The Mountains
The tight concentration of tall peaks and pinnacles called the Cathedral Group has been described as “Chartres multiplied by six, a choir of shimmering granite spires soaring high above the nave and transept of the valley below.” Few fail to be impressed by these most scenic of mountains and by their staggering panoramic quality. Theodore Roosevelt, so often given to eloquence, called this “the most beautiful country in the world.” You may find yourself spending an inordinate amount of time just staring at the mountains.
The Tetons, being classic fault-block mountains, were originally mound-like, not jagged and spired. They were formed as the Earth cracked along a north-south line at the base of the mountains. As the Earth’s outer crust faulted under pressures deep within its mantle, the western block tilted upward and the eastern block sank. We speak about this mountain building in the past tense because, for us mortals, mountains symbolize eternity. But the action continues.
The Tetons are the youngest mountains in the Rocky Mountain system, but they are made out of some of the oldest rock in North America. The granitic gneisses and schists north and south of the central, highest peaks are some of the hardest and least porous rocks known. The rock of the Grand Teton is a younger granite. These qualities, and the accessibility of major peaks, attract technical rock climbers. The handholds are secure and the views breathtaking.
The geologic time scale is so vast we cannot imagine it. Most of us simply refuse to imagine more than a few thousand years: we find anything greater too inhibiting. The Ice Age ended its major glacial action about 10,000 years ago, the beginning of the Holocene or the Recent, as early man wandered the glacial ice margins. But seven-eighths of Earth history are tied up in the Precambrian Period, the period of formation of the Teton Range’s 3.5-billion-year-old rocks. By contrast, just east of Jackson Hole—Thermopolis on your Wyoming highway map—there is now forming the youngest rock in the United States, travertine. Further proof that geologic processes continue.
The massive Teton Range contains a miniaturized world on a different time scale. The alpine world is a summer surprise because it offers flowering displays long after the valley show concludes for the season. Bloom time is delayed by ascending altitude: the rule of thumb is about 12 days delay per 1,000 feet. If you miss the yellow buttercups at lower elevations, climb higher and you may overtake their montane flowering in full bloom. Such are the rigors of alpine tundra life that here the flowers largely depend on wind for pollination, or on flies, rather than on bees. Bees cannot withstand the cold temperatures so common at these heights. The alpine insect explosion is brief, but ants, ladybugs and other beetles, and diminutive grasshoppers inhabit the alpine world. They make fast food for alpine-nesting birds, such as pipits, horned larks, white-crowned sparrows, and rosy finches that are desperately trying to nourish their hungry broods between the two edges of winter.
Specialized and severe, the alpine world is sparsely populated. Here eagles and weasels hunt for bird nestlings, marmots, pikas, pocket gophers, deer mice, and voles. The heartbeat of the extremely fragile tundra is slow by necessity. That any plants have adapted to this environment seems incredible. Yet alpine laurel fills rock crevices. Spring beauty blooms in pockets of soil. Mats of moss campion carpet slopes of shattered rock. White columbine nod in the wind shadows of larger rocks. Alpine sunflowers blaze like a galaxy of equal suns, their disproportionately large flowers awkwardly seated on abbreviated stalks.
The process of developing from bare rock to fully developed alpine vegetation might require thousands of years. By contrast, it is estimated that 100 years are required to form one inch of soil on the plains. On alpine heights the rate is many times slower. The first plants to colonize bare mountain rock might be lichens, multi-colored crustose plants adapted to extreme conditions. Lichens are tough. They grow on rocky outcrops near the South and North Poles. They also thrive on desert rocks that are too hot to touch. Lichen plants can first be dried in air and then in a dessicator and then exposed to 514°F for up to seven hours and yet, upon return to room temperatures, they will resume normal metabolism. And lichens regulate, to some extent, water flow at high elevations. On dry days their water content may be from two to ten percent of dry weight. On rainy days that may soar to more than 300 percent. Mats of lichen hold so much moisture that even a rise in barometric pressure may press some water out to resume its tortuous trip toward the Pacific Ocean.
Seven Teton peaks exceed 12,000 feet and one, the Grand Teton, pushes above 13,000 feet to 13,770 feet in elevation. At such heights, conditions support mountain glaciers. The Teton Glacier is one of about a dozen small alpine glaciers cradled in shaded east- or north-facing cirques among the high peaks. Teton Glacier occupies a spectacular cirque that faces east between the north face of the Grand and Mount Owen. It is partially fed by avalanches from the cliffs around it. Some of these cliffs are more than 3,000 feet high. The glacier’s terminus has retreated markedly since 1929, but the rate of loss was less between 1954 and 1963 than it was between 1929 and 1954. The mountain glaciers in today’s Tetons are not left over from the Ice Age. They began forming about 500 to 1,000 years ago, during the so-called Little Ice Age.
