It was a day to do a bit of auto touring, seeing historic structures and some of the views. We started with a view, by driving up to the top of Signal Mountain which is right across the road from our campground. It isn't really a mountain compared to the Teton Range, but a 7600 foot peak that is accessible by road.
There is an overlook at the top where you can look to the west and see the Teton Range behind Jackson Lake and to the east where you can see the ranges in the Bridger-Teton National Forest. What we found was a haze in both directions. The eastward view looked like it could be a view of the Great Smoky Mountains—and with good reason. It was actually smoke. It is forest fire season here and there were at least two fires east of the park. They are causing almost an overcast of haze as far as we could see. On the west side the Teton range was also hazy. It was explained to us later that it was also caused by smoke from wildfires in Idaho.
After creeping back down Signal Mountain Road, another lane and a half wide park road closed to big RVs and trailers, we went south once again to Gros Ventre road and on to Mormon Row. This is a straight unpaved road through the plains north of the Gros Ventre River. It still has a collection of the original homesteader homes and outbuildings from the 19th century settlement of Grovont (the english transliteration of Gros Ventre). One could claim a 160 acre homestead and get title to the land by living on it for five years and building a dwelling at least 12' x 12'. Most of the homesteads were settled by Mormons and were quite a bit more substantial than that. There are still privately owned dwellings along the road.
From Mormon Row we headed up the Antelope Flats Road towards the hamlet of Kelly. The flats does have antelope; we saw a small group on Pronghorn near the road. We also saw a herd of Bison. They weren't a Yellowstone-size herd, but fairly sizable. Kelly was a non-event. It seemed to be a little sub-division of small, probably summer, homes with a little store. Some of the houses didn't even seem to have a view—why else would you be there?
It was back to the main road and off to the Snake River Overlook. This is a viewpoint from which you can see the curves of the Snake River in the foreground and the expanse of the Tetons behind it. It was the subject of the most well-known Ansel Adams photograph of the Tetons.
Our last historical stop was at the Cunningham cabin, the only surviving relic of one of the early ranches in the area.
Finally, it was off to Colter Bay Village to do some much needed laundry, take showers and upload several days worth of Speedy Journal entries and photos.
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