Grand Teton
[WYOMING]
National Park

United States Department of the Interior
Harold L. Ickes, Secretary

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
Arno B. Cammerer, Director

UNITED STATES
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON: 1937

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DO YOU KNOW YOUR NATIONAL PARKS?

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RULES AND REGULATIONS

The Park Regulations are designed for the protection of the natural beauties as well as for the comfort and convenience of visitors. The following synopsis is for the general guidance of visitors, who are requested to assist in the administration of the park by observing them. Copies of the complete rules and regulations promulgated by the Secretary of the Interior for the government of the park may be obtained at the office of the superintendent and at other points of concentration throughout the park.

The destruction, injury, defacement, or disturbance of any buildings, signs, equipment, trees, flowers, vegetation, rocks, minerals, animal, bird, or other life is prohibited.

Camps must be kept clean. Rubbish and garbage should be burned. Refuse should be placed in cans provided for this purpose. If no cans are provided where camp is made, refuse should be buried.

Do not throw paper, lunch refuse, or other trash on the roads and trails. Carry until the same can be burned in camp or placed in receptacle.

Fires shall be lighted only when necessary and when no longer needed shall be completely extinguished. No lighted cigarette, cigar, match, or other burning material shall be thrown from any vehicle or saddle animal or dropped into any leaves, grass, twigs, or tree mold. Smoking or the building of fires may be prohibited by the superintendent when the hazard makes such action necessary.

The hunting, killing, wounding, frightening, capturing, or attempting to capture any wild bird or animal is prohibited. Firearms are prohibited within the park except with the written permission of the superintendent.

When fishing, avoid closed waters. Except where otherwise posted, the limit for a day's catch is 10 fish. The possession of more than 2 days' catch at any one time is prohibited. Fishing in any way other than with hook and line is prohibited.

Still- and motion-picture cameras may be freely used by amateurs in the park for general scenic purposes.

No pictures for commercial use may be taken without special permission from the superintendent.

All mountain climbers must report at a ranger station before and after making the ascent of any peak. No solo climbs are permitted in this park.

Drive carefully at all times. Muffler cut-outs must be kept closed. Speed limits must be observed. All accidents must be reported at the nearest ranger station or to the office of the superintendent.

The penalty for violation of the rules and regulations is a fine not exceeding $500, or imprisonment not exceeding 6 months, or both, together with all costs of the proceedings.

The Government is not responsible for accidents of any nature.

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Events
OF HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE

expedition through the Teton country. 1872 William H. Jackson, with a geological party of the Hayden survey in the Tetons, secured the first photographs of these famous landmarks. 1877 The Hayden survey party of Orestes St. John made geological studies in the Tetons. 1879 Thomas Moran painted the Teton Range. 1884 The first settlers entered Jackson Hole. 1897 Teton Forest Reserve created. 1898 The first major Teton peaks scaled (Buck Mountain and Grand Teton). 1909 The Upper Gros Ventre landslide. 1925 The Lower Gros Ventre landslide. 1927 The Gros Ventre flood. 1929 Grand Teton National Park created and dedicated. 1930 The last major Teton peaks scaled (Nez Perce and Mount Owen).

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Contents

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List of Images

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GRAND TETON
National Park

OPEN FROM JUNE 1 TO OCTOBER 15

The Grand Teton National Park embraces the most scenic portion of the Teton Range of Wyoming, with an area of approximately 150 square miles, or 96,000 acres. It varies from 3 to 9 miles in width and is 27 miles in length. The northern extremity of the park is about 11 miles south of the southern boundary of Yellowstone National Park. This park was established by President Coolidge on February 26, 1929.

In addition to its sublime peaks and canyons, the Grand Teton National Park includes six large lakes and many smaller bodies of water, glaciers, and snowfields, and extensive forests of pine, fir, spruce, cottonwood, and aspen. However, much of the park area is above timber line (10,500 feet), the Grand Teton rising to more than 7,000 feet above the floor of Jackson Hole.

The great array of peaks which constitutes the scenic climax of this national park is one of the noblest in the world. It is alpine in the truest sense. Southwest of Jenny Lake is a culminating group of lofty peaks whose dominating figure is the Grand Teton, the famous mountain after which the park takes its name. The resemblance of this group, whose clustered, tapering spires tower aloft to a height of thousands of feet and are hung with never-melting snowfields, to a vast cathedral, must suggest itself to every observer.

