Teton Pass
Yellowstone Park lies on high
volcanic plateau. Rides over the paved, named
passes in and around the park have hardly any
climbing at all. There is one exception. The
Teton Range to the south is breached by just
one paved pass. It takes advantage of a low
gap, so that views limited. There is a nice
bike trail following an old abandoned road on
the east side. But it's a bit difficult to
find without signs.
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1.(00.0km~00.0mi,
1890m~6201ft) START-END EAST: Wy22 Snake
River crossing, west of Jackson
2.(02.0km~01.2mi, 1943m~6375ft) route
turns left onto Old Pass Road, now a
trail
3.(09.2km~05.7mi, 2517m~8258ft) path
rejoins road
4.(09.5km~05.9mi, 2570m~8431ft) TOP:
Teton Pass
5.(17.7km~11.0mi, 2081m~6827ft) Hungry
Creek Rd (dirt) joins from right,
shortly afterwards Burbank Rd from left
6.(22.4km~13.9mi, 1984m~6509ft) route
turns right onto Old Jackson Highway
7.(28.9km~18.0mi, 1899m~6230ft)
START-END WEST Victor |
Approaches
From West. The small
town of Victor has a big surprise. Big enough
for one food market, the town is also big enough
for clearly painted, wide bicycle lanes. Three
cheers for Victor. But actually - the best way
to get out of town is to head west for one or
two blocks and take the "Old Teton Highway"
mixed use trail, paralleling the new highway.
The mixed use sign indicates everything from
roller skating, skiing, bicycling to
automobiles. Watching out for all of these
transportation modes, I only encountered two
automobiles on the entire length. The road/trail
merges with the new road at the entrance to the
mountains. - What a shock, more traffic than the
Long Island Expressway during rush hour. As the
road crosses into Wyoming the width of the
shoulder increases to a comfortable width, and
the road begins to climb more steeply. At one
point you see the pass ahead, where a
transmission line crosses a hardly impressive
gap in the forested ridge. It did not seem as
high to me from that vantage point, as it did
once I arrived there. The road becomes quite
steep getting nearer the top and winds to the
summit with a few wide curves. There are no
views to speak of on this approach - until you
get to the top, from where one can wonder at
Jackson lying in its picturesque hole. At the
location where you discover this sight signage
informs in forced local Gunsmoke lingo: "Howdy
stranger, yonder is Jackson - last of the old
west".
From East. (also described
upwards). From Jackson the road has a wide
shoulder that makes the rush hour national park
traffic bearable. The profile starts where the
road crosses the Snake River. Adjacent is the
Emily's Pond conservation area, also the only
view of the Teton peaks along the entire route -
the only but also a very nice view (picture in
second row below). In the small town of Wilson a
bike trail on the left side of the road starts.
At a junction the bike route continues up Trail
Gulch Road. There are no signs, other than the
road name at this junction, so that the bike
route just appears to end. The bike route is so
secret you might suspect that local resident
Dick Cheney is in charge of bicycling in
Jackson. Also, bike route may be a little of an
overstatement, it's really the old, abandoned,
deteriorating road bed, that is now being
taken over by wild flowers. But currently there
is still enough pavement left to warrant a
through going path to the top. After a mile on
Trail Gulch Road, the road reaches a sign that
finally shows a map of the trail together with a
whole network of mountain biking trails,
crisscrossing the hard topped bike path and new
highway. The path climbs steeply, but looking
ahead the modern highway already seems hundreds
of feet above. It seems hardly possible. The
highway did this with the help of a wide swerve
to the north. The bike path catches up in
altitude to the new highway with a few closely
spaced switchbacks, and finally closely
parallels the new highway for the last half mile
or so.
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Picture locations: top
left: bike trail and Jackson Hole; top right:
modern road, bike trail in foreground; bottom
left: bike trail again; bottom right: Snake
River crossing at eastern start of profile;
bottom: summit view looking east during late
afternoon light.
History
The Fur Trade. Lewis and
Clarke had crossed the enormous east west extend
of the Louisiana purchase in 1806 via Lemhi Pass. While
Lewis and Clarke did not return to the new
western frontier, for other participants of the
expedition, this was only the beginning. Lewis
wrote to president Jefferson about the potential
for trading furs from the Rocky Mountains, and
lobbied for a trading post on the Columbia
River. Jefferson encouraged John Jacob Astor, a
German born fur capitalist, who had dreams of
controlling the fur trade from Russia via China
to America. But he was not the only one,
interested in profiting from the fur trade.
There was also the Canadian Fur Company headed
by Simon Frazier, and the independent Spaniard
Manuel Lisa. God help the beaver from the
onslaught caused by the whims of fashion. Beaver
of Montana and Wyoming were on their way to
becoming nothing but fur lined hats. Employed by
Manuel Lisa was also a member of the Lewis and
Clarke expedition - John Colter. Later he would
become famous for his legendary solitary
exploits in what is now Yellowstone Park. In the
winter of 1807 Manuel Lisa and 40 of his
employees established an impermanent settlement
for the winter on the east side of Bozeman Pass,
near the confluence of the Bighorn River with
the Yellowstone: Fort Lisa. This location, east
of where Billings is now, was familiar from
experience with the Lewis and Clarke expedition.
