OUR 2019 WIND RIVER RANGE TRIP Day 1

October 3, 2019 (from Billings to Jackson via Bozeman, West Yellowstone and the Teton Valley)

On Wednesday, October 2, our good friend Becky returned to her life in Tennessee and on the next day, Doug and I headed west to continue the final leg of our 2019 Fall Foliage Tour. We left Billings early and traveled west on I-90 until we reached Bozeman, a picturesque city of about 50,000. On the way, we passed the Beartooth and Crazy Mountain ranges. This time, however, the weather was perfect, not a cloud in the sky. And as we traveled along the interstate, the mountains with their fresh coating of snow, appeared so delightful to our nature-loving personas.

As we left our home, the snow-covered Beartooths, despite being sixty miles away, loomed large on the southern horizon. Long before reaching Big Timber, we could see the Crazies were resplendently clad in fresh snow, and unlike our last stop there, we could see these magnificent mountains. It is about a two- and one-half-hour drive to the city named after John Bozeman, founder of Bozeman and surveyor of the Bozeman Trail. While there are many spectacular mountain ranges nearby, the mountains named for famed mountain man Jim Bridger look down with majestic splendor upon the city that hosts Montana State University. And if you have ever seen the movie Jurassic Park then know this; that university houses the famed Museum of the Rockies. Jack Horner, who was the Curator of Paleontology at the museum as well as a teacher at the university, was the basis for the Sam Neill character, Dr. Alan Grant, in the movie.

After exiting Bozeman, we traveled south on US  Highway 191. West Yellowstone, Montana, the western gateway to Yellowstone National Park is a mere eighty-eight miles by way of the Gallatin River Valley.  In S. A. Snyder’s Scenic Driving Montana, this is Scenic drive #10: Gallatin Canyon: U.S. Highway 191. The thoroughfare traverses the Gallatin Valley following the river of that name and is a beautiful drive. On the first few miles, cottonwoods had only begun to turn; they were in a non-descript transitional phase between a pale green and a very soft yellow. I have seen very few aspen thus far; those visible are light green. Timber along this route is overwhelmingly coniferous.

The Moose Creek Flat Campground at mile marker 56 has a conveniently located outhouse, one that is prominently visible from the road. As we approached Big Sky, aspen were popping up with greater frequency and exhibiting more vibrant color, some of which was approaching a near-peak state of electric gold, while others were still a very soft shade of light green.

There is a small section in the extreme northwestern corner of Yellowstone National Park where the highway loops into the park for a few miles before exiting. Shortly after that, the road merges with U.S. Highway 287 and ten minutes later the now combined highway US 191/287 makes its way to the western gateway of Yellowstone National Park. Want to see a grizzly bear and not have to worry about being eaten? Stop at the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center while in West Yellowstone. It only costs an adult $15 and a child age 5 thru 12 is just $10. I haven’t stopped there yet, but one of these days . . .

We continued our drive, this time on U.S. Highway 20 which took us across the border and into Idaho. Immediately upon entering Idaho, much larger and more frequent stands of aspen begin cropping up in the wide valley traversed by US 20 headed south toward Upper Mesa Falls and the Teton Scenic Byway. Most of these aspen remain fully, or nearly fully, foliated and are approaching peak color, i.e. mustard to a rich yellow.

On the northernmost portion of US 20, the largest stands of aspen are concentrated between the Montana State Line and Island Park, Idaho. These, however, do not begin to approach the size and associated color displays of aspen stands visible from the Teton Scenic Byway (e.g. Felt, Idaho). Half an hour after leaving West Yellowstone we turned onto the Mesa Falls Scenic Byway which would take us to the brink of the Upper Mesa Falls of the Henrys Fork of the Snake River.

Turning left, off U.S. 20, onto the aptly named Mesa Falls Scenic Byway, otherwise known as Idaho State Highway 47, one takes a very leisurely drive through some forested hills. This little-known place off the beaten path makes for a very nice diversion from the main route that  links West Yellowstone with the Teton Valley, the back side of the Teton Mountains. This is the northern portion of what Bob Clark’s Scenic Driving Idaho calls Scenic drive #3: Palisades Reservoir to Henrys Lake. The drive actually starts, in the book, at the small town of Alpine, Wyoming, which is 37 miles southwest of Jackson, Wyoming and ends 170 miles later at West Yellowstone. Along the way you see great views of Palisades Reservoir, the backside of the Grand Tetons, and the two waterfalls known as the Upper and Lower Mesa Falls.

