Heading Up to Jackson WY/Grand Teton National Park

jpi68

We are getting ready for a mid August trip from our Colorado base up to the Flaming Gorge, Bear Lake, UT then to the Jackson Wyoming area around the Grand Teton National Park. Has anyone been camping in the Teton area in the last week or so. If so has it been extremely crowded or not? We are looking at the Shadow Mountain, Lower Teton View and Gros Ventre as potential camp sites. Has anyone been there recently say in the last couple of weeks... Thanks

jkjenn

jpi68 said:

We are getting ready for a mid August trip from our Colorado base up to the Flaming Gorge, Bear Lake, UT then to the Jackson Wyoming area around the Grand Teton National Park. Has anyone been camping in the Teton area in the last week or so. If so has it been extremely crowded or not? We are looking at the Shadow Mountain, Lower Teton View and Gros Ventre as potential camp sites. Has anyone been there recently say in the last couple of weeks... Thanks

I haven't been there this summer, but was contacted last week by someone supporting the Bridger-Teton NF and thry informed me it has been packed  and with a lot of first time campers.

bergger

We are also home based in Colorado and did a West Yellowstone trip at the end of July.  Had a great time camping on Hebgen Lake at Rainbow Point Campground.  Our friends spent a night at Gros Ventre the night before getting to Hebgen Lake.  Good luck getting a spot there or anywhere in the Teton area.  At Gros Ventre you need to be in line at the campground early early just to try and get a spot.  But they got lucky and got a night there, very last spot, so you never know.  We have stayed at Rainbow Point twice in the past 5 years.  A nice place if you like to be on the water, paddle boarding, kayaking and fishing etc.  And the campsites are really nice, private and large and bathrooms very clean.  Only about 20 minutes to the West Yellowstone entrance.  We went into Yellowstone early and had a great time.  We'd leave camp at 5:15 in the morning and have some of the areas all to ourselves until the crowds showed up.   Yellowstone is a magical place and a must see if you have never been.  We've only driven around Teton and can't comment much on the park itself.  Though we did drive through it on our way home and saw two grizzles.  One ran right across the road behind us!

jkjenn

There are some boondocking spots without mountain views if you continue up down past Gros Ventre and go towards Slide Lake.. There are also a couple of NFS campgrounds going over Togowtee Pass towards Dubuis.

2Doxies

I would stay away from the park campgrounds this summer, super crowded. I was just out past kelly wyo yesterday, the road is rough, but theres 2 fs campgrounds, crystal creek, that are pretty. Love the hebgen lake campground, but the road was really rough going in

jpi68

We finally got up to the Great Tetons National Park Area on Monday the 17th 2020, and for the past four days have been staying at the Bridger National Forest - Upper Teton View Campground... The road to get here is pretty rough, but the views are fantastic... It’s been a bit crowded up here, but so have the Park and commercial campgrounds. We had no trouble finding a spot, but we got here early in the afternoon... Towards evening things started to filling up.. The FS ranger and Bridger National Forest volunteer come around once or twice a day. The 5 day limit appears to be enforced. We are not far from the Park entrance and have been in to explore... We rented a canoe one day and paddled Jenny Lake. The Park is fairly crowed at certain times of the day, parking at trail heads And the main Jenny Lake Visitors area are pretty full. If you go early in the morning, before nine, things seem better... We went into Jackson a couple of times and it’s a zoo, traffic is terrible. We leave tomorrow to head for home... We have decided that the next time we come here will be in the fall, mid to late September, crowds should be smaller..

jkjenn

jpi68 said:

We finally got up to the Great Tetons National Park Area on Monday the 17th 2020, and for the past four days have been staying at the Bridger National Forest - Upper Teton View Campground... The road to get here is pretty rough, but the views are fantastic... It’s been a bit crowded up here, but so have the Park and commercial campgrounds. We had no trouble finding a spot, but we got here early in the afternoon... Towards evening things started to filling up.. The FS ranger and Bridger National Forest volunteer come around once or twice a day. The 5 day limit appears to be enforced. We are not far from the Park entrance and have been in to explore... We rented a canoe one day and paddled Jenny Lake. The Park is fairly crowed at certain times of the day, parking at trail heads And the main Jenny Lake Visitors area are pretty full. If you go early in the morning, before nine, things seem better... We went into Jackson a couple of times and it’s a zoo, traffic is terrible. We leave tomorrow to head for home... We have decided that the next time we come here will be in the fall, mid to late September, crowds should be smaller..

Thanks for reporting back. I am headed there next month on our way through to Idaho.  I am hoping the crowds have thinned out, at least a little bit but I am not 100% sure they will have slowed too much. Maybe we will luck out a d get a little early season snow, again, which should help to chase fair weather campers home.

BogieMeister

Thanks for the update on the crowds. Sharing information like this, makes joining this forum well worth while. 

Camak

I was there last weekend, I camped at the Hampton Inn Jackson. The entire area was crowded not sure what the camp grounds looked like

jpi68

We had lunch today in Jackson, Wy. (August 20th 2020) with friends who have spent the last week in Yellowstone. Their opinion was that the crowds were very light in Yellowstone.  As they drove by the Tetons they were amazed at the number of people... They thought the crowds at the Tetons were much worse..

jkjenn

jpi68 said:

We had lunch today in Jackson, Wy. (August 20th 2020) with friends who have spent the last week in Yellowstone. Their opinion was that the crowds were very light in Yellowstone.  As they drove by the Tetons they were amazed at the number of people... They thought the crowds at the Tetons were much worse..

Wow, thatbis a switch. Maybe the lack of housing is keeping crowds light.

CharlieRN

jpi68 said:

We had lunch today in Jackson, Wy. (August 20th 2020) with friends who have spent the last week in Yellowstone. Their opinion was that the crowds were very light in Yellowstone.  As they drove by the Tetons they were amazed at the number of people... They thought the crowds at the Tetons were much worse..

A bit off topic, but in my view, Yellowstone in winter is more spectacular than at any other season. The view across frozen Yellowstone Lake, the stillness in the deep snow, the natural ice sculptures at the falls, the abundance of animals all combine to make winter in the park really special.

The park is open only to two snowmobile tour operators, so you basically are sharing the park with a total of 50 other humans - and a ton of animals now that the people are gone. I've seen more animals up close in two winter snowmobile tours than in a week of backpacking. It's also fabulous to have to share Old Faithful with only a handful of folks. 

If you like to ski, you can easily work in a day tour of Yellowstone from either Big Sky in MT or Jackson Hole/Grand Targhee in WY. Those are terrific, challenging and sometimes even terrifying places to ski, so a day on a snowmobile is often a welcome, semi-restful diversion. And even with all the skiers, the town of Jackson is not usually very crowded in the winter. A horse-drawn sleigh ride on the nearby National Elk Refuge make for another great off day from the slopes.

jules2go

This all sounds like so much fun and is inspiring!