Jackson Wyoming

We spent our first morning in Jackson reviewing the route for Saturday’s Half Marathon which had been changed a the last minute due to a bridge washout.  After picking up my number at Rendezvoux Park in Wilson, we drove the course to get a little familiar.

Here aew some views from the course.  We expect the weather to be cold and sunny tomorrow morning for the run.  The views of the valleys and Teton Range is spectacular.

Very large horse and cattle ranches dominate the valley we will be running through.

We will be crossing the Snake River via this footbridge.  The Snake is running high and silty due to recent heavy rains and snow runoff.  We watched trees floating by (at a very fast pace).  Jason is doing his thing.  His rock is in flight, his aim is good…

 

Jason on the very neat footbridge spanning the Snake.

Next, we took a drive on the Moose-Wilson Road, with our destination being Moose (the town) for a late lunch.  We stopped at this beaver dam to let Jason walk in the “tall grass” and soggy soils.

The scenery along this road was spectacular (do I use that description too much?  It seems to apply to a lot of places we see).  This is a view of a meadow in the middle of nowhere.

The flowers were in bloom in the flats, with lupine and black-eyed susans everywhere.

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After a very good lunch in Moose, I bought a dessert for Jason.  He did not want what I picked out but, after trying his first Annabel’s Rock Road bar, I think he was convinced I made the right choice.  This is a western only candy bar and we try to get them whenever they are available.  Jason wanted half of Cathy’s so he must have really liked it!

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After lunch, we continued off-highway on the Teton Park Road and went by String Lake and Jenny Lake on our way to Jackson Lake.  It was cloudy, windy and cold but the mountains did manage to expose themselves briefly from time to time.

Water + Rocks + Jason.  Another mid-air missile on its way.

We took Jason across the Jackson Lake Dam and showed him a little about how the flood gates work.  He is interested in most things mechanical.

Following the cable down through the port to the floodgate.

A view from the top of the dam.  Both sides of the Snake River were lined with fishermen/women.  We walked down to the shoreline on the right side of this photo and spent some time watching the fisherpersons.

We watched fly fisherpersons pull multiple 20″+ lake trout from the area just below the dam (the jutting knob on the right), we watched an Arkansas man pull in large lake trout using a deep diving BASS JIG, we watched fisherpersons using all types of spinners pulling in trout, both rainbows and lake types.  Most caught all they wanted very quickly and were “catching and releasing”.  One fly fisherman told me he had five fish in the first half hour!  You can see the mountains trying to sneak out in the background:

We went  to the north end of Jackson Lake, to the marina for a quick snack and sat on the porch and enjoyed the scenery.  The sky was clearing and the mountains were really showing their stuff:

Between Moran Junction and Elk Ranch Flats, we stopped to see this neat whirlpool. Jason immediately began throwing sticks into the flow, watching them disappear . .

Here is a random roadside meadow with flowing stream.

We noticed a road leading down to the river with a sign that read “Steep Grade – 19%”.   Of course I had to take it.  It led to a boat ramp for the drift boats and we were the only ones there so we left and continued back to camp.

Continuing on, we noticed a large grouping of cars stopped in the road, with people out with binoculars and spotting scopes looking at something in the distance.  Bear? No, a single, solitary pronghorn antelope!  If they took the roads we take they would have seen thousands of these, very close and in large groupings!  I am glad most stay in the touristy areas leaving the best for us!  Needless to say, we did not stop.

We decided to go back on a dirt road from Moose (the town) in search of Moose (the animal).  We did spot one in a meadow and after about 30 minutes of trying to triangulate it for Jason, managed to get him to actually see it.  It was probably about a half-mile away. After all that time, just a little further down the road we came across one, up-close and personal and Jason got to watch it for ten minutes or so.

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We got up at 4:00 AM for the race Saturday morning to find a moose in our camp munching on the willow trees!

This is the start area for the race as the sun is coming up.  Start time 6:30 but due to crowd size and the unexpected course change, My group did not get started until about 6:50.  Good run, great scenery and good people.  I met someone from the same running group in Suwanee that I run with and several runners from the Atlanta Track Club.  I started with a youngster (Late 50’s) who will be running both the Yellowstone and the Rocky Mountain races with me!

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I had this view on the way to the finish line.  The sun was up and the sky was clear.

Note: We managed to get two post completed today thanks to the Teton County Library’s strong WiFi!!  It has been difficult to find good signal in the camps.