Grand Teton National Park

We chose to stay in the lodge within the Grand Teton National Park to be present for the light throughout the day. In the Tetons, the light brushes the snow-capped peaks with soft pinks and golds in the morning with blue and silvers in the evening.

There is no way I could choose which national park is the most beautiful.  Each holds its own character. But the Grand Tetons are one of those landscapes that stays with you. The mountains rise abruptly from, without foothills. The Tetons are geologically young mountains, still being lifted along a fault line that tilts the range upward while the valley sinks.

The preservation of this landscape was not easy. In 1929, Grand Teton National Park was established under President Calvin Coolidge, protecting the dramatic Teton Range itself. Yet, the valley of Jackson Hole was left outside of the Park’s boundaries. John D. Rockefeller, Jr recognizing the irreplaceable relationship between mountains and valley, purchased large tracts of land with the intention of donating them to the public. When resistance stalled progress, President Franklin D. Roosevelt intervened in 1943 and designated the area as a National Park.

Watching the light move across the Grand Tetons lingers in my memory years after our visit.