The Ultimate 2 Day Grand Teton National Park Itinerary

Featuring stunning snow-capped mountains, alpine lakes, and lush meadows, Grand Teton National Park in Jackson Hole manages to take your breath away with every picture you take. Following Yellowstone, Grand Teton was the obvious park to go to after for my 55 Day Road Trip Across America in July 2020.

The Ultimate 2 Day Grand Teton National Park Itinerary

While on our road trip, we came in from north to Jackson, WY from Yellowstone National Park.

Staying in Jackson allowed us to easily drive to and from the park at about a 20 minute drive to the Visitor Center. However, hotels and lodging can tend to be a little more on the pricey side in this town. With COVID-19, restaurants and bars seemed to close a lot earlier so it was a little hard to find food after getting home from the park around 8 PM so try to pack accordingly!

With that being said, let’s start with our Day 1 in Grand Teton!

Day 1

We took this day as mainly our “driving day” to drive through the entirety of the parks and be able to take in the beauty of the Tetons and search for wildlife at the many overlooks. Coming in from the Jackson entrance, even the drive down the road approaching the entrance and visitor center provided great views of the mountain range.

Once we arrived to Gros Ventre Junction, we turned right toward Kelly to make our way to Antelope Flats Rd, where we were hoping to see some animals. Antelope Flats is the perfect place to see animals such as bison, antelope, moose, coyotes, and more! After driving the loop, we arrived at Antelope Flats Rd.

Mormon Row

While on Antelope Flats Rd, we approached Mormon Row Historic District. This location was formerly a town called Grovont in the late 1890s

From Antelope Flats Rd, we took a right first to park to see one of the iconic barns of Mormon Row, John Moulton Barn. This picturesque log home is the perfect foreground to the tower mountsin of the Tetons behind it.

A little drive south of John Moulton Barn is his brother Thomas Alma’s (T.A.) homestead down Mormon Row at T.A. Moulton Barn. With travelers coming from all over the world to take pictures of this historican building, his barn is known as the most photographed barn in the United States.

As we approached the end of Antelope Flats Rd, we took a right to head north and take Teton Park Road counterclockwise.

Immediately off the road, we stopped at Blacktail Ponds Overlook. This is a great stop to see wildlife, but we unfortuantely couldn’t spot any. Regardless, it leaves you with a beautiful view of the mountains and trees.

Glacier View Turnout

As we continued along our scenic drive, Glacier View Turnout provided panoramic views of Tetons across a flat area. After walking to the end of the short pathway, you get the perfect angle of the mountains. This was one of my favorite viewpoints.

Schwabacher’s Landing

Our next stop was down Schwabacher Road to Schwabacher’s Landing, a spot right along to Snake River with great view of the mountain range reflected off the water. The drive down to the river was an unpaved road but an easy drive.

Once at the bottom, we turned right and walked down the short path along the river in the trees to a pond.

Teton Point Overlook

Teton Point Overlook is another overlook similar to Glacier View that provides you with the full stretch of the mountains over the fields and trees. The geology at this overlook differs from Glacier View in that you can see the varying terraces that represent a spans of time where Snake River flowed through the valley.

Snake River Overlook

Here at Snake River Overlook is another panoramic view of the Tetons. You are able to see the bends of the river along the lines of the trees before the mountains.

Oxbow Bend Turnout

After passing Moran Junction, we continue driving along the river until we reach Oxbow Bend.

This is one of my favorite turnouts where you can go down a very short path right to the edge of Snake River. An oxbow bend in a river is caused by erosion from where the river turn sharply. With binoculars, it is a great location to try to spot some wildlife across the water.

Colter Bay Village

Next, we took a right at Jackson Lake Junction and made our stop at Colter Bay Village to grab some food to go for a late lunch. Colter Bay offers lodging, outdoor recreation activities such as canoeing/kayaking, scenic lake cruises, and horseback riding, a general store, and restaurants.

After picking up some delicious pasta and soup from John Colter’s Ranch House, we took our food to Jackson Lake Overlook where we pulled off to the side of the road and enjoyed our food by the water.

We had stopped by here the night before after our drive to Jackson from Yellowstone and the evening twilight and shadows of th mountains against the lake are views worth stopping for.

If you want to watch the sunset somewhere, I would recomment going to Jackson Lake Overlook to see the vibrant sky colors behind the mountain range.

