Years ago, in the 70s, we came across a campground and a pair of trails – South Teton Canyon/ Alaska Basin trail and Table Mountain trail – on the west side of the Teton Range. The campground is Teton Canyon Campground, located along Teton Creek at an elevation of 6,500 feet.
After we got off the tram at Teton Village, we headed west to Idaho. Even though, the campground and trails are in Wyoming, the only access is from the Driggs, Idaho area through Alta, Wyoming.
We walked a little ways on the South Teton Canyon of the trail. Years ago, we had hiked in 7 or 8 miles and back out in a single day.
Videos are from my phone:
One of the things we remembered about the trail was that there were a lot of waterfalls. In this particular area, there had been a slide of some sort since we did our hiking in the late 70s.
I didn’t get many photos of the area as we were planning to return later in the trip.
All of the sites are reservable online through reserveamerica.com. However, the website says that the maximum vehicle length is 20 feet. That just didn’t sound right from what I remembered of the campground. Checking that out was part of the reason for visiting.
Sure enough, the sites were all more than large enough for us to fit the camper and car in. We talked to the campground host and he said that there were large campers in there all the time and that, most of the time, there were spaces available in the middle of the week, though it was full most weekends during the summer.
I should have gone online and made a reservation as soon as we got back to the motorhome, but I didn’t.
Later in the trip, when I did go to reservamerica to make a reservation for three weekday nights, I found that the only sites that were available were in the sun. I went ahead and tried to reserve one of those. It wouldn’t let me do it unless I lied about the size of the motorhome and said it was 20 feet or some smaller number.
We made different plans.
Update 9/23/2010 — There are three Teton Canyon Campground sites in the Engelmann spruce/lodgepole pine forest that are walk-up only — first come, first served, cannot be reserved. The campground is well maintained and clean. We’ll be looking forward to staying there again in the future.
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Hello! We have 3 very nice sites in the Engelmann spruce/lodgepole pine forest. These provide a lot of shade if you aren’t crazy about the full sun sites (those are good in cooler weather). You don’t have to make a reservation on Recreation.gov (in fact, you can’t) as these are walk-up, first come first served sites. Call us next time if you plan a multi day stay and Charlene and I will mark and hold a site for you. There are only about 4-5 weekends a year when Teton Canyon campground is 100% full. The rest of the time, you can always find a site available. Call us a few days ahead of your stay. We’ll try and accomodate you. Jim & Charlene Jakicic, Teton Basin Managers and Teton Canyon Campground Hosts, Aud & Di Campground Services, Inc., Targhee National Forest. 208-270-0071
Hi Jim,
Thanks! I guess we had probably talked to you the day that we visited the campground and I didn’t catch that there were 3 non-reservable sites. We live in Arkansas and it’ll probably be some time before we venture out that way again, though there is a small possibility that we might go near there sometime late next summer on our way to Oregon. If we do, we might detour just to stop at Teton Canyon. We really do like it that much and have some really excellent memories from visiting when we lived in Idaho Falls and Arco, Idaho.
I made an update to this blog post to clarify that there are are sites that can’t be reserved.
Thanks, again, for taking the time to comment on this blog post.
Mike Goad
Thanks for the correction and your nice comments Mike! I might add that Teton Canyon campground made the “America’s Best and Top Ten” list; http://www.americasbestonline.net/campgrounds.htm
in the number 8 position of the nation’s Best Campgrounds in the U.S.A. We are very proud of this distinction! Hope to see you again here at Teton Canyon one day soon. Have a GREAT winter! Jim J.
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