On our first full day in Grand Teton National Park, we woke to amazing views out of the cabin window at the Jackson Lake Lodge.  We had a quick, but enjoyable, breakfast at the Pioneer Grill inside of the lodge.  From there we drove out to Jenny Lake for an early hike toward Inspiration Point.  We had already decided to skip the ferry across the lake, and good thing we did, as we were too early and it wasn’t open yet.  We detoured from the trail for a quick attempt to see Moose at the Moose Ponds, but didn’t have any luck.

The hike around Jenny Lake was very nice and relatively flat.  The trail didn’t start gaining elevation until we approached Hidden Falls and then the short remainder of the hike up to Inspiration Point.  We sat here and enjoyed the view for a bit.  Afterward, we decided to continue to hike up into the Cascade Canyon, which I am really glad we did.  It didn’t take long for the views of the Canyon to be really great.  It was already getting late in the day, and we were pretty tired, so we decided to take the ferry back toward our car, cutting out a couple of miles on the return hike.

Once back in the car, we drove out to Moose-Wilson Road hoping to spot some wildlife.  We were quickly rewarded with great views of a moose cow.  She was busy feeding in a pond and didn’t mind the crowd of photographers.  As we were starting to get hungry for dinner, we started the drive back north towards the lodge.  We stopped at Signal Mountain for a quick drive to the top for views of the Teton Valley.  While in the neighborhood, we decided to have dinner at the Trapper Grill inside the Signal Mountain Lodge.  The meal was good, with food much better in quality than what we had while in Yellowstone.  In fact, all meals at Grand Teton were better than Yellowstone’s.  After dinner we headed back to the room to rest up for another full day in the park.

Jackson Hole on Dwellable