Christmas Eve in the Tetons

Mark and I try to do something different and fun together the years we don't have our kids for Christmas. This year we spent Christmas Eve in Jackson and Grand Teton National Park. It was so fun! We started the day with a sleigh ride through the Elk Refuge. It was so cool; I would highly recommend! We haven't had a lot of snow yet this winter, so the elk haven't been there long, and plenty are still migrating toward the area. Our guide estimated about 800 elk in the refuge while we were there. We had a lot of tourists in our sleigh, so they were pretty fascinated by the elk, but I was more interested in hugging the big, giant horses. 😆

Our two horses were Lightening, and McQueen.

Next, we drove into the park along the Gros Ventre River to look for moose. We saw 17 of them! I knew all the good places to look from when I went with Joyce a couple weeks earlier. We also saw a guy at one of the pullouts watching a pack of wolves through his scope. He let us take a peak. So cool!

We saw 3 big bulls right by a campground. I'm sure there were more, but we didn't dare walk past this guy to look. He was hanging out right next to the path.

There are at least 5 moose in this picture. I'm sure there are plenty lying down that we can't see.

There are 7 more in this picture. This is where Joyce and I saw a bunch too. They just hang out farther away from the road than the first group. We watched them for a while through the binoculars.

I love the snowy Tetons.

😍😍😍

The little dots on the phone screen are the wolves.

I love these mountains!

After that we drove to the backside of the refuge to see the big horn sheep. We saw lots of them, but they were all up on the ridge, so no close encounters.

We had dinner in Jackson, but I don't remember the place where we ate. It was nothing exciting.

We stopped at DQ for blizzards for dessert. 😆

🥶🥶🥶

Our last stop was to see Mama Mimi, a cool troll just outside of Teton Village. 

Mark and Mama Mimi.

You get a good perspective of how huge this troll is when you see us standing on it, looking like little specks.

That was it! We headed back over the pass and made it home an hour late to feed the animals dinner. I love adventuring together, and it sure beats sitting around wishing our kids were here. It was a great Christmas Eve!