Utah to Wyoming to Utah to Wyoming to Idaho to…

The route from Lake Jordanelle State Park to Victor Idaho, which is only 19 miles west of Moose-Wilson Road, which leads to the Granite Canyon Entrance of Teton National Park.  Victor has a Passport America RV Park, where we are staying.  More about the park in a couple of days.  As for our Route to Victor, it really does go from Utah to Wyoming to Utah to Wyoming to Idaho to Wyoming and back to Idaho again.  That’s six state lines in 270 miles.  For those who travel from state to state, you probably know by now that cell phone service seems to die along state lines sometimes.  Today was no exception, and we needed to call the park to make reservations to get the Passport price which essentially is two nights for the price of one.  Considering RV parks in and around Jackson and Jackson Hole are going for $75 to $95 per night…and the National Park campgrounds don’t have electricity to keep you warm when it gets down to 35 degrees at night…being in Victor was the best option.  Also, we won’t have any back tracking since we will just head north out of Victor into Montana when we leave.

    

The first part of he drive up I-80 to Evanston is one which I am very familiar with.  Past Echo Lake, and some red rocks along a canyon from which the Interstate runs.’'

   

In Evanston we turn north off the Interstate, and pass green fields, rock formations and lots and lots of pasture land full of cattle, horses, sheep and even llamas.

   

The Salt River Pass, at 7,630 feet, was the most difficult climb of the day, but the views were well worth the slow climb.  Traffic was light, so I did not have to pull over very often.

The largest town between Evanston and Victor is Afton Wyoming.  It is just a little smaller than Victor, but looks a little more interesting…but we have hardly seen any of Victor yet.

Much of today's drive included views of snow capped mountains.

Palisades Reservoir was the largest body of water that we saw.  The Snake River runs into the lake, along with various creeks, and contains over 1 million acre feet of water.  The Snake River Range has 10 mountains over 9,000 feet, and boarders the lake, and the river “snakes around” to the east side of the mountain range.

 

It was a very interesting drive today.  Read various information boards about some of the towns and passes.  Almy Wyoming was an early coal mining town, but they had too many explosions and shut down the coal business in the early 1900’s.   Cokeville Wyoming was originally a fur trapping and trading area, and was a well traveled pathway along the Oregon Trail.  The Mormon Church created he first settlement in the area in 1874, and the Oregon Short Line Railroad went through in 1881.  By 1908 Cokeville consisted of 2 saloons, a hotel, a store and boarding houses, and continued to grow.  In 1922 it made national headlines when Ethel Stoner became Mayor and two other females won seats on the town council.  The ran on a law enforcement ticket, wanting full Prohibition laws instituted...but the local police refused to enforce the Prohibition laws.  Near Salt River Pass, the Lander Cut-off of the Oregon Trail headed north along our route for awhile, by-passing Fort Bridger near the Wyoming and Utah borders, cutting off many miles for those traveling to Oregon.

So Victor is on the West side of the Tetons.  It is the largest city in Teton County, and is seeing growth from those who cannot afford to live in Jackson Wyoming to the east over the 8,400 foot Teton Pass, about 2,000 feet higher in elevation than Victor.  Back in 2012 when we were visiting Yellowstone, we stayed at Henrys Lake, which is only 85 miles to our north, also on the eastern side of the mountains, and only 15 miles west of West Yellowstone.