One way to get beaver fur was to
trade for them. All it took was beads, shawls
and other trinkets, and Indians would part with
their furs. John Colter was willing to venture
alone to the Crow Indians and try his luck. This
winter walk of John Colter has become a legend
of wild west history, and how much truth it
contains has been debated in many books. Later
John Colter would tell stories of petrified
birds singing petrified songs and other tall
tales. The kernel of truth turned out to be as
strange as the fiction that surrounded it: the
geysers of Yellowstone Park.
What is known about Colter's
journey is that he traveled by foot, carried 30
pounds of supplies and started his long walk by
crossing Prior's Gap south of Billings. From
there he reached present day Cody within
striking distance of Yellowstone Park. From
there on speculations of his route differ, but
one biography by Burton Harris has Colter
crossing Togwotee Pass into Yellowstone and then
Teton Pass twice back and forth from Jackson to
the west side. In any case, Colter unraveled the
geography of the area and that included the
Jackson Hole area. Subsequent legends have him
stripped naked by Blackfoot Indians, escaping
assured death by alluding them and diving into a
beaver lodge and then somehow making it back to
Fort Lisa.
Two years later in 1810 more bad
experiences with Indian torture sent Colter back
to Missouri. Manuel Lisa had a new partner,
Andrew Henry, who again headed south from the
old Lewis and Clarke route to build Fort Henry
near present Anthony, Idaho. From there they
continued over the barely perceptible present
day Raynolds Pass
ascended Teton River to the top of Teton Pass.
Fort Henry only lasted a year but it helped to
pass on the knowledge of Teton Pass.
Along with Andrew Henry were three
hunters Hoback, Robinson and Reznor. These three
ended up passing on the knowledge of Teton Pass
to the competition. This is the turn of events
that lead to the surprising events. In 1811 John
Jacob Astor put together two expeditions, the
socalled Astorians, to reach the Pacific coast
and establish a fur trading post. One was to go
by sea, the other by land. The one by land was
lead by Wilson Price Hunt of Trenton New Jersey,
whose main qualification for the job was having
tended a store in Saint Louis. Their intention
was to follow the Lewis and Clarke route. One
day, near present Niobrara, Nebraska - who comes
floating down the Missouri - but our three
hunters from the Andrew Henry Trip: Hoback,
Robinson and Reznor. The latter experts warned
the Stuart novices about the fierce Blackfeet
and impending Indian attacks. And so Stuart
persuaded the three hunters to postpone their
homeward trip down the Missouri in order to
guide the competing Astorians as far as Fort
Henry. For the three trappers this also meant
abandoning the boats in favor of horse travel.
Their route would lead them across the Bighorn
Range over Powder River Pass. The direct route
familiar to the three hunters would have lead
them over Togwotee Pass towards Fort Henry. But
two Indian guides told them about a detour over
Union Pass south along the Wind River Range. The
Indians guides argued this route was better
because of better game hunting for provisions.
This lead them eventually to approach Teton Pass
from the south east at Jackson Hole. On
September 5, 1811 Hunt described Teton Pass as
an easy well beaten trail; snow whitened the
summit and northerly slopes at the heights. At
Fort Henry Hoback, Robinson and Reznor left the
Hunt expedition, and so did the Indian guides.
As it turned out, this would not be the last
time that Astorians crossed Teton Pass.
Hunt did eventually reach the
Pacific, but the trip could not be described as
a success by any stretch of the imagination.
They got lost, food ran out, illnesses, water
ran low, others drowned. Six months earlier the
Canadian David Thompson had laid claim on the
area for England. As far the see faring
Astorians, they had succeeded in building Fort
Astoria beneath a large American flag, but
business was poor, and the ship was no more. It
had been seized by Indians and the captain was
murdered. Subsequently the boat was blown up
with the Indians still aboard. All the two
branches of the Astor expedition could do was
unite and try to make their way back home to the
east and tell Astor the the bad news. The return
trip lead them over Teton Pass again, but not
before Indians and other perceived dangers had
caused them a 26 day / 260 mile detour over
Wyoming ranges to the south (among them Salt River Pass).
After crossing Teton Pass for a second time the
detours continued. On this last detour they
stumbled over a discovery that would have more
impact on westward expansion than anything else
the Astorians had done. They found South Pass.
This route which can really not a mountain pass
in the conventional sense, but a shallow path
around the mountains. From a historical
perspective it was the one discovery that made
easy east west movement of goods and people
possible.
Exploration by Military and
Surveyors. In 1860 Captain Raynolds was
assigned a whole set of exploratory tasks, which
he happily condensed into what he called "the
exploration of the Yellowstone (River)". With
Jim Bridger as a guide they left Fort Casper and
ended up taking Sheridan Pass and Union Pass to
Jackson Hole. From there they crossed Teton Pass
to Pierre's Hole. A week's worth of travel north
along the Teton Range brought them to the
crossing that the captain is still remembered
for Raynold's Pass.
Montana Gold Rush (<Badger Pass|Raynolds Pass>):
As gold in the Bannack City / Grasshopper Creek
area of Montana was depleted a new fever hit the
mining crowd. The latest riches were located on
Alder Creek and Virginia City sprang to life.
Teton Pass served as a miner's road from from
Jackson Hole and Green River, continuing over
Raynolds Pass and Enis.

Dayride.
An out and back ride with lowest
western point at Victor <> Teton Pass
<> Jackson Hole, with a few slow extra
sightseeing miles around Jackson and a short
additional approach from FR391 measured 55 miles
with 4200ft of climbing in 4:4hours (r2:10.8.4).