Teton camping

Driggs to Grand Teton, WY (9/18)

After sleeping late in our plush hotel (Super Eight), taking multiple showers and doing our laundry, we set back out to Grand Teton, sad to be leaving Driggs, ID. After grabbing a campsite and setting up our tent, we headed out on an easy hike around the lake. Unfortunately, the map was really poorly done, we ended up hopelessly lost, and our short hike became closer to 7 miles. We wandered around lost for about an hour or two, which doesn't sound like a long time, but when everything looks the same, you realize you don't have a flashlight and are imagining a Blair Witch-style scenario while beating off nocturnal bears with a stick, it's a little scary. Luckily, we kept our cool and found our way back. We headed straight for the general store, bought some meat and beer, and headed back to our campsite to use our camp stove for the first time (we've been subsisting on deli meat so far). So between the camping, cooking for ourselves, trying to build a fire, and hanging out around the campsite during the daylight hours, we feel like real honest-to-god campers (never mind the fact that I'm writing this on my laptop beside the fire pit so I can post this the next time we have internet.)
Grand Teton has probably been my favorite park so far. There are no foothills on the Wyoming side, so the mountains seem to rise out of nowhere. According to the park guide, the Tetons were formed because they sit on tectonic plates, and back in the day, the plates shifted with the mountains being pushed up while the valley dropped, which explains the lack of foothills. Then the mountains themselves were carved out by glaciers, leaving jagged tops. (Alternate explanation: god said, 'let there be Tetons!', and there were, sometime around day 5. -B) The scenery is beautiful, and there are less people around than in Yellowstone, which is directly above the Tetons.
-M