Broad, cupped antlers—in velvet here—and an oversized muzzle positively identify the moose.
The world of winter comes to the range and valley with indescribable grace and stillness.
The 150 square miles of mostly mountain land then comprising Grand Teton National Park were not enough to safeguard the complete ecosystem of the valley. Through his agents, Rockefeller quietly purchased ranches and other private lands in upper Jackson Hole, where the soil was not good for ranching and some ranchers were having a hard time. In the avowed purpose of later turning them over to the Federal Government, Rockefeller was carrying out the aims of those who had met at Maude Noble’s cabin. And through all the following stormy years; through the establishment by proclamation of Franklin D. Roosevelt of the Jackson Hole National Monument to contain the Rockefeller-purchased lands; through all the opposition to it; through the eventual negotiated “peace” and the addition of all the monument lands to Grand Teton National Park by Congress in 1950, the Rockefeller family held to its goal of “a complete project.”
So now, after all the years and all the tumult, the cattlemen have their grazing rights on the national forest lands and the right to drift their cattle across national park lands to reach those permits: people still have their homes, dudes still come to the dude ranches. No one, Oldtimer or Newcomer, would now deny that the national park has vitalized the economy of the valley a thousandfold. These material results are quite obvious. Our problem now is not the amount of lands that are under State, private, or Federal jurisdiction, but whether or not we can keep our souls receptive to the message of peace these unspoiled lands offer us.
In my many years living in this valley called Jackson Hole, I have sometimes had half-waking fantasies about how such a very special place came to be. One could almost imagine that 50 or 60 million years ago some great force purposely set about to create a valley as beautiful as any valley could be. A step further into fantasy, one might imagine this great force saying: “Let us start, of course, with mountains. I shall raise up a block of granite from the Earth planet’s interior; over the centuries it will become a magnificent 14,000 feet high; time and the winds and waters will sculpt it. Looking across to it will be other hills and mountains, and glaciers will form the valley and then melt away and there will be waters and streams flowing through. But with only the winds and waters singing, it will be too quiet, it will not be alive, so there must be animals—mammals, birds, fish, frogs, toads, butterflies, and all the rest.”
For many birding enthusiasts the park’s scenery proves merely a dividend. They come to see the stately trumpeter swan, the largest waterfowl species in North America, which nests in the park. Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks provide essential habitat for this bird’s survival.
Fritiof Fryxell, the first ranger naturalist of the park, has described the forming of these peaks: “With continued uplift came a stage when the passing air currents, in surmounting the block, were compelled to rise so high that their moisture condensed. Precipitation over the elevated region was thereby increased. The streams, ever gaining in volume and velocity, now flowed along with the fine enthusiasm and vigor of youth, and like a group of skilled artisans singing at their work, went about their business of sculpturing the range.”