As insignificant as these glaciers are compared to the colossal sheets that repeatedly lumbered through the Tetons and Jackson Hole, they slowly exact a toll on this hard rock, continuing to carve, etch, and abrade the range. They host life too: algae of a reddish hue that give rise to the phenomenon called watermelon snow.
The Teton Range
Any mountain range is the product of the struggle between uplift and erosion, but in few places are the results as clear as on the crest of the Teton Range. Today we do not first see the Teton peaks across 160 kilometers (100 miles) of wilderness and then struggle to them afoot, on horseback, or by wagon. This spectacle may break upon us from the window of an airplane, or appear around a bend in the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Memorial Parkway. The telescoping of time does not lessen the impact however. The range’s nearly even east base (see [painting]) is the best place from which to grasp its formation. Along this line the valley ends at an abrupt wall, with no foothills at the mountain’s base. These are sure signs of faulting, the elevation of a mountain block along a deep crack in the Earth’s crust. (See [diagram].) Shatter lines visible in many of the naked rock peaks show that the uplift was no smooth ride. The Tetons are very young mountains composed of very old rock. The range was thrust up about 9 million years ago. Young? Yes, when compared to the main Rocky Mountains, which rose 60 million years ago, and the Great Smoky Mountains, which have been above water more than 200 million years. The Teton Range’s crystalline rock is comparable to the 3-billion-year-old Allegheny Mountains core. This hard, stable rock, more than 300 times older than the mountains it forms, is a boon to climbers.
Another unusual feature of the Teton Range is its divide, the division line at which water will flow off the mountains either west into the Teton River or east into the Snake. The Teton’s divide lies well below and to the west of the highest elevation. This is because the steeper east face caused water to flow off faster and thereby to cut deeper. These streams carved into the range and captured headwaters from less erosive western streams. Erosion and uplift continue competing in the range, which still rises through periodic earthquake activity.
1. Mount Wister 2. Shadow Peak 3. South Teton 4. Cloudveil Dome 5. Nez Perce Peak 6. Middle Teton 7. Mount Owen 8. Teewinot Mountain 9. Rockchuck Peak 10. Mount St. John 11. The Jaw 12. Mount Woodring 13. Maidenform Peak 14. Mount Moran 15. Window Peak 16. Bivouac Peak
Forming and Shaping the Mountains
Uplift, erosion, and glaciation formed and shaped the Teton Range. Ice Age glaciers profoundly sculpted the horn-shaped peaks and gouged out the U-shaped valleys (photo and diagram). The present mountain glaciers were formed only 500 to 1,000 years ago.
The Teton Range is a textbook example of fault-block mountain building. The Teton Fault is about 40 miles long. Total vertical displacement was about 30,000 feet. Erosion has removed some 3,000 feet of material from Mount Moran, whose peak now stands about 6,600 feet above the valley floor. Most of the displacement took place with the dropping of the eastern block. The Range’s steep east face eroded faster than the western slope, which still carries some capping sedimentary layers.
Upthrown fault block Gentle western slope Teton Fault Steep eastern face (Horn-shaped peaks and U-shaped valleys) Valley floor filled with sediments Down-dropped fault block
As massive Ice Age glaciers flowed through the Teton Range (below), moving ice changed the steep, V-shaped, water-cut valleys (above) into the distinctive U-shaped canyons seen today.
Teton Country Lakes
Tarn.
Jackson Lake.
With only a brief itinerary in the park you might leave Jackson Hole with a memory of the high peaks and just one lake, much the impression that postcards give. But there are dozens of lakes. Most must be sought off the highway behind fringes of trees or up a short reach of trail. Some nestle in the alpine heights. A checklist of park lakes based on how they were formed includes surprising variety. A few are oxbow lakes, cut off meanders of the Snake River. Two are real oldtimers, Emma Matilda and Two Ocean Lakes, formed about 30,000 years ago as the glaciers melted back. But most are new glistening souvenirs of the latest glacial advance that ended 8,000 years ago. This newest crop is readily identified by the morainal dams that back up each lake. Most easily recognized is the morainal dam of Jenny Lake. Unlike Jackson (large photo), Jenny, Bradley, Taggart, Leigh, and Phelps Lakes mark surfaces gouged by mountain glaciers. The many small ponds dotting the sagebrush flats, such as The Potholes, are not gouge scars, but pits. Here glacial outwash materials surrounded and buried small ice masses that later melted. The technical term for these depression ponds is kettle ponds, but The Potholes were named by a rancher, not a geologist. The Tetons’ highest lakes are called tarns (small photo). Bearing names such as Surprise, Grizzly Bear, Bear-paw, and Rimrock, these are diminutive versions of the glacial lakes at the foot of major canyons. They originate in ice-scoured pockets and are still forming under the small glaciers at the heads of highcountry canyons. The largest and most heavily fished lake is Jackson Lake. Cutthroat trout are native, but lake trout (Mackinaw) were introduced in the 19th century. The lake is 130 meters (425 feet) deep and 26 kilometers (16 miles) long. Jackson, a natural lake, was dammed before the park was established to store more water and control the Snake River for irrigation in Idaho. The Teton country’s lake and pond environment has benefited moose and ducks the most, but nearly all park denizens—vacationing Homo sapiens included—appreciate this aquatic resource. One species, the beaver, extends its appreciation by creating more ponds. Once nearly exterminated during the trapper’s era, beaver are now abundant here.
