This morning we returned back to Jackson as during our visit yesterday we found out about an event called Elkfest held around the Town Square. The main focus of Elkfest is an auction for elk antlers collected by the local Boy Scouts from the National Elk refuge a few miles down the road from Jackson. These collected antlers are auctioned off with 80% of the proceeds going back to the Elk refuge and 20% going to the Scouts. It is a big event with dealers and collectors coming from miles around to participate in the auction. As well as the auction there are activities organised by the Scouts taking place in the Town Square gardens and traders selling a wide range of antlers and similar artefacts. This is a big event in Jackson.
We arrived in Jackson about 7:00am and Karen manages to hook Jack up with one of the Scout Master’s organising the event so Jack is then invited to help in the auction beginning at 10:00am. That gives us time to visit our breakfast / lunch place – Jedediah's House of Sourdough – where we greedily tuck into a full stack of their sour jacks (sourdough pancakes) loaded with blackberries. Fuelled by this gluttonous intake we return to the Town Square to check out the Scouting games – all of which seemed to be about hitting or pulling people around, and the stalls set up by local environmental groups. At 10:00 am the auction started and Jack’s role was to help the other attending Scouts to hold up the antlers being auctioned off. This was a great honour and we were very grateful for the local Scoutmasters for allowing Jack to join in.
After an hour we had to drag Jack away as we wanted to go down to Teton National Park. The Tetons are a spectacular range of mountains that leap out of the plains, the tallest of the peaks being the Grand Teton (from the French meaning “Large Teat”) at 13,770 feet. Last July we went to the Jenny Lake Visitor Center and climbed up a trail where we were lucky enough to get close to a moose or two, so we decided to head back there. Unfortunately this year the snow is thick on the ground so we simply have to sit and admire these magnificent snow -covered craggy peaks from afar. We do get to chat to a few nice people; a older retired couple from the Cheshire in the UK – the man being the ex- director of research for AstraZeneca and another couple from the UK, who are with their son who has been studying at the University of Montana State and his friend, a fellow student from Japan. We walk around for a few minutes and talk to the Ranger on duty who recommends we go to the new Visitor Center at Moose Junction. When we get to the Visitor Center we find it to be a modern, expansive building – it’s size making it more impersonal than others we have seen. Having said that the exhibits are of high quality and the film depicting the Teton National Park is wonderful. Jack and Emily spend sometime doing the Junior Ranger Programme and earning their badges before we head back to Jackson.
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