Grand Teton National Park

"His might sets fast the mountains"

Mount Moran and Jackson Lake from Signal Mountain

For almost a year my wife and I had planned to meet one of our daughters and her family in the Black Hills of South Dakota for a family vacation in July of 2017.  By the time July came around I had been in the hospital three times, in late March with what appeared to be appendicitis, but turned out to be a tumor on my appendix, in May for surgery, and again the end of June for blood clots in leg and lungs.  I wasn't up to much in July but we decided to go on the family vacation anyway, and we drove through the night of July 4th to Grand Teton National Park and found a campsite there.  We spent two days in the Tetons driving to different locations since I was not able to hike and then headed north to Yellowstone where we spent another day before driving on through Wyoming to South Dakota and the Black Hills.  These are the photos we took in Grand Teton National Park.

Jackson Lake and the Tetons

Bigelow's Tansyaster

Willow Flats

Sulphur Buckwheat

Salsify

Musk Thistle (an invasive)

Our first order of business was a campsite and we found one at the Signal Mountain campground stopping to photograph Jackson Lake, the mountains and the wildflowers along the way (above).  After setting up camp we headed north stopping at various points to photograph the Snake River and more wildflowers before returning south to our campground.

Snake River

Scarlet Gilia

Willow Flats Overlook

Butter and Eggs

Willow Flats and Jackson Lake

After lunch at our campsite we drove up Signal Mountain for the views and for whatever else we could find to photograph.  The drive begins near the campground and is a "must see" of Grand Teton National Park.

Bog Fritillary

Arrowleaf Balsamroot

Jackson Lake, Mount Moran and Rockchuck Peak from Signal Mountain

After driving back down from Signal Mountain we drove south to Jenny Lake and to the Chapel of the Transfiguration while thunderstorms started to build over the mountains.  Before returning to our campsite we revisited Willow Flats Overlook and watched the storm.

Jenny Lake and Cascade Canyon

Chapel of the Transfiguration

Old Blewett Road

On the way  home from our Oregon and California trip we took Highway 97 all the way up through Oregon from Crater Lake through the city of Bend, across the Columbia River, through central Washington and the Yakima Valley, and on up through Blewett Pass to Leavenworth where we took Highway 2 and Stevens Pass across the mountains and from there headed home.

Blewett Pass is one of our favorite areas with plenty to explore and plenty to find.  This time we explored the Old Blewett Road which runs for ten miles through the mountains more or less following the main highway.  We went there looking for a large stand of Mountain Lady's Slippers, but they must have been finished because we did not find them, though we looked carefully.

We did find plenty of other things, though, as we always do, including two native orchids.  In a wet area along the road we found numerous Tall White Bog Orchis with a number of butterflies feeding on them and further down the road a few of the Alaskan Piperia blooming.  Both are orchids we've seen before but both are a delight, especially the highly fragrant bog orchids.

We also found other wildflowers we had not seen before, including Scarlet Gilia and Washington Twinpod with its distinctive twin bladder-like seed pods.  There were hundreds of small butterflies feeding on the Creeping Snowberry and more Pinedrops than we had ever seen before.  They were everywhere, some of them in large clumps.

I am not very good at identifying butterflies, partly for lack of reference material, but believe they are (in order), the Field Crescent (Phyciodes campestris), the Snowberry Checkerspot (Euphydryas colon - three photos), the Small Wood Nymph (Cercyonis oetus), the Propetius Dusky Wing Skipper (Erynnis propetius), and the Indra Swallowail (Papilio indra).

Even though we do not always find what we are looking for we always find something interesting when we are exploring.  Serendipity, the habit of finding things that we are not looking for certainly characterizes our meanderings and always makes out trips a delight, whether nearby or far away, whether shorter or longer, whether in Washington or elsewhere.