Mountain Climbing
The Tetons offer the adventurous some of North America’s most superb mountain climbing. The rock is very hard and mostly free of slides. Cracks and ledges abound for hand and foot holds. The mountains, rising sharply from the valley floor, are unusually accessible. No expedition is required just to reach the peak. All Teton peaks and spires have already been climbed. Many have been climbed by several routes. Together they offer an exceptional range of climbing difficulty, from a stiff uphill walk with little hand and foot work to technical climbs that challenge most experienced alpinists. Atop the 4,200-meter (13,770-foot) summit of the Grand Teton you stand taller than anything nearby. (A climbing permit is required. See “[Mountaineering]” in Part 3.)
This print, adapted from Leigh Ortenburger’s 1956 A Climber’s Guide to the Teton Range, shows the Grand Teton from the northeast. The four climbing routes indicated, and their first-ascent dates, are: 1 East Ridge (1929), 2 Northeast Couloir (1939), 3 North Face (1936), and 4 North Ridge (1931).
First climbed (officially) in 1898, the Grand was not climbed again until 1923. Since then, however, it has been one of the country’s most popular peaks.
The first ascent by a Jackson Hole woman, Geraldine Lucas, aged 59, is shown here in her triumphant moment in 1924.
Officially, the first party to climb the Grand Teton was the W. O. Owen party in 1898, although Hayden Survey members James Stevenson and Nathaniel Langford said they climbed it in 1872. Owen carried on a 30-year war to have history rewritten his way. He finally won—by act of the Wyoming legislature in 1929. Even a member of Owen’s party thought Stevenson and Langford had climbed it. And among Owen’s papers at his death was an 1899 letter, with route map, from a man who evidently climbed the Grand in 1893 with two soldiers. The man was not interested in particular credit for it.
The Mountain World
Above the tree limit and around snowfields and glaciers lies the alpine tundra. This fragile ecosystem challenges plant and animal survival with temperature extremes, high winds, a short growing season, frequent drought, and poor soil. Basic plant survival adaptations include dwarfism, oversize root systems, matting growth, succulent leaves or stems, and warmth-producing red pigments. Some high mountain plants are almost brown, not green, but perfectly alive. Dwarfism and matting keep plants snugged low to the ground where conditions are less severe than just a few centimeters higher. Animals tend to adapt to subalpine and alpine rigors by modifying their behavior rather than their structure. Exceptions include flightless grasshoppers and the pika’s fur-covered feet.
The summer alpine tundra provides insects, seeds, leaf crops, lichens, and fungi as wildlife food. For this short season animals are well supplied and may become conspicuous. Birds, with their advantage of flight, can cover vast areas quickly in the search for food. They can also readily change ecozones. A bird flying from alpine tundra down to a forested slope makes a journey between ecozones equivalent to migrating from above the Arctic Circle to northern Maine. Hawks and eagles, in a regular search for pikas or mice, can cover all of the Teton high peaks in 2 hours or less.
Plants and animals of the mountain world:
1 Prairie falcon 2 Pika 3 Yellow-bellied marmot 4 Cushion buckwheat 5 Whitebark pine 6 Subalpine fir krummholz 7 Dwarf willow 8 Pixie-cup lichen 9 Black rosy finch 10 Alpine forget-me-not 11 Moss campion 12 Haircap moss
Wary bighorn sheep are the largest mammals of the high mountain realms. The male’s horns, curved back, down, and around, may cap a 135-kilogram (300-pound) body. Sheep wear thick, tannish-gray hair. Their specialized footpads enable them to scale rock that might stymie a roped alpinist. Rams and ewes hold to separate bands except during the mating period. Generations of sheep will occupy the same range. The Teton population, numbering between 100 and 125 animals, is wary because the sheep are hunted in fall on adjacent national forest lands. Hikers and climbers occasionally see them on the range’s east side, but you will not see bighorn sheep from your car except sometimes in the winter when they may move down into Jackson Hole.
Autumn aspens lend what prospectors never found in this valley—large touches of gold.