Today (day 5) we moved on from our one night stop over in Rock Springs and moved onto a town called Victor which is where we will be staying for the next 4 nights as we explore our second National Park of the trip…Grand Teton NP.

Fortunately unlike yesterday’s drive this one was a mere 3hr 20min, so short in comparison. As we got on the road we had to make one crucial stop before leaving Rock Springs and that was to a place called Cowboy Donuts to pick up some road trip essentials…coffee and doughnuts! We’d read about this place in the guidebook but were slightly concerned as Google said it has been known to sell out by 9am!!! Thankfully they had loads when we got there. If anyone is interested we bought a maple glazed and a blueberry cake.

We stopped at a western town called Pinedale en route, where there was a lot of cowboy shops selling western wear so it was fun to have a wander around there. We are on the look out for some Aztec pillow cases like the ones they had in our last Airbnb but we didn’t find any here!

Victor

It was another scenic drive to get to our next destination, which is a town called Victor. Victor is officially in Idaho but it is right near the border of Wyoming and is a great base if you want to explore Grand Teton National Park. The last bit of the journey takes place on a highway called the ‘Teton Pass’ which is a 8,431-foot mountain pass which connects Jackson, Wyoming to Victor, Idaho. It was like a larger (and way more scenic) version of the Snake Pass in Sheffield, very steep and windy as you drive up further into the mountains – quite hairy when we were coming down it the next morning. Will try and get some pics of it before we leave.

Our Airbnb in Victor is super nice and really big so here are a few pics of it.

Grand Teton Brewery – Oktoberfest!

We decided to wander to Grand Teton Brewery after we’d unpacked to sample the local beer. This was about a 20 minute walk from where we were staying but as we got nearer we saw a hive of activity surrounding the place and as we got nearer we discovered that there was an Oktoberfest event going on…what are the chances?!

So, for $20 you got entry, a souvenir glass and tokens for 2 beers so we decided to partake. Not only was there a great selection of beers to choose from but there was loads of outside seating, a small stage with a band playing and food trucks. We were also gifted another couple of beer tokens from some people who were leaving which was a bonus.

All in all it was a really unexpected but great evening. On the walk home I demonstrated a few Zumba dance moves to Si…Em, you would’ve recognised them 🙂 Not sure Si was impressed though.

Grand Teton National Park

Our first full day in Grand Teton got off to a great start as I woke up to news that Kev and Sarah had won their mixed doubles final so this is a special shout out to them for such a great win. Well done guys!

Anyway the park was a little bit further away than our previous park stop but all the roads are super scenic so you don’t really mind that much. We headed to the visitor centre first to get some advice on walks and we opted to do a hike around Jenny Lake. You can actually get a small boat across if you don’t want to hike around it but we decided to hike it.

On the other side of the lake we then hiked on to a few further recommended places, including Hidden Falls (a 200ft cascading waterfall in the forest)…

…and then we climbed up further, which included a lot of switchbacks up the mountain to ‘Inspiration Point’ which provided great views down onto Jenny Lake…

..and then we went further into the mountain to Cascade Creek and Cascade Canyon.

We decided to get the boat back as we’d already put in about 8 miles so we were pretty tired by this point. The boat is literally a 10 minute hop across the lake so very convenient and scenic being out on the lake.

We stopped for lunch at one of the look out points, and then afterwards we did a few shorter hikes around another part of the park, Jackson Lake. There is a big lodge located here too with very impressive views from the veranda.

That’s about it from our first day in Grand Teton. More hiking is planned for tomorrow so will upload our next post soon.

Lucy