Grand Teton

The words

1. Cascade Canyon

   Cascade Canyon opens west of Jenny Lake, where shrubs support browsing moose and mule deer. Scattered boulder fields provide habitat for pikas and yellow-bellied marmots.

   Park Service: Canyon and river habitats (opens a new tab)

2. Grand Teton

   Grand Teton belongs to the central group of granite peaks. The granite formed when magma entered older gneiss and cooled, producing rock more resistant to erosion.

   Park Service: Rocks and the Teton fault (opens a new tab)

3. Hidden Falls

   Hidden Falls is a snowmelt-fed cascade west of Jenny Lake, dropping about 100 feet (30 m). Its water links the mountain snowpack with the lake-side canyon landscape.

   Park Service: Hidden Falls and snowmelt (opens a new tab)

4. Jackson Hole

   Jackson Hole is the valley side of the Teton fault system. Earthquakes lifted the mountain block while lowering the valley floor, creating the range’s abrupt rise above the lowland.

   Park Service: Rocks and the Teton fault (opens a new tab)

5. Jenny Lake

   Ice Age glaciers carved Jenny Lake’s basin and left ridges of rocky debris around it. The water-filled depression preserves a visible record of ice flowing out from the mountain canyons.

   Did you know?

   The Jenny Lake Visitor Center occupies photographer Harrison Crandall’s former studio cabin, which has been moved twice from its original location.

   Park Service: Jenny Lake’s ice and history (opens a new tab)

6. Menors Ferry

   Bill Menor chose a narrow, single channel of the Snake River for his ferry. River current powered the crossing, connecting communities before a bridge replaced the ferry in 1927.

   Did you know?

   When winter water levels were low, Menor carried people across the river in a cable car.

   Park Service: Crossing at Menor’s Ferry (opens a new tab)

7. Middle Teton

   Middle Teton’s northeast flank holds a glacier formed from snow that survived repeated summers. As accumulated ice thickens, gravity drives its slow movement downhill.

   Did you know?

   Cracks called crevasses open and close as moving glacier ice bends over uneven ground, continually changing the surface pattern.

   Park Service: Middle Teton’s moving ice (opens a new tab)

8. Mormon Row

   Mormon homesteaders arriving in the 1890s clustered farms east of Blacktail Butte to share work and community. Irrigation ditches helped them grow crops despite Jackson Hole’s harsh farming conditions.

   Did you know?

   The U.S. Post Office named the community Grovont, a reminder that the historic settlement had its own postal identity.

   Park Service: Mormon Row’s community (opens a new tab)

9. Mount Moran

   Mount Moran exposes a dark band of diabase, formed when magma filled a crack in older rock. Remnant sandstone on its summit records a later chapter of deposition.

   Park Service: Rocks and the Teton fault (opens a new tab)

10. Oxbow Bend

    Oxbow Bend’s slow water supports fish that feed otters, ospreys, eagles and other birds. Willows along its edges provide browse for moose, linking river habitat with the surrounding woodland.

    Park Service: Canyon and river habitats (opens a new tab)

11. Pronghorn

    Pronghorn summering in the Teton sagebrush flats migrate south and east as winter approaches. Fences and roads constrain their route, making protection of connected seasonal habitat important to their survival.

    Park Service: Pronghorn migration routes (opens a new tab)

12. Rockefeller

    John D. Rockefeller Jr. bought valley land through the Snake River Land Company. His purchases and eventual donation became part of the prolonged negotiations behind the park’s expansion in 1950.

    Park Service: Trapping and park expansion (opens a new tab)

13. Snake River

    Much of the Snake River divides into braided channels, but Menor found a narrower crossing near Moose. The river’s changing flow shaped how residents transported people and supplies across the valley.

    Park Service: Crossing at Menor’s Ferry (opens a new tab)

14. Sublette

    William Sublette worked in the beaver-fur trade that drew trapping partners into Jackson Hole. Overtrapping and changing fashions helped bring that brief commercial era to an end by the 1840s.

    Park Service: Trapping and park expansion (opens a new tab)

15. Teewinot

    Teewinot’s striped appearance records granite cutting through older gneiss. These contrasting rocks formed deep underground long before fault movement raised the Teton Range above Jackson Hole.

    Park Service: Rocks and the Teton fault (opens a new tab)