished making our sandwiches so we ate in the car.

We did the complete loop, stopping at all key points. We searched for wildlife but were limited on the day to an osprey, muskrat, and elk. 

Jackson Hole

After getting dinner at a restaurant in Colter Bay, we took a short walk around part of the lake - the sunshine was breaking through and the rays were making the mountains look really pretty.

At the end of the day, we went to our campground located between Grand Teton and Yellowstone; it was full hook up site for an RV that we used to plug in our car to charge overnight (finding charging in this area, and Wyoming more broadly, was challenging). We went to bed a bit before dark as it got chilly and we didn't make a fire. Thankfully, they had showers, so we were both able to shower before bed.

Grand Teton was cool, but I think we would have enjoyed it more if we could have hiked, but I was still less than 100%, and if the weather had been clearer.

We got pretty good sleep that evening before making our way to South Dakota.