Frommer's National Parks of the American West - Don Laine [209]
The Teton Glacier Turnout presents a view of a glacier that grew for several hundred years until, pressured by hotter summer temperatures in the past century, it reversed direction and began retreating.
The road arrives at the park's south entrance—again, actually well within the park boundaries—and the Moose Visitor Center, which is also park headquarters and the only year-round visitor center here.
Just behind the visitor center is Menors Ferry. Bill Menor had a country store and operated a ferry across the Snake River at Moose in the late 1800s. The ferry and store have been reconstructed, and you can buy items like those once sold here. Also in the area is the Chapel of the Transfiguration. In 1925 this chapel was built in Moose so that settlers wouldn't have to make the long buckboard ride into Jackson. It's still in use for Episcopal services from spring to fall, and it's a popular place for weddings, with a view of the Tetons through a window behind the altar.
Dornan's is a small village area just south of the visitor center on a chunk of private land owned by one of the area's earliest homesteading families. There are a few shops and a semi-gourmet grocery store, a collection of nice rental cabins (☎ 307/733-2522) that sleep four to six ($155–$230 in the summer), a post office, restaurants, a bar with occasional live music, and even a first-rate wine shop.
THE EAST SIDE OF THE PARK
At Moose Junction, just east of the visitor center, drivers can rejoin the highway and either turn south to Jackson and the Gros Ventre turn, or cruise north up U.S. 89/26/191 to Moran Junction. This 18-mile trip is the fastest route through Grand Teton National Park, and, because of its distance from the mountains, offers views of a broader mountain tableau.
The junction of U.S. 89 with Antelope Flats Road is 1¼ miles north of the Moose Junction. The 20-mile route beginning here is an acceptable biking route. It's all on level terrain, passing by the town of Kelly and the Gros Ventre campground before looping back to U.S. 26/89/191 at the Gros Ventre Junction to the south. If you continue straight on Antelope Flats Road, you'll reach the Teton Science School (see "Organized Tours & Ranger Programs," later in this chapter) at the road's end, about a 5-mile trip.
Less than a mile farther along U.S. 26/89/191, on the left, Blacktail Ponds Overlook offers an opportunity to see how beavers build dams and the effect these hardworking creatures have on the flow of the streams. The area is marshy early in summer, but it's still worth the quarter-mile hike down to the streams, where you can view the beaver activity more closely.
Traveling 2 miles farther along U.S. 89 brings you to the Glacier View Turnout, which offers views of an area that 140,000 to 160,000 years ago was filled with a 4,000-foot-thick glacier. The view of the gulch between the peaks offers vivid testimony of the power of the glaciers that carved this landscape. Lower Schwabacher Landing is at the end of a 1-mile, fairly well-maintained dirt road that leads down to the Snake River; you'll see the turnoff 4½ miles north of Moose Junction. The road winds through an area filled with glacial moraine (the rocks, sand, gravel, and so forth left behind as glaciers passed through the area) remaining from several different ice ages. At the end of the road is a popular launch site for float trips and fly-fishing. It's also an ideal place to retreat from the crowds. Don't be surprised to see bald eagles, osprey, moose, river otter, and beaver, which regularly patrol the area.
The Snake River Overlook, approximately 4 miles down the road beyond the Glacier View Turnout,