Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, USA 19th June 2023

After leaving Zion, we had a lot of miles to cover to get up to Grand Teton so we broke the journey and had two nights in a lovely Airbnb in Salt Lake City which was about 315 miles both to and from.  And it gave us the opportunity to cook a couple of meals for ourselves and get our laundry up to date.

We stayed in a cabin in Grand Teton and were grateful that there was a heater because it was blooming cold, partly due to the elevation and partly because it's further north.  We had two full days to explore the park which hosts several lakes backed by snow topped mountains.  Due to the distances involved, we tended to drive around the park and pull into scenic viewpoints to look around.  Also there were opportunities for wildlife spotting and this graceful elk was happy to pose for a photo.  

Many of the hiking trails were closed due to bear activity; this is the time of year when they're coming out of hibernation and on the prowl.  We could tell when a bear was in the vicinity because of the glut of cars parked by the side of the road and enormous lenses being aimed in a particular direction.  We would often arrive after the bear had left the area, but we were lucky on one occasion to see a grizzly (see the photo).  Although the area where he was spotted had numerous signs by the side of the road indicating that there should be absolutely no stopping under any circumstances.  What the signs don't say is that the exception to the rule is when there's a bear about and then it's fine to pull over and stop, and there would always be rangers monitoring the bear's movements so they don't enforce the ban.

As can be seen from the photos, there was an abundance of wild flowers which looked stunning when there were large drifts of mainly blues and yellows (the paler blue flowers are lupins but much smaller than we would see at home).