Upper Teton view dispersed camping

[Cowdog353]

Anyone ever boondock at the upper or lower Teton view campsites near Jackson Wy?

Any opinions would be appreciated 

thanks

[2gypsies]

Never heard of 'upper/lower Teton view campsites'.  We've dry-camped many times at Gros Ventre campground and Colter Bay campground in the park.  We like Gros Ventre much better as the you can see more of the mountains and there are also more animals roaming.

[JRP]

Its been a few years, but I stayed there many times back when I was leading climbing trips up the Grand Teton.  Its quite a bit north of Jackson, between Moose & Moran. A few miles east on NFS road 30310.  Its dispersed camping, so no facilities. Positives: its a great location, its free for up to 14 days, it has some fantastic views.  Negatives: the access road can be very rough and its narrow so you want to be sure no one is coming out when you're going in, it can get very crowded during popular times, since there are no marked sites - its kind of a free for all with folks parked anywhere they can fit in, it can be very noisy when its crowded, some folks run generators all day, at certain times the bugs are very annoying.  after the crowds & bugs are gone, its heaven on earth

Edited July 30, 2018 by JRP

[agesilaus]

This is very late but I just joined. There are some fantastic boondocking sites at Tetons, the first is Shadow Mountain which has fewer that 20 slots but you will have a wonderful view of the mountains from your CG. We stayed in site 15 this summer for three days over the 4th of July weekend.

 

Further north are some more areas. What you want to do it stop at the NF information center in Jackson and they have maps of the areas. The Grassy Lake road has many Boondocking sites but it is in between GTNP and YNP. The sites are in wooded areas with no views except the woods of course.

[Jesse A]

We checked it out about 1.5 months ago, that place was torn up, super crowded. They now have a 5 day limit in peak season. Unfortunately the internet has taken it's toll. 

[agesilaus]

We stayed at Shadow Mountain for 3 days over the 4TH of July weekend this summer. I worried a little bit about the rutted access road since it was raining every day, but it dried out a little the last day which was dry. I thought it was a fantastic site. We were at site 15 on the lower section and I hear there are more in an upper section but one look at the steep rutted road told me I'd have to drop the TT to explore ahead. But we didn't need to.

The Ranger at the visitor center in Jackson also gave us a map of of some more boondocking sites to the north near some dude ranch, I don't recall the name but it is east of that cabin site off the road.

Further north there is Grassy Lake road with lots of sites in between Tetons and YNP

[covickik]

I know this is a reply to a very old request but we camped at Upper Teton View in September this year and it was absolutely one of my favorite boondocking spots. The road in is very tight and if you encounter another rig on the way up someone will have to back up. It's less than 1/2 a mile of the tight road. The views are nothing short of spectacular. If you want to be right on the edge where the best views are you will have company close by but we enjoyed it. We made many friends and had community campfires each night. There is room to spread out if you don't want to be as close to others but you won't get the great views.

[agesilaus]

So are you talking about the area above the lower shadow mountain sites? The road we saw going up looked rather steep but I didn't drive it.

[GroundHog]

Not Validated.

Edited January 7, 2020 by GroundHog

[agesilaus]

We had no such problems. We took the road up from the south end on July 3rd this summer and yes it was rutted. We met no traffic at all, we were pulling our 30ft AF TT with a F350 4WD tho I don't recall shifting to 4WD. We got site 15 in the last lower cg and had spectacular views of the Tetons from out campsite. We got there mid afternoon I don't recall the exact time.

The FS people down in Jackson were the ones to direct us to this spot providing a hand marked map. So that doesn't seem to be discouraging people from using the site. Our major concern was that is was raining off and on the first couple of days we were there and I was worried about the road becoming a mud pit. But the rain stopped our last day there and the road was no worse than when we came in.

Everyone we met were your standard campers, polite and helpful. No fistfights were seen. Makes me wonder what you did to aggravate them. Traffic was never heavy on that road, a vehicle every 10 or 15 minutes maybe. Lots of folks looking for but not finding an empty site. We let one couple who were tent campers use the back half of our site. And this was on the 4th weekend when you would expect a lot of traffic.

There are reportedly more campsites on an upper section but we didn't see them, if the road I looked at was the access then I would not want to pull my TT up it.

There are more dispersed sites north of here near that cabin pull out and a lot more on Grassy Lake Rd without the great views. That road is in between YNP and Tetons and was once the entry road to the YNP entrance in the sw corner, now closed.

We entered the shadow mountain road by turning east on the Moran Junction, then past the Mormon row. You will come to a turn about on the south side of the road and that has the shadow mountain road exiting from it.

Edited January 5, 2020 by agesilaus