Nice Trip on Different Road

Good morning from our home in the Elk Refuge at Jackson:

Our decision to take a drive on a different road yesterday that we heard about turned out to be a nice, scenic and relatively easy drive. We chose to drive the Grassy Lake Road from Flagg Ranch to Ashton Idaho. The road follows the southern border of Yellowstone National Park although never crossing into Yellowstone.

We left at 10:30 AM and, after being slowed for 1/2 hour with construction delays, began our drive on the road at around noon. This road is in an area that was devastated by wildfires a few years ago. Evidence of the fires and the serious damage to the forest was very evident for at least the first 5 miles into the forest:

The road was very narrow in places, but generally very good and wide enough to pass. There was, of course, very little traffic and we saw probably 10 vehicles the whole time we spent on the 49 mile drive.

There wasn't any wildlife on our trip except for a couple of marmots that we saw. This shot is of one of them "peeking" over the boulder at us:

The other one was hiding behind the rock. Both of them were huge, and were very bashful.

There was lots to see in the way of lakes, pastures and heavily forested areas. There were many open fields of wildflowers:

There were also lakes that were almost completely covered with lily pads:

We had packed a lunch and just pulled off the road at a wide turnout to enjoy our sandwiches:

As we neared the end of the road, we saw this sign that informed us that there was only 25 miles to go to Ashton, ID:

If we had taken the turn to the left instead of heading to Ashton, we would have eventually come out in Tetonia, ID, which would have been closer to Jackson. At this point, we were anxious to see paved road again and we didn't know much about conditions of the road to Tetonia. I have one more shot of the Tetons taken from the backside in Idaho:

We arrived home at around 5 PM and were very happy that we took the drive to this area to make us more aware of the wilderness areas between the two National Parks.

We have heard from Ed and Eileen again - our friends from Florida - who are passing through this area again on their way home. We are trying to put something together right now where we can have one final visit before they leave and before we start work again on Saturday...