We gave Yellwstone a pass today and chose instead to go to the Gros Ventre Slide southeast of Jackson Lake in beautiful Jackson Hole. The drive to the Gros Ventre Slide from Flagg Ranch offers magnificent views of the Grand Tetons to the west and pretty rangeland to to the east. We took narrow backroads through the rangeland most of the way there.
The Gros Ventre (it’s a French phrase so, stupidly, it is pronounced GROW-VONT which I think means big belly) Slide is an amazing demonstration of a failure of a mountain to hold itself together. Back in the 1920’s, 50 million cubic yards of mountainside failed to remain in place and slid downhill, blocking the Gros Ventre River and sending debris 700 feet up the other side of the canyon, all in 3 minutes. A few folks actually got to see the event from very close. I imagine they had to clean out their trousers afterwards. Things went along pretty well for 30 months until the big unengineered dam crapped out, inundating the town of Kelly below the dam. More loss of life occurred during this event because the locals were unprepared for a landslide dam to fail. Not real savvy in physics or civil engineering.
We left the gorgeous area around the Gros Ventre and headed into the town of Jackson, located at the south end of gorgeous Jackson Hole. The town of Jackson has many nice new buildings with exterior siding intended to make them look rustic. Antique and curio shops abound. Traffic is an absolute nightmare. Traffic signals are everywhere and the already sluggish traffic is retarded even more by clumsy traffic engineering and confused tourists crossing streets while wearing fashions previously unknown in western civilization. We went all the way through town and finally arrived at an Albertson’s store. The parking lot was filled with many idling foreign import SUVs awaiting parking places near the store entrance despite many spots being available just yards away. The store was infested with many confused out-of-town shoppers unfamiliar with the Jackson Albertson’s layout or common sense. Prices were almost criminal. They sell no beer in the Albertson’s but there is a liquor store with only moderately terrible prices next door where I picked up some Irish Cream and porter before the 60 mile trip back to Flagg Ranch. Jackson, Wyoming, pretty town in 1979 has been turned into a yuppie purgatory and should be avoided at all cost unless you are are interested in tourist junk, expensive liquor, long traffic stalls, aimlessly meandering morons spread about the streets with inappropriate footwear, branded T-shirts and liberally applied perfume and cologne. Jackson has become afflicted with the same retail and real estate schemes as Sedona, AZ and Taos, NM. They were great scenic destinations in the recent past that were transformed into expensive enclaves for flakes, folks believing their substandard products were worth more than they are and homeless folks wearing Reebok shoes and North Face parkas. It is a butthole. I will endevour to make sure I do not visit again unless compelled at gunpoint. A Chamber of Commerce can become a hideous monster and steering clear of upscale yuppie enclaves will benefit all in the long run.
We got some pix today. You can see some of ’em if you click here