Need a real mental health break?

Try Yellowstone and the Tetons.

By MICHAEL LEVIN
THE TETONS and the Snake River, Ansel Adams, 1942, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. (photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
THE TETONS and the Snake River, Ansel Adams, 1942, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming.
(photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
The primary purpose of travel articles is to get readers out of their living rooms, and into new places and experiences.
In an era where travel options are limited, those journeys often have to be armchair explorations – inspiring you to make a mental note to visit the destination described, once the world reopens.
And that’s where we are today.
Yellowstone and Grand Tetons US National Parks would be ideal places to visit in this time of pandemic and limited international travel opportunities. Tourism in both parks is currently down by more than half, which means that you’ll have more bison, parking and hiking trails to yourself than in any other year. This is the stuff that dreams are made of.
Maybe we can’t all get there right now, but we can plan for it, and see it all in our minds.
Yellowstone and its far less celebrated neighbor, Grand Teton, share a border approximately 90 minutes north of Jackson, Wyoming, which boasts the only airport in the US located in a national park.
You might not have thought of flying, but a whole lot of other people have. The flights in and out of Jackson are packed these days, so get your tickets early if you’re planning to fly.
However you get there, you’re better off staying in Jackson (the town is Jackson; the county is Jackson Hole) than in the parks themselves. Jackson offers the requisite T-shirt and cowboy hat atmosphere, but it also has tons of restaurants that offer open seating, hotels and motels for all budgets, and entertainment nightly in a local theater and in the legendary Million Dollar Cowboy Bar.
Let’s talk about Yellowstone first. You want to give it a full day, unless you are backcountry camping, in which case, stay as long as you’d like.
Most visitors approach Yellowstone from the south and head directly to Old Faithful, the geyser that has blown its top every 64 minutes since Hector was a pup. But the smart money leaves Old Faithful for last.
Think of Yellowstone as a figure eight, with the south entrance at the bottom of the bottom loop, where most of the key attractions are found. Roll in, and then make a right turn at West Thumb. Now you’ll have limited traffic and the various attractions if not quite all to yourself then almost that way.
Along the loop, you’ll see turnoffs for geysers, formed ages ago by a supervolcano located under what is now the park. You’ll see the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, which you can approach from various angles. You’ll see the extremely bizarre geyser configurations at Norris, which is well worth the time it gets to get a parking space. (Hey, Yellowstone, how about a parking lot concierge to break up the bottleneck?)
Then come the truly bizarre and extraordinary geothermal pools, where you will see boiling massive cauldrons of multicolored bacteria-infested waters. Pro tip: Don’t jump in.
And then your final stop, Old Faithful, where you can find actual bathrooms instead of the port-a-johns around the park, snacks, meals, trinkets, bottles, and doodads, all imprinted with the Yellowstone name.
Here’s my second pro tip for Yellowstone: give the rest of the folks a 15-minute head start after the geyser explodes. Let them sit in traffic while you enjoy the sudden solitary splendor of what had been akin to a Disney-sized crowd experience only a few minutes before.
The best way to see wildlife in Yellowstone is not to hire an expensive group tour out of Jackson Hole. Instead, simply rely on serendipity. Wherever you see a few cars pulled off the road at haphazard angles, pull your own vehicle over, and ask the folks with the longest camera lenses what they are looking for. On our visit last week, a bison sidled up to our rental car, and a mile further, four wolves were playing around and then chasing another bison, who then turned around and chased the wolves. You don’t see that every day.
Yet another bison parked himself at one of the trailheads leading to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, as though he were making himself part of the show. Don’t get too close. As cute and shaggy, or as Disneyesque, as the animals may look, they can go from benign to murderous in moments. Most of the injuries and fatalities involving wildlife stem from people getting a little too close. The beasts are perfectly capable of finding their own food, thank you very much.
So now you’ve gotten your full day of geysers and elk and antelope sightings at Yellowstone. That’s great, but whatever you do, don’t sleep on the Grand Teton. You can enjoy hikes, from family-friendly to strenuous; lazy raft trips down the Snake River (whitewater rafting can be found south of Jackson); more wildlife spotting; and for the truly intrepid, actual mountain climbing, both casual and technical.
A couple of hiking suggestions: The Taggart Lake Route, a circular hike/climb just under 6.5 km. (4 miles) with a lake at the top is perfect for family picnicking. At Jenny Lake, you can take a quick ferry ride to cut 4.8 km. (3 miles) off the path to Inspiration Point, where you will find a lovely and romantic waterfall.
In The Tetons the distances are shorter than in Yellowstone and there are no geysers, but the scenery is tranquil, majestic and not to be missed.
Other activities in the Jackson area: the aforementioned whitewater rafting; horse trail riding; and hot-air ballooning. Happy trails!
New York Times bestselling author Michael Levin teaches writing at www.TheBestEarningAuthor.com.