Fragile bodies at Jenny Lake in Grand Teton National Park
Sometimes beauty is so extreme it short circuits you
We made it through the teen-degree September night in Wyoming without damaging any of the infrastructure of the rig, thanks to Mike’s styrofoam skirt and a plug-in heater directed underneath the trailer.
Bundled against the weather in two pairs of yoga pants, two sets of socks, a turtleneck, sweatshirt, and my sister-in-law’s borrowed down jacket, I also wore a pair of gardening gloves Mike had picked up in Bozeman to complete my warm ensemble as I set out with Koa for a walk the next morning.
My hip was better, but not great. The impacted joint provided a symphony of twinges throughout my body as I tried to warm up by walking around the edge of Jackson Lake, where the grass and even the beach’s gravel sand crackled with glittering ice. In the distance, the jagged peaks of the Grand Teton Range were impossible to look away from, doubled as they were by reflections in the water.
Back at camp, Mike’s knee was bothering him, too, after excessive kneeling to set up the “winterizing.” With all that going on with us physically, we decided to take a motor launch out on nearby Jenny Lake, hoping that would be fairly sedentary and give our creaky bodies a chance to recover.
Going into Grand Teton, I wondered if there was as much to see and do as in Yellowstone. So far we were loving the visual drama of the park, unique to itself and focused on the mountains and water features. Grand Teton National Park is considered Yellowstone’s “little sister” at only 500 square miles in size, where Yellowstone is 3500.
When Grand Teton National Park was established in 1929, it included six primary lakes at the base of its towering mountains. Since then, the park has grown to encompass forty-four named lakes, along with numerous smaller bodies of water.
The iconic Teton Range formed recently in geological terms. The sharp, dramatic peaks were created by earthquakes along the Teton Fault, a rift in the earth’s mantle deep below the parklands. The fault’s activity thrust the immense mountains up to thirteen thousand feet, but it was glaciers that were responsible for sculpting the valleys. The many lakes lie behind as a reminder of that ice age, with glacial moraines acting as natural dams. The largest of these glacial lakes is Jackson, where we were camping.
Jenny Lake, in contrast, is a small oval gem positioned directly at the feet of the three most dramatic crags of the Teton Range. The water is made entirely of glacial and snow runoff, and is tested ongoing and rated “pristine.”
We timed our morning outing to take the first motor launch of the day across Jenny Lake, and we arrived at the parking lot and cluster of shops and information booths an hour early. That gave us time to walk the nicely maintained, paved paths around the lake’s edge and take a few photos of the glaring white mountaintops mirrored in the still water. This park would provide good access to those with mobility issues, and with our current physical issues, we appreciated that.
I was curious about the name of the lake, and found an informational plaque. Jenny, it turns out, was a Native American expert guide and outdoorswoman. She married a white trapper and helped the budding National Park Service survey the Grand Tetons area for the development of the park. One of the displays showed her in full tribal regalia atop a horse, posing with three of the couple’s six children front of the family’s tipi.
My heart gave a bounce of recognition and admiration at the sight of Jenny Leigh in 1872. Her resolute gaze, easy posture on the horse, pride in home and children while maintaining trueness to herself and her culture—all that I perceived in the photo struck a chord with me. I would have liked to meet Jenny Leigh, Shoshone wife of “Beaver Dick” Leigh, very much.
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