Teton National Park- A great place to peel back your eyelids and have an overdose of beauty stuffed into your pupils. If the incredible level of beauty in the area doesn’t sound dangerous enough, then get ready- around every corner a bear is waiting to tear you apart- time to get BEAR AWARE!

Grand Teton National Park is awesome and sometimes overlooked. Conveniently located just south of Yellowstone, many people blow through the park just to get up to Yellowstone ASAP. Luckily, we had a bit more time than most so were able to check it out a bit more thoroughly. (Check out our Yellowstone guide here)

Free Camping Tetons Location

We found free camping through Campendium at Upper Teton View located at GPS: 43.7638, -110.5538. This spot is far from a secret- I think it was voted as the best boondocking site in the US for 2017. It takes a (sometimes rough) gravel road to get to but if you’re brave you’ll be rewarded with a priceless view that you can call home for up to two weeks.

Staying Bear Aware in the Tetons

Between the bear proof food lock-boxes and the BEAR AWARE signs everywhere, we got the hint that we weren’t in Kansas anymore. (You don’t have to be BEAR AWARE in Kansas) We learned the basics of becoming BEAR AWARE in Teton and those skills went with us to Alaska and back.

Being BEAR AWARE is both a blessing and a curse- it keeps you safe but on the other hand, you can never not be BEAR AWARE. For example, when we rented a canoe at Colter Bay to do a little paddling on Jackson Lake, even though we were surrounded by water the entire time, we still were on the lookout for bears.

If a bear appeared paddling a kayak, we would not have been surprised. We would have been ready.