There’s plenty to keep you busy in the town of Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Yet most visitors use the valley as a home base to explore the staggeringly wild and beautiful wider area, too.
Two of America’s most famous national parks are within 60 miles (97km) of Jackson Hole, and the history of the American West feels omnipresent in the region. These four day trips show you just how.
1. Follow the bison to Mormon Row and Lower Slide Lake
Travel time: 20 minutes by car (15 miles)
Follow the Gros Ventre River northeast from Jackson through the lush Antelope Flats to reach Lower Slide Lake in the Bridger-Teton National Forest. A short detour north takes you to Mormon Row, a historic site within the bounds of Grand Teton National Park that was once the settlement of Grovont. Today, all that remains are a handful of homesteads featuring picturesque barns whose rugged loneliness against the backdrop of the mountains makes them sought-after by photographers. A herd of more than 700 bison calls this valley home, so your chances of a good photograph of the beasts are high.
Another 30 minutes in the car takes you to Lower Slide Lake, where a boat ramp offers easy access for kayaks, canoes, paddle boards and row boats. Stocked with trout for those eager to fish, the lake is stunning in the fall when the cottonwoods and aspens ring the shore with gold. A short interpretive trail explains local geology, in particular the massive landslide that formed the lake. Continue along and past the lake to find several pretty campgrounds and numerous trailheads providing access to the surrounding Bridger-Teton National Forest.
2. Get close to nature at its wildest at Yellowstone National Park
Travel time: 75 minutes by car to South Entrance (57 miles)
Rainbow-hued mineral springs, boiling mud pots, spouting geysers and spitting fumaroles: these geothermal mysteries lured 19th-century explorers to document a mysterious and dramatic landscape they described as a “hell.” These naturalists subsequently urged the government to preserve the area as Yellowstone National Park, establishing the national park system in the process.
Also designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Yellowstone preserves 10,000 hydrothermal features – more than half of all the geysers in the world. Among these is the world’s most famous: Old Faithful, which erupts every one to two hours and sends water as high as 180ft (55m) into the air. Underneath all of this, the geothermal forces that created Yellowstone continue to exert their power: scientists now believe Yellowstone sits atop one of the largest supervolcanoes in the world – and one that might be more active than previously thought.
While mud pots and geysers like Grand Prismatic Spring and Artist Paint Pots may provide you with your most spectacular photographs, there’s much more to the 2.2-million-acre park than these water features. See the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone with its Upper and Lower Falls; marvel over the travertine terraces of Mammoth Hot Springs; and leave plenty of time to spot wolves in the meadows, admire moose in the forests and stop your car to yield to bison slowly crossing the road.
3. Explore the jagged peaks of Grand Teton National Park
Travel time: 7 minutes by car (5 miles)
Almost contiguous with Yellowstone to the south, Grand Teton National Park is all about the Teton peaks and the best places to view and explore their jagged, snow-capped splendor. With most of the park’s must-see attractions strung along the north-south artery of Teton Park Rd (open May through October only), many visitors make the mistake of stopping at a few viewpoints, then checking the park off the list. While you’ll certainly want to pull over at Albright View, Glacier View, Snake River Overlook and Willow Flats Overlook – all of which provide a different silhouette of white-capped Teton spires against the sky – the park has much more to offer.
Take a pause to picnic at Colter Bay on Jackson Lake and watch the fly fishers throw in a line along Oxbow Bend, but save your longest stop for Jenny Lake, where a ferry waits to whisk you across the water for the one-mile trail to Hidden Lake and Inspiration Point. If you’ve got enough time, skip the ferry trip back and return via the trail around the lake. Detour very slightly to Moose Pond and you just might catch the marshy waterway’s namesake foraging along the shore or even watching over a baby among the reeds.
A hike to a pristine mountain lake is among Grand Teton’s National Park’s great pleasures. An easy one for all ages is the 1.8-mile round trip to String and Leigh Lakes, which are peacefully off the radar of most park visitors. You’ll see more crowds on the five-mile trek to Bradley and Taggart Lakes, both popular with photographers thanks to their mirror reflections of Grand and Middle Teton.
4. Visit the Wild West town of Cody
Travel time: 4 hours by car (177 miles)
Founded in 1896 by William F Cody – better known to millions of 19th-century Americans as “Buffalo Bill” of the popular traveling Wild West show – this eponymous town is essentially a Western film set come to life. Cody is surrounded on three sides by mountain ranges – the Absarokas, the Bighorns and the Owl Creeks – and lies just 53 miles (85km) east of Yellowstone (practically next door in this part of the world). The town was developed to salute the lives of cowboys and mountain men; today, that Wild West fantasy feel still prevails.
Featuring five museums in one, the Buffalo Bill Center of the West introduces visitors to the life and times of the larger-than-life showman and offers an overview of life on the frontier. One of the most enlightening and enlivening museums within the complex is the Plains Indian Museum, which houses a nationally recognized collection of art and objects created by the Crow, Blackfeet, Cree and other peoples whose land this region belonged to prior to colonization.
A livelier introduction to life on the frontier comes with a visit to Old Trail Town and the Museum of the Old West, a collection of 26 log buildings brought together from various settlements, including blacksmith and woodworking shops; the cabin hideouts used by Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid and their outlaw Hole-in-the-Wall Gang; and a barn full of pioneer wagons.
Cody Calls itself the Rodeo Capital of the World, and the culture of bull riding and calf roping is still alive and kicking here. The Cody Nite Rodeo, celebrating more than 80 years of operation, runs every night from June 1 through Labor Day weekend. Sheridan Ave, Cody’s main street, continues the cowboy vibe with old-timey saloons and restaurants, along with shops selling handmade saddles, cowboy boots, and silver jewelry.
This article was first published Jan 5, 2022 and updated Oct 6, 2024.