We did not visit the Lower Falls as I had read that the Upper Falls were more spectacular. The book I read was correct. Although these falls do not match the Niagara Falls for sheer water volume (over 6 million cubic feet of water per minute), nor do they come close to the absolute spender of the Lower Falls in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, which drops 308 feet in the blink of an eye, the view of this 114-foot high waterfall was still very beautiful and breath-taking. By walking down, a series of steps, you can go to the very edge of the falls and look straight down. It is not for the squeamish or the faint-of-heart. I have a fear of heights, and since I cannot swim, I am, also, scared of the water. And yet, I loved it. There are several vantage points from which to take photographs of the falls and there are safety rails to keep one from falling over. Still, my stomach got a little queasy as I stood at the brink and looked down. But that didn’t stop me from taking my pictures.

There are good stands of aspen in the area traversed by the Mesa Falls Scenic Byway, but many of them, for whatever reason, were largely devoid of foliage. While traversing the byway, one can see the majestic peaks of the Teton Range, for a short distance, after you pass the Upper Falls.  

From the falls it’s around fourteen miles to the town of Marysville. We left the Caribou-Targhee National Forest about halfway there. Just past Marysville, we turned south onto Idaho Route 32, which took us to Drummond, Felt, Tetonia and Driggs. North and west of Teton County, which includes Felt, Tetonia and Driggs, large stands of aspen occur as islands interspersed with tracts of farmland. For the most part, these aspen are transitioning from a nondescript pale yellow to a muted shade of yellow.

Doug said “the one published photograph of fall foliage near Felt, Idaho, that illustrated a carpet of aspen, I can only conclude that it was shot through a narrow ‘window’ or specific angle to feature such an impressive display of fall foliage. I did not see any single enclave of timber that would qualify as ‘literally carpeted with aspen’.”

ID 32 ends at State Route 33 about two miles west of Tetonia. A few miles past that town, ID 33 turns south, and you get a really great view of the back side of the Tetons as you travel through Driggs and Victor, Idaho. For those of you who remember the television show Gilligan’s Island, Dawn Wells, who played Mary Ann, called Driggs her home for many years. On our little jaunt through that picturesque countryside I was able to stop along the side of the road and take some great pictures of the Teton range from Idaho, but I have always considered the vistas from Wyoming as the best ones. This trip, however, we would not be visiting “my favorite place in the world.” Our destination lay further south and to the east of those famed mountains.

At Victor, ID 33, once again, turns east and becomes WY 22 at the state line. It travels over Teton Pass before entering the city of Jackson, Wyoming, which is the southern gateway to the Grand Teton National Park. We did not, however, take the 10% grade going over Teton Pass that you must traverse in order to take the shorter route to Jackson. We had our sights set further south.

A more scenic and easier grade can be found by taking ID 31 southwesterly to the small town of Swan Valley, on the Snake River, and then U.S. Hwy 26 which follows the Palisades Reservoir southeasterly to the Wyoming border. On this trip, Doug and I were more interested in the Wind River Range (which I had never seen) and the Bighorn Mountains, both of which were east of the Tetons. In addition, Doug said the Swan Valley and Palisades Reservoir area of Idaho were definitely fall-foliage viewing destinations well worth the stop. US 26 combines with US 89, at Alpine, a small Wyoming town just inside the border, and travels northeast through Hoback Junction before turning north to Jackson. The Jackson Hole/Snake River KOA was just north of the junction.

At Victor, we took Idaho Route 31 to Swan Valley and, from there, US 26 to Alpine, Wyoming. From Victor on, the aspen were well represented in timber, but foliage was highly variable in the color transformation process. This particular process stretch tops out at Pine Creek Pass (6,764 feet).

In the portion of ID 31 that descends from Pine Creek toward Swan Valley the foothills to the west truly were heavily carpeted with aspen, but they were nowhere near fall color. Once again, they are primarily in the light green to soft yellow range.

Traveling from Swan Valley toward Palisades Reservoir and Alpine, Wyoming, we began to see the diverse color palette (most, similar to scrub oak in the San Juan Mountains of southwest Colorado) this area is known for: orange, deep red, soft yellow, light green, and some wonderfully variegated hues on individual trees.

I got some wonderful shots from the Palisades Dam Recreation Area. According to Doug they  illustrate a phenomenon that is more characteristic of fall foliage in the Colorado Rockies: entire mountain sides that are carpeted with finger-like “islands” or pockets of individual color hues that extend down the side of mountains. Incidentally, bathroom facilities are readily accessible at the Palisades Dam Recreation Area.

With the, now, snow-capped Caribou Range as a backdrop, this area is, as good as advertised, in short, a high-priority target for fall-foliage photography. Concentrations of tall, stately aspen, mountain maples which provide vibrant and deep red hues, with sufficiently numerous conifers interspersed, which, of course, interject dark green into the color palette.

As Doug said, “I suspect that the stretch of US Highway 26 from Rigby, Idaho  to Swan Valley probably contributed to my highly positive initial impression of fall foliage in eastern Idaho.”

Our long day’s journey ended when we arrived at the Jackson Hole KOA at Hoback Junction. But it had been a productive venture. I got lots of great photos. We knew the next day would be even better.