However widely traveled, visitors viewing the Tetons for the first time confess that the beauty of this park and the rugged grandeur of its mountains come to them as a distinct revelation. This is amply proved by the increasingly large number of visitors who return summer after summer to spend their vacations in the Grand Teton National Park. The recreational possibilities of these mountains, they have found, are practically limitless. Here they may camp on the lakes, swim and fish, ride or hike the trails, engage in the strenuous sport of mountaineering, or—if their needs and wishes so dictate—simply relax and rest.

The Grand, Middle, and South Tetons comprise the historic Trois Tetons, which were noted landmarks to the trappers and explorers of the early nineteenth century. The Three Tetons are seen to best advantage from the west and southwest. As the observer's viewpoint is shifted, the major peaks change greatly in outline and relative position, but despite this fact one soon learns to recognize each.

Eleven peaks are of such boldness and prominence that they receive rank as major peaks. In order of descending altitude they are: Grand Teton, 13,766 feet; Mount Owen, 12,922; Middle Teton, 12,798; Mount Moran 12,594; South Teton, 12,505; Mount Teewinot, 12,317; Buck Mountain, 11,923; Nez Perce, 11,900; Mount Woodring, 11,585; Mount Wister, 11,480; and Mount St. John, 11,412.

In addition to the 11 major peaks there are an even larger number of lesser prominence and altitude, such as Cloudveil Dome, 12,026 feet; Eagle Rest, 11,257; Prospectors Mountain, 11,231; Mount Rockchuck, 11,150; Table Mountain, 11,075; Bivouac Peak, 11,045; Rendezvous Peak, 10,924; Fossil Mountain, 10,912; Rolling Thunder, 10,902; Mount Hunt, 10,775; Symmetry Spire, 10,546; and Storm Point, 10,040, as well as a host of nameless pinnacles and crags which serve still further to make the Teton skyline the most jagged of any on the continent. The larger lakes of the park—Leigh, String, Jenny, Bradley, Taggart, and Phelps—all lie close to the foot of the range and, like beads, are linked together by the sparkling, tumbling waters of Cottonwood Creek and neighboring streams. Nestled in dense forests outside the mouths of canyons, these lakes mirror in their quiet depths nearby peaks whose pointed summits rise with

sheer slopes a mile or more above their level.

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HISTORY OF THE REGION

Many of our national parks have been carved from wilderness areas previously little known to man and but seldom visited. The Tetons, on the contrary, are remarkably rich in historic associations. The Grand Teton itself has been referred to by an eminent historian as "the most noted historic summit of the West."

Up to the beginning of the last century Indians held undisputed sway over the country dominated by the Three Tetons. Then, as now, Jackson Hole was literally a happy hunting ground, and, while the severe winters precluded permanent habitation, during the milder seasons, bands of Indians frequently came into the basin on hunting or warring expeditions. They represented many tribes, usually hostile to each other. The dreaded Blackfeet, the Crows, the Nez Perce, the Flatheads, the Shoshoni, and others. There is little reason to believe that these Indians ever invaded the more rugged portions of the Tetons, but it is certain they regularly crossed the range, utilizing the several passes.

The Tetons probably first became known to white men in 1807-8, when the intrepid John Colter crossed the range, presumably near Teton Pass on the memorable journey which also made him discoverer of the Yellowstone country. In 1811 the Astorians, under Wilson Price Hunt, entered Jackson Hole by the Hoback Canyon and, failing in an attempt to navigate the Snake River, likewise crossed the Teton Range in the vicinity of Teton Pass, continuing thence to the mouth of the Columbia, where the trading post, Astoria, was founded. The Tetons also figure in the adventures of the returning Astorians in 1812. In Washington Irving's classic account of the Astorian expedition (Astoria, published in 1836) the name "Tetons" first appears in literature.

