Kayaking Jackson Lake

Today we kayaked Grand Teton National Park’s Jackson Lake, which is close to our campground.  At 15 miles long and in some places five miles wide, it's the largest lake in the park. It’s also one of the largest lakes in the USA at high altitude -- we're at 6,772 feet.   

We haven’t kayaked together since April -- and it showed.  We forgot drinking water plus paper towels to wipe down our boats, so we made a last minute dash to the Coulter Bay grocery store for supplies.  Boats have to be inspected for invasive species and we’d done that, but we also needed a separate Grand Teton sticker -- and to get that we needed not just our invasive species sticker (which we had) but the paper work needed to get the invasive species stickers (which we'd left in the rig).  So we had to get the boats inspected a second time and make another dash to Coulter Bay.  Fortunately for us, the Coulter Bay stores are very close to the lake.

By the time we got on the water it was 11 a.m. But it was beautiful and so worth it. 

The boats waiting for us. The weather was great when we put in at 11 a.m.  When we got out at 2:30, it was  pretty threatening with thunder and dark clouds, but the threats were mostly verbal.

That's Jim in the distance.  Jackson Lake is a natural lake enlarged by a dam originally built in 1911.  The lake is fed by the Snake River.

Some sort of water flowers -- we've never seen anything like them.

More water, more mountains. This view was everywhere.

This deer almost doesn't look real, but he was standing along side the road to our campsite.  Every time Jim whistled the buck would look at us and I'd take a photo.

And another campsite neighbor.