After the wedding in Victor, we stayed to explore more within Grand Teton National Park. We had been there a couple years ago and it was one of our favorite parks.
We found a dispersed campground about half an hour from the official entrance to the park, with a great view of the Teton mountain range. The dispersed sites are more rustic than an actively managed campground. They have designated sites, and typically only a pit toilet, without access to potable water, sinks, or a place to dump trash. For the third or fourth time on this trip, we claimed the last available site in the campground.
We’ve had great luck with campsites on this trip so far. Without reserving them, we have been showing up at campgrounds and looking for an available spot. Most campgrounds have been busy, as it’s peak season and we’re going to popular places, and our luck is partially due to our car camping setup. Since we’re sleeping in the car, we don’t need much space or amenities. The last available sites are usually in some way a little less preferable than the others — smaller, no evenly sloped space for a tent, no electric hookup for an RV, etc. At minimum, all we really need is enough space to park. But even with our minimal needs, we’ve been getting a lot more: a fire pit, picnic table, space to spread out, and sometimes a lake or riverside location.
From our site, we saw a deer, woodpecker, and two red-tailed hawks. And, of course, a great sunset and sunrise over the mountains.

While in the Tetons, we decided to go for a swim in a nearby lake. There are several lakes there, and we chose one called String Lake. It had a parking lot right next to the beach, with no hiking required. We set up a picnic spot on the shore and waded in. The water was cold, but pleasant once we got used to it. In fact, the lake was quite shallow, never deeper than our height. We avoided standing up because the bottom was slimy (lol) so we swam from one side to the other, sitting on a large boulder to rest.
As we were swimming back to our spot, we saw a park ranger come and inspect our picnic area. As he got out his pad to write a ticket, Alex swam up to talk to him. The ranger explained that any food or beverages, even water, were not allowed to be left out. Apparently, bears are attracted to any good scents, even water bottles that may have had other types of beverages in them. If a bear eats human food, it will always be attracted to human food, and the national park has to put it down. The ranger said that six bears were put down last year for this reason. We apologized and he left without giving us a ticket.

The next day, we went for a hike around Phelps lake. Last time, we hiked around Jenny Lake, so we wanted to try something different. The Phelps lake hike provided beautiful views from the trail above the lake, and equally pretty views from lake level. We had intended to hike around the whole lake, which would have been about 9 miles, including a detour due to some bridge construction. But we somehow got turned around on the detour and went back the way we came. Still the same distance, but we only hiked along half of the lake.

On the way back, we passed a family who had seen a bear. One of the reasons we chose those trail was due to recent bear sightings, so we were excited to have a chance to see one. We had been watching for bears the whole time. While Alex went down to the shore to explore the area where the family had said they saw the bear, Kelly saw it walking up the trail and then darting into the woods. So only one of us saw it, but it still counts!

Further on the way back, we saw a couple mile deer. They were munching on shrubs and leaves, and didn’t really care that we were near them. We watched them for a few minutes and went on our way.

Last time we were in the Tetons, we saw a bear and two moose. We were glad that we again saw wildlife there, reinforcing Grand Teton as one of our favorite national parks to visit.

Are those all moose antlers?! Or from the mule deer?
They didn’t look like moose antlers, more likely mule deer or elk 🙂