Grand Teton is amazing

Overall I highly recommend staying at Signal Summit Campground, it’s our absolute favorite. It’s much smaller, very quiet, out of the way from the freeway, and right by the water. We spent many days/nights hanging out at the Boat Ramp for the campground, watching the sun set over the tetons while meeting deer and foxes.

Gros Ventre campground was alright. It’s pronounced gro von-ter cause it’s French from the beaver trappers. It’s strangely outside the park.

I would not recommend Cascade Canyon. We did once hiking from the visitor center to the valley, past Inspiration Point, into Cascade Canyon. It’s so hot and exposed and crowded. Many people do both the hike and the shuttle boat, so the trail is full to the brim with people. The only wildlife we saw was actually on the Jenny Lake Loop portion: a marmot, a moose, and a bear!

Instead of the Cascade Canyon trail, I’d recommend the Jenny Lake Loop. It’s much quieter, you’re way more likely to run into wildlife like these moose, bears, and deer!

It’s okay, that’s a cinnamon black bear, the friendly kind. We had bear spray just in case, but we got off the trail and let the bear do its thing. Most wildlife prefer to use human trails because it’s easier. Let them be, and nothing bad will happen (unless it’s a grizzly).

We also ran into a singular moose at Schwabacher Landing!

I’m particularly fond of these funky trees whose trunks form a weird hook shape. I’ve never seen anything like this before, but there are many of them, and they are all thriving.

Overall, quite fun and would 10/10 recommend.

We did it through Moterra which was alright. Kind of expensive but it’s luxery. We had a popup roof so we could stand, it was nice to cook in a van so we weren’t stuck in the cold. Very spacious compared to Escape Campervans. Pickup and dropoff was easy.

Jackson Hole is Expensive

I was surprised. It’s one of the most expensive places in the US to live. Look online, the average home price is $20M, and the taxi/Lyft/Uber from the airport is $60 w/o tip. There was a shuttle at one point, but people are too rich to ride a shuttle, so they cancelled it. A lunch can easily run $40 per person. Gas is easily more expensive than in nanny-state California, at $6/gal.

I did enjoy Thai Plate. Their massaman curry was peanut-heavy and delicious. It reminds me of my first Massaman curry when I traveled to Thailand under pressure from my then-friend, now-girlfriend. I’m surprised the Beli app works well in that tiny town. I’m even more impressed you can get a Too Good To Go bag! It’s only available from Whole Foods, but I would have snatched it up for our 5 days of camping easily. Totally worth it if the timing is right — pickup is 8pm-9pm.

Yellowstone Vibes Are Off

I’ll start with the good stuff. We saw a bunch of wildlife and geysers. Uniquely, we saw pronghorns, osprey, and buffalo.

My dissapointment is that:

we have buffalo in Golden Gate Park here in SF
our wildlife encounters in Grand Teton were much more intimate
humans kind of suck in this park

Okay, okay. Yes, we only have like 10 buffalo in SF. But also the only beautiful place we saw buffallo was in Lamar Valley. It’s definitely worth the trek out there to see, and you’ll need a scope or binoculars, but it’s nice to see them roam such an open space. It’s weird to see people starting traffic jams because there’s a buffalo on the side of the road. It sucks for driving, and the buffallo don’t seem happy either. It’s no wonder so many people die from being gored by a buffalo every year. Don’t mess with them.

All of your wildlife experiences in Yellowstone are going to be from your car. The park is so big, and most of the park is open space. There’s no real incentive for animals and humans to run into each other. In the Grand Tetons, we share the trail and it feels nice for both humans and animals. In Yellowstone, cars are driving 45 MPH, why would you want to be near that?

I’ll mention I’ve never experienced as much “weirdness” in any other National park as I have with Yellowstone. Grand Teton is amazing. Even Big Bend, Texas was a gem compared to this. For context, I’m a liberal from California. But it was kind of in my face how Yellowstone was so much more old, white, and conservative in a lot of negative ways. Almost every stop in Yellowstone has people prominently showing off MAGA shirts and hats.

People make a lot more weird comments such as:

That’s a black bear. It wants to eat humans. But not just any human, not Americans. Only Japanese.

While I was at a geyser, I had the creative idea of twerking to make the illusion of water gushing out of my butt. It’s a dance technique! I’ve been learning it on my hip hop dance journey since Feb 2025. However, it scared some folks and they asked the ranger “why do you think some people do that?” loudly and right next to me. It’s weaponizing shame to manipulate my behavior. Instead of talking to me, he talked about me so that I could hear. It’s sad because I’ve worked hard overcome my performance anxiety. I won’t let this stop me from dancing, but I NEVER experienced this anywhere else. Sure people might stare or laugh, but that’s part of the fun. The shame inducing manipulative comments are not fun, even when the person asking is laughing. Kudos to the ranger for explaining that geysers are beautiful and everyone expresses their sensations in different ways.

I’ll end on a lighter note with my favorite shirt: “I’m from Vegas and I’ll only get on my knees for one man: Jesus”

Also, we genuinely enjoyed our meal at Yellowstone Lake Hotel Diner. We picked it because Fodor’s travel book said it was the only place that had unique food. And I’ll say, really did enjoy it. Food is an asian fusion in the best of ways and it challenged my understanding of crab rangoon. I recommend the Duck Bacon Wontons ($16.95), Sticky Ribs ($21), and Yellowstone Caesar w/ Grilled Salmon — done medium ($20) in that order. I’d pass on the Shrimp and Grits ($33) because it’s a bit bland and straightforward.