The decades which follow may truly be referred to as "the Fur Era", for the Tetons became the center of remarkable activities on the part of fur trappers representing both British and American interests, the former by the Northwest and Hudson's Bay Companies, the latter by a succession of companies operating out of St. Louis, Mo. "It was the trio of peaks so distinctively presented from the west and southwest that made the Tetons famous as landmarks among the roving trappers who, guiding their courses by these easily recognized summits, singly or in groups passed over Teton Pass and through Pierres Hole in their seasonal migrations to and from their remote hunting grounds." Could these ancient monuments speak they would make known some of the most interesting events in the annals of the fur trade. For this was the paradise of the trapper. In every direction meandered the streams along which he pursued his trade, and nearby were the valleys where the rival companies gathered in annual conclave to fight the bloodless battles of their business. There is scarcely an acre of open country in sight of it that has not been the scene of forgotten struggles with the implacable Blackfeet, while far and near, in unknown graves, lie many obscure wanderers of whose lonely fate no record survives. Captain Bonneville, Father DeSmet, Rev. Samuel Parker, Jedediah Smith, Bridger, Kit Carson, David Jackson (after whom Jackson Hole and Jackson Lake were named), Sublette, Joe Meek—these are names to conjure with in western history. These and many others equally distinguished appear in the records of the Teton country, particularly in the third and fourth decades of the century. The 1832 rendezvous of the American trappers was held in Teton Basin, then known as "Pierre's Hole", at the west base of the Tetons. It was attended by many of the most famous trappers of the time, and furnished occasion for the Battle of Pierre's Hole, a notable engagement between the trappers and Gros Ventres.

The picturesque name "Jackson Hole" dates back to 1829, in which year Capt. William Sublette so named it after his fellow trapper, David E. Jackson, who was especially partial to this beautiful valley. The term "hole" was used by the trappers of that period in much the same sense as is the word "basin" today, being applied to any mountain-girt valley.

In the 1840's the value of beaver skins declined and with it the fur trade. By 1845 the romantic trapper of "the Fur Era" had vanished from the Rockies—not, however, without having won for himself an imperishable place in American history. During the next four decades the valleys near the Tetons were largely deserted, except for wandering bands of Indians that still occasionally drifted in. But the frontier was relentlessly closing in, and one Government expedition after another passed through the Teton country or skirted its borders. Most important of these were the Hayden surveys, which in 1871, 1872, 1877, and 1878 sent parties into the region. The names of several members of the 1872 expedition are perpetuated in connection with Leigh, Jenny, Bradley, and Taggart Lakes. Orestes St. John, geologist with the 1877 Hayden party, and the great artist, Thomas Moran, who in 1879 went with a military escort to paint the Tetons, are similarly remembered in the names of two of the principal peaks. To this transition period also belong the earliest prospectors of Jackson Hole, as well as several famous big-game hunters who came here in search of trophies—forerunners of the hundreds of hunters who now annually invade this region.

In the middle eighties came the first settlers. They entered by the Gros Ventre River and Teton Pass, and to begin with naturally settled in the south end of the hole. Here as elsewhere the story of the homesteader has been one of isolation, privations, and hardships, met, however, with persistency and indomitable courage. Nor is the story confined to the past, for maintaining a livelihood amongst these mountains still calls for resourcefulness, fortitude, and—not infrequently—even heroism.

History, here, is still in the making. Teton Forest Reserve was not created until 1897; the railroad reached Victor in 1912; the Jackson Lake Dam was finished in 1914; many of the roads and bridges of the region were constructed within the past decade; and the Grand Teton National Park was created in 1929. The detailed exploration of the range and the conquest of its high peaks have taken place in relatively recent years, and since 1929 trails have been built which for the first time make the Tetons really accessible to the public.

In later paragraphs will be found an account of the mountaineering history of the Tetons. And so the dramatic human story of these mountains is brought down to the present.

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GEOGRAPHIC FEATURES

THE TETON RANGE

On the Jackson Hole side the Teton Range presents one of the most precipitous mountain fronts on the continent. Except for Teton Pass, at its southern end, the

range is practically an insuperable barrier. Forty miles in length, it springs abruptly from Jackson Hole and only a few miles west of its base attains elevations of more than 13,000 feet above the sea. Thus most of the range is lifted above timber line into the realm of perpetual snow, and in its deeper recesses small glaciers still linger. The grandeur of the beetling gray crags, sheer precipices, and perennial snow fields, is vastly enhanced on this side by the total absence of foothills and by contrast with the relatively flat floor of Jackson Hole, from which they are usually viewed.

