Early last fall, my family (my wife,
Gail, my daughter, Sarah, and I) took a trip to visit the nation's oldest
national park, Yellowstone.
We planned this vacation months in advance. We decided that we didn't want
to go to Yellowstone when it was crowded and, yet, we didn't want to be
prevented from seeing much of the park by winter road closures. So, the
first thing that we did was to enroll Sarah in Huffaker elementary school.
Huffaker is a "year-round" school. Instead of getting three months off
in the summer, they start classes in July and have a three week break at
the end of September. PERFECT! The crowds dissipate after Labor Day and
the snow normally doesn't fly until mid October. Since it is not the peak
summer vacation period, hotels and restaurants have vacancies and cheaper
rates. Especially in Jackson Hole, which is a ski resort town. Jackson
Hole is about 15 miles north of Jackson. That also makes it 15 miles closer
to Yellowstone. Jackson Hole is located in the middle of Grand Teton National
Park, which is adjacent to the southern edge of Yellowstone. We drove from
Reno to Winnemucca and up through Idaho to Jackson Hole, Wyoming in late
September. It was beautiful! The quakies were in their full fall riot colors!
Jackson Hole is a small townlette located at the base of the ski resort.
The ski resort is small area, about the size of Mt. Rose or Incline at
Lake Tahoe, but what an awesome set of runs! They appear to be intermediate
to expert. I saw a lot of double black diamonds on the trail map and very
few green marks. There are only four motels there. The newest and best
is the Best Western, but it was booked solid. So we stayed in the Sourjourner,
which wasn't too bad. It did have a nice sports bar.
High resolution (246K) Continental Divide
Last Updated on 4 July 2004 by Art O'Connor