Backpacking Grand Teton National Park

The wild west

My boyfriend and I went backpacking in Grand Teton National Park over 4th of July weekend this year and had a phenomenal experience. There is just something about being in the woods with a view of the Grand Tetons surrounding you that makes all the hard work worth it. Anyway, let me tell you about my trip!

Day one: Jackson, WY

There are plenty of airport options for getting to the Grand Tetons. Jackson Hole is obviously the best option but plane tickets were around $700 and that’s just not what I wanted to spend my money on, so we opted for a further away airport and narrowed down the options from there. SLC is the largest airport in the 5-6 hour vicinity of Jackson, WY but Boise, ID and Bozeman, MT are two other great options that are probably cheaper on a non-holiday weekend.

If you have ever traveled with me, you know one of the mottos I live by is, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” when I’m on a trip. This was definitely the case for this weekend because we flew into SLC at 11 pm on Wednesday, picked up the rental car and I drove 5 hours straight to Jenny Lake Visitor Center in Grand Teton National Park.

We got there around 4:30 am and I slept in the car in the parking lot for an hour and a half before waking up at 6 am to get in line for the backcountry permit.

There are two ways to get a backcountry permit - in advance in January-May or walking up the day before the start of the trip. 4th of July weekend was booked for advance reservations when I looked in April, but luckily they save 2/3rds of permits for walk ups like me.

Now, the backcountry office usually doesn’t open until 9 am, but people start lining up at 6 am or earlier to get the permit they want. While I was waiting in line, freezing cold and half-asleep, the park ranger walked up like an angel sent from heaven itself at 7:30 am and started giving out permits an hour and a half early.

I was the third person in line at 6:30 am and I got the last of the Phelps Lake permit that I wanted for our second night in the backcountry. The ranger gave me a laminated permit that I had to tie to my pack and keep visible the entire time we were backpacking.

From there, we drove into Jackson, WY and spent the day exploring the town. Paul still had to work so I dropped him off at Jackson Hole Roasters coffee shop, had a chai tea latte to try to stay alive on an hour and a half of sleep and walked around Jackson. I’d just like to thank night shift for teaching my body how to still be a person on a disgusting lack of sleep.

I had a few errands to run that were very important for our backpacking trip. First, it’s illegal to carry fuel on a plane so I bought a mini camp fuel from Teton Mountaineering for $6. I also got some rope in case we needed to tie up our packs to prevent grizzlies from trying to get into our bear canister or throwing it off a cliff. The guy at the rope counter taught me a few important knots like the bowline and a double fisherman’s. This was my first time camping in grizzly country so I hadn’t needed or really used rope prior to this.

Another extremely important thing to bring into the backcountry that I needed to pick up was bear spray. I rented mine for $28 from Teton Backcountry Rentals. It’s $8/day or a max of $28 for 4+ days. This is a 100% mandatory thing that everyone needs to have on them while hiking grizzly country. The people at the store told me on average, 1-2 people will die in the area from a grizzly attack a year but an average of 13 people will save themselves from an attack by using bear spray. I’d say those are pretty good odds and worth the insurance of bringing it. They taught me how to use it and when I left I felt confident that I would have been able to use it correctly if I had needed.

After browsing some of the other stores, I went back to the coffee shop to meet Paul and watch videos on bear safety so I felt even better about my ability to avoid a bear attack. Then Paul showed me the bear attack scene from The Revenant and I decided to read up even more until I felt like an actual park ranger about to teach a Boy Scout group on bear safety.

When Paul was done with work, we went to the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar to get a drink and see what the locals were like. They have actual saddles at the bar for people to sit on and the drinks are strong, so I suggest checking it out.

For our last real meal before living off camp meals, we went to Bubba’s BBQ for a ridiculously early dinner with all the senior citizens so we could get to bed early.

Our accommodation for the night was the Gros Ventre Campground. It’s 35 minutes from Jackson and 35 minutes from Jenny Lake, so it’s a great location. We normally hate campgrounds but we didn’t have the time or energy to find any primitive camping, so the non-generator loop of this nice campground was exactly what we needed. It was only $25 for the night and the people checking us in were so kind. This place books up fast because of its excellent location - I booked in April and there were already a lot of spots taken.

Day two: Jenny Lake, Cascade Canyon and Alaska Basin

We woke up bright and early, drove to Jenny Lake and started our trek! The first day was challenging but featured some phenomenal views of the Tetons that made it so worth it.

We hiked past the beautiful Jenny Lake and through Cascade Canyon, which was so breathtaking it was a hard view to beat for the rest of the trip. We hiked about 15 miles and ascended 4,700 ft to Sunrise Lake, had dinner and then found a campsite in Alaska Basin.

Alaska Basin is technically in both the Grand Teton National Park and Bridger-Teton National Forest, so camping is free and a permit isn’t required. It’s behind the Tetons, so they do go out of view but Alaska Basin is so expansive and offers a variety of terrain.

It rained as we were setting up camp so we waited it out under our tent tarp and then shoved our bear canister between a bunch of rocks over 100 yards from our campsite instead of stringing up our packs since the weather was so unpredictable. A little critter tried to get into it overnight but was unsuccessful and only left some scratches.

We saw a lot of marmots while in the Tetons, they’re cute but they want human food and they are pretty fearless in trying to get it. I’m not pointing fingers, but if I had to guess I’d assume it was one of those little guys trying to get into our bear canister.