The Teton Range may be described as a long block of the earth that has been broken and uplifted along its eastern margin, thus being tilted westward. Movement of this sort along a fracture is what the geologist terms "faulting." The total amount of uplift along the eastern edge of the block amounts to more than 10,000 feet. Doubtless this uplift was accomplished not by one cataclysm but by a series of small faulting movements distributed over a very long period. Probably the time of faulting was as remote as the middle of the Tertiary period (the period just before the Ice Age, the latest chapter of the earth's history).

Very impressive is the contrast between the east and west sides of the Teton Range. From the east, the Jackson Hole side, one views the precipitous side of the mountain block as it has been exposed by uplift and erosion. From the west, the Idaho side, is seen the broad top of the block, which is gently inclined toward the west. In the eastern front, furthermore, one sees the ancient, deep-seated crystalline rocks (gneiss, schist, and pegmatite) belonging to the earliest known geologic eras, the pre-Cambrian. In places on the top of the block, at the head of Death and Avalanche Canyons, for example, are seen the inclined layers of limestone, quartzite, and shale belonging to the less ancient Paleozoic era. These layers formerly covered the entire block, but they have been worn away from half of the area, thus exposing the underlying crystallines. The west and north flanks of the range are overlapped by relatively young beds of lava that are continuous with those covering eastern Idaho and the Yellowstone plateaus.

JACKSON HOLE

Jackson Hole, which adjoins the park on the southeast, is one of the most sequestered valleys in the Rockies, encompassed on all sides as it is by mountain barriers. It is 48 miles long, for the most part 6 to 8 miles wide, and embraces an area of more than 400 square miles. The floor of the valley slopes from an altitude of 7,000 feet at the north end to 6,000 at the south. Jackson Hole lies a few miles west of the Continental Divide, and occupies the central portion of the headwaters area of the Snake River. Mountain streams converge radially toward it from the surrounding highlands, and the Snake River receives these as it flows through the valley.

Jackson Hole has largely been excavated by the Snake River and its tributaries from the shale formations which once extended over the region to a depth of several thousand feet. Rocks surrounding the region, being more resistant, were reduced less rapidly and therefore have been left standing in relief as highlands.

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THE WORK OF GLACIERS

Here, as in several other national parks, the glaciers of the Ice Age, known to the geologist as the Pleistocene period, played a leading role in developing the extraordinary scenic features. Just as the streams now converge toward Jackson Hole, so in ages past glaciers moved down toward, and in many instances into, the basin from the highlands to the east, north, and west. Detailed study has shown that the Ice Age was not a single, simple episode, but is divisible into "stages"—glacial stages, during which extensive ice fields formed, and interglacial stages, during which these were largely or wholly withdrawn. The duration of each is to be thought of in terms of tens of thousands of years. In Jackson Hole, three glacial and two interglacial stages have been recognized. Only the most recent glacial stage need concern us here, the other two having occurred so long ago that their records are much obscured.

This stage ended but yesterday, geologically speaking, and to it is due much of the grandeur of the region. In the Teton Range every canyon from Phillips northward contained a glacier, and many of these reached eastward to the base of the range where they spread widely upon the floor of Jackson Hole. Where Jackson Lake now is there lay a great, sluggish field of ice resulting from the confluence of adjacent alpine glaciers.

Moraines, outwash plains, and lakes are easily recognizable features that originated during the latest glacial stages, and most of the peaks and canyons were greatly modified.

Moraines are deposits of debris, piled up by the ice itself. Such are the heavily wooded, hummocky embankments which rest along the base of the mountains from Granite Canyon northward, rising in some cases 200 or 300 feet above the floor of Jackson Hole and heaped with enormous boulders quarried by the ice far back in the range.

With two exceptions each of the large moraines incloses a lake. In this way Phelps, Taggart, Bradley, Jenny, Leigh, and Jackson Lakes originated; all ranged along the western border of Jackson Hole. No lakes were formed along the eastern border, inasmuch as on this side no glaciers extended beyond their canyons. String Lake is dammed in part by a gravel fill.

