Big, bold beauty of the Grand Tetons

MOOSE, Wyo. — People can tell you about the sheer immensity of the Teton Range. You can read about the massive mountains, but you will still be unprepared for the big, bold beauty of the place.

Gazing across a landscape of almost impossible purity, I feel overwhelmed by the jagged pinnacles, forested at their bases, snowy at their summits.

I'm standing where famed photographer Ansel Adams captured his iconic image of the Tetons. Looking west, the Snake River curves across the sagebrush plain, when suddenly the regal granite mountains rise nearly 7,000 feet. No foothills intervene to diminish the drama of the sharp skyline.

Adams captured the panoramic view and, once his photographs became widely circulated, inspired many people to treasure and preserve the wide, open spaces of the nation. Photographs such as the one taken at Snake River Overlook nurtured Americans' love affair with the national parks.

Earthquakes and glaciers sculpted this spectacular landscape. Sapphire-blue lakes hang like a necklace at the base of the mountains. Grand Teton National Park was established in 1929. In 1949, John D. Rockefeller Jr. donated large land parcels to enlarge the park.

Its 310,000 acres encompass the Teton Range and a massive portion of Jackson Hole. Much smaller than neighboring Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park is unusual in several ways. Privately owned ranches and businesses remain inside its boundaries. It is America's only national park with a commercial jet airport.

We gain an intimate view of the Snake River by rafting a 10-mile stretch through the national park, putting in at Deadman's Bar and passing below the awe-inspiring overlook. Snowflakes dance through the air on this windy morning.

Our guide, Larry Frackenpohl of Solitude Scenic Float Trips, keeps the raft steady as we glide past high moraines. The wide river is in full spate, really flowing with runoff from melting snow. We spy a bald eagle hunched on a cottonwood and observe mergansers, kingfishers and a red-tailed hawk. Game trails crease sagebrush flats.

The river narrows and we enter a forest of cottonwood, lodgepole pine, aspen and blue spruce. Frackenpohl draws our attention to a mule-deer skull and rib cage. "He didn't make it through winter," Frackenpohl guesses. The river feels like real wilderness, seemingly untouched since the days of fur trappers. Gnawed trees and thick dams of sticks, stones and mud indicate a population of beavers.