Sunrise at Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming
© Kurt Budliger/Tandem Stills + Motion
A grand view
Mind-blowing beauty is one reason people keep coming back to Wyoming and the Grand Teton National Park. Named 'les trois tétons' by early French trappers, the park was created in 1929 by conservationists including John D. Rockefeller Jr. It is home to a virtually untouched ecosystem of plants and animals, such as grizzly bears, wolves, bison, moose, and bald eagles.
Just 10 miles south of Yellowstone National Park, the park's 40-mile-long Teton Range is one of North America's youngest mountain ranges. At less than 10 million years old, erosion has not yet had time to smooth the edges of the mountains, hence the Tetons' jagged peaks. Many of the park's lakes, including 15-mile-long Jackson Lake, were carved out by glaciers hundreds of thousands of years ago. Towering over Jackson Hole and reflected in one of its many lakes, the Tetons and the park are a breathtaking sight to behold.