Outwash plains are the deposits formed by streams which, during the Ice Age, issued from the glaciers. Of this origin are the broad, cobble-strewn flats, usually overgrown with sage, which cover the floor of Jackson Hole. They are diversified by bars, abandoned stream channels, terraces and "pitted plains", features of exceptional interest to one who examines them in detail. Several isolated buttes—Signal, Blacktail, and the Gros Ventre Buttes—rise like islands a thousand feet or more above these flats.

Each canyon gives evidence of the vigor with which the glacier it once contained gouged out its channel. In many places the rock of the broad floors and steep sides is still remarkably polished. Every canyon leads up to one or more amphitheaters, or cirques, with sheer bare walls hundreds of feet high. Tracing these ice-gouged canyons headward one will discover many rock-rimmed lakelets, some hung on precipitous mountain sides where one might be pardoned for asserting that no lake could possibly exist.

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Copyright, Crandall.

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TRAILS

An unbroken wilderness a few years ago, the Grand Teton National Park is now penetrated by some of the finest trails in the national-park system. These trails, suitable alike for travel afoot or on saddle horses, are 3 to 4 feet wide, free of boulders, and of grade so moderate they may be followed by old or young with full safety and a minimum of physical exertion. While the trails are traversable during the greater part of the summer, some of them may be blocked by snow early in the season. Those visitors expecting to climb the high trails should inquire at park headquarters or the office at the museum at Jenny Lake for information regarding the condition of the high trails.

The Lakes Trail runs parallel to the mountains, following closely the base of the range and skirting the shore of each large body of water from Leigh Lake at the north to Phelps Lake at the south. It makes accessible the most important lakes, canyons, and peaks of the park, and is naturally the one from which all expeditions into the range begin. One can encircle by trail either Jenny Lake or String Lake, the hike around the former being one of the most popular in the park.

The Canyon Trails described below are spur trails extending westward from the Lakes Trail, back into the most rugged areas in the Teton Range. Intervening canyons have been left in their splendid wildness.

The Teton Glacier Trail extends up the east slope of the Grand Teton to two alpine lakes, Surprise and Amphitheater, at altitudes close to 10,000 feet. By means of the 17 switchbacks on this trail the hiker or horseman climbs to a point on the face of the Grand Teton, 3,000 feet above the floor of the valley, throughout this ascent enjoying matchless panoramas of the entire Jackson Hole country, and witnesses a view extending eastward 80 miles to the Wind River Mountains, whose peaks and glaciers are sharply outlined against the horizon. Amphitheater Lake, at the end of the trail, occupies a protected glacial cirque and is the starting point for Teton Glacier, the most accessible of the ice fields, three-fourths of a mile northwest from the end of the trail. Though seasoned hikers make the climb from Jenny Lake to the glacier by way of this trail, one can, if he chooses, take horses as far as Amphitheater Lake, and continue on foot with a guide over to the glacier.

The Indian Paintbrush Trail starts near the outlet of Leigh Lake and follows up the bottom of Indian Paintbrush Canyon to connect with the Cascade Canyon Trail by way of Lake Solitude, a lakelet of rarest beauty at timber line near the head of the north fork of Cascade Canyon. The wealth of wild flowers along this trail gives name to the canyon, and early or late in the day one may see big game, especially moose, near the lakes and swamps. This trail affords superb views of Jackson and Leigh Lakes eastward beyond the mouth of the canyon, and westward along the Divide glimpses of snowclad ridges and peaks.

The Cascade Canyon Trail passes through a chasm whose walls rise sheer on either side for thousands of feet. By this trail one penetrates into the deepest recesses of the Tetons. It skirts the base of several of the noblest peaks, Teewinot, Mount Owen, Table Mountain, and the Three Tetons, and it enables one to see these titans not only at close range but from new and impressive angles. Lake Solitude may be reached by means of this trail, by taking the Cascade Canyon-Indian Paintbrush loop trail leading up the north fork of Cascade Canyon.

The Death Canyon Trail traverses the full length of a canyon which in its lower portion is of profound depth and grandeur, as awesome as its name, but which above opens into broad, sunny meadows. No canyon better illustrates the difference between the rugged, alpine landscapes developed in the crystalline rock of the Teton east border and the softer contours formed in the sedimentary strata to the west, near the Divide.