The marmots are also the reason we had to keep our boots and trekking poles inside our tent. They eat anything salty - so anywhere humans touch frequently like shoelaces, backpack webbing and trekking pole handles are their favorite snack.

day Three: ALaska Basin, Death Canyon, Phelps Lake

On Saturday, we hiked through Alaska Basin toward Death Canyon. There was a decent amount of snow (yes even in July), so spikes or trekking poles are necessity. We only had our trekking poles and we were fine. There were also a ton of small streams to cross, so we were grateful for our 100% waterproof hiking boots.

The weather still reached 80+ degrees so we were traversing snow in shorts and T-shirts and still sweating.

We stopped for lunch to take in the views of the Rocky Mountains before descending Death Canyon. There we met a day hiker on his way up to Static Peak that told us he encountered a grizzly cub that jumped onto the trail on his way up. This is obviously one of the worst situations any hiker can be in because mama bears can and will annihilate you just for looking at their cub. Luckily, this hiker carried on his way very cautiously and never saw the mother bear.

We kept this in mind as we continued into Death Canyon. It was gorgeous but a heavy decline of 4,600+ ft so I was once again thankful for our trekking poles.

After about 13 miles, we reached Phelps Lake and picked out our campsite out of the 3 available. Then we jumped into the lake overlooking the Tetons to cool off since it felt like 90 degrees at that point. The campsite overlooks the lake and is extremely nice in comparison to the primitive conditions of Alaska Basin. It even had a bear box for us to put our bear canister in.

day four: Taggart Lake, Bradley Lake, Jenny Lake, teton Village, Yellow National Park

On our last day in the Tetons, we woke up at 4:15 with cold beer on our minds as motivation. We hiked from Phelps Lake to Taggart Lake where we stopped for a snack. It’s hard to decide which lake we passed through is the prettiest because they are all crystal clear and have the massive Tetons in the background.

On our way from Taggart Lake to Bradley Lake, we were warned by some day hikers about a bear up ahead about 50 yards from the trail. We proceeded with caution, but we had to continue that way to get back to Jenny Lake. By time we passed the massive grizzly bear, he was only about 20 feet from the trail. Luckily, the bear was minding his business and we minded ours as we continued on our way past Bradley Lake.

We reached the decline to the Lupine Meadow Trailhead, where we started to see the most civilization we had encountered in three days as the day hikers made their way to the famous Delta Lake for the 4th.

After the Lupine Meadow Trailhead, we had to walk through the parking lot in the beating hot sun, which wasn’t remotely fun. We cut through a meadow and made it back to the car at Jenny Lake 15 miles later and before noon. We ended up clocking about 46 miles in total, so we are feeling very accomplished.

Teton Village was only 30 minutes south, so we beelined for the Mangy Moose for a beer and ate everything in the restaurant.

After trying to catch up on our massive post-trek calorie deficit (I’m talking thousands of calories negative from each of the three days), we drove 3 hours north to our Yellowstone National Park backcountry campsite.

We stopped numerous times along the way to see the bison and elk, which we admired from afar. Friendly reminder to never get too close to a bison, they may look docile and lazy but they will hurt anyone who makes them feel threatened. People have gotten severely injured or have died from bison in Yellowstone and the surrounding area because they tried to get too close for a photo. Stay 25 yards away at all times from bison and you won’t have any problems.

On the road north, we came across a Yellowstone attraction. Mud Volcano, Churning Caldron, Sizzling Basin and many more thermal areas are all easily accessible in one stop, so we parked and walked around the path to see these muddy hot springs and learn a bit about Yellowstone.

Eventually, we made our way up to Ice Lake and hiked in a mile and a half to our campsite overlooking the lake. The sun doesn’t set until 9 pm around this time of year, so we had plenty of time to get eaten alive by mosquitoes, set up camp and lay down for bed before the sun even considered going down.

Day Five: Yellowstone National Park and kodiak Mountain Lodge

We woke up in Yellowstone and began our hike back out to the car. The area is heavily populated by bears, so there are tons of trees cut down and laid on top of each other to form a fence for miles around the lake to prevent the bears from getting to the campsites. However, bears are smart and we found bear scat in two separate areas on the trail on our way out, so they were nearby while we slept.

The famous Grand Prismatic Hot Spring was our first stop on our drive south. It is very cool to see in person and really is a natural wonder. We also drove past the Firehole River, which is fed by the hot springs and is scalding hot.

Next was the classic Old Faithful, a must-see when in Yellowstone. We got there about an hour before it erupted so we had some overpriced cafeteria food and waited. If erupted about 30 minutes after the estimated times and you would have thought we were waiting for the circus to begin with the way people were complaining.

Once it erupted, we took off to the parking lot and drove back toward Jackson. There, we dropped off our rented bears spray and got lunch at a Mexican restaurant before driving an hour and a half south to Afton, WY to the Kodiak Mountain Lodge. It’s about the only thing that town has to offer, but it is a gorgeous lodge with huge private cabins. We took our first showers in 5 days, got dinner at the local drive-in and watched the new Pixar movie, Luca.

day six: SAlt lake city and home

The Kodiak Mountain Lodge had free continental breakfast and it was probably the best hotel breakfast I’ve ever had. After making the perfect waffle, we drove 3 hours south to SLC and flew back home to NYC.

This was my first time in Wyoming and I am so impressed with its vast wilderness and beauty. Backpacking the Tetons was challenging but one of the most amazing things I’ve ever done. 46 miles in 3 days is something I’m really proud to have accomplished and I will definitely be doing more backpacking trips in the near future.