Signal Mountain Road

After Colter Bay Village and Jackson Lake Overlook, drive back down south to take a right at Jackson Lake Junction to head toward Signal Mountain. This scenic drive is a 5 mile paved road filled with switchbacks to reach the lookout 1,000 feet atop the mountain. While it is a narrow road, it is heavily travelled and isn’t too scary.

If you prefer to hike, you can start at the trailhead at Signal Mountain Lodge and take the 6.8 mile trail with about 900 feet of elevation gain. The trail ends at Jackson Point Overlook.

After driving back down Signal Mountain, it was nearing dusk and we wanted to try to find an overlook to see more wildlife. We really wanted to find moose. Since we would be driving on the west Teton Park Road the next day for hikes, we headed back up north toward Jackson Lake Junction to go back to Oxbow Bend.

We stayed at Oxbow Bend for a little before deciding we couldn’t see any animals and continued on to Elk Ranch Flats Turnout. At this turnout, we saw a few bison along the fence.

Then, with the sun starting to set lower, we drove south along the park road toward Moose and tried to stop at the occasional turnout to try to spot more animals. With that, Day 1 was done!

Day 2

This was the day for hiking! After driving into the park, we took a left at Moose Junction compared to yesterday so that we could start our day off with hiking Taggart Lake trail.

Make sure you have bear spray in these hikes, because you’re going to be in bear country!

Taggart Lake

The Taggart Lake Loop trail is a easy to moderate 3.9 mile hike through forest and meadow and returns along Beaver Creek. After passing a small waterfall, we reached Taggart Lake where it gets you up close to the beauty of the Tetons with the alpine lake views.

We took the loop hike counterclockwise. If you’re looking for a longer hike, you can choose to add in the Bradley Lake loop for an almost 6 mile roundtrip hike.

Along the loop back to the trailhead, we passed a grassy meadow and pine forest near Beaver Creek. Take in the full 360 degree views of mountains and trees surroudning you.

This is a popular but nonetheless beautiful hike to do when in Grand Teton.

Jenny Lake

Once finished with Taggart Lake, we drove up north to park at Jenny Lake Visitor Center in South Jenny Lake Junction. For our hike here, we chose to start left from the trailhead to hike toward Hidden Falls, then Inspiration Point, and along Cascade Canyon. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the time, but if we did we would have continued along to end at Lake Solitude for a 20 mile hike.

If you don’t want to hike along Jenny Lake and want to go directly to Inspriation Point, you can choose to take the shuttle board across Jenny Lake. There is a small fee for the boat ride.

By starting clockwise on Jenny Lake Loop trail, we hiked along mountains with the views of the lake to the right of us. The hike from Jenny Lake trailhead to Hidden Falls is roughly 3.4 miles one way.

As you go along Jenny Lake Loop, there will be a point where the trail splits and you can choose to hike right alongside the lake versus up along the mountain to get a higher view of the lake you’re walking along. By complete accident, we walked on the higher trail on the way to Hidden Falls and on the bottom along the lake the way back. I would recommend doing both to see different angles of Jenny Lake!

Hidden Falls is one of the most visited destinations in Grand Teton. We had a small snack here to refresh ourselves before we continued to climb up to Inspiration Point.

To get to Inspiration Point, it is a 0.9 mile from Hidden Falls up rugged switchbacks to panoramic views of Jenny Lake.

After Inspiration Point, we continued to Cascade Canyon where rocks surround Cascade Creek near the mountain cliffs. Due to time and the sun setting soon, we walked along this path for about a mile before turning back around toward Inspiration Point and to Jenny Lake trailhead.

As I said before, we walked along the bottom trail closer to the lake for the way back. We went back the same direction we came from rather than the other side of the lake, since that would make the loop longer for us.

By the time we got back to the trailhead, it was getting dark as the sun had already set.

We had finished almost 8 miles at Jenny Lake and were ready for some dinner and rest! The next day, we were set to go to Moab, UT for our next road trip adventure.

Very tired after a long day of hiking, we headed back to Jackson for food and a night’s rest after our second and last day of Grand Teton. This park is filled with so many amazing hikes and alpine lake views and I can’t wait for my next visit to return here and explore more!

Visiting Grand Teton or recently there? Feel free to leave a comment, I would love to hear about your travels!