Teton Valley lies along the eastern border of Idaho, snug against the 13,000′ peaks of the Grand Teton range. We share the Tetons with our neighboring valley to the east, Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Folks describe Teton Valley as “the quiet side of the Tetons.” It is bordered by the Targhee National Forest and several Wilderness Areas.
The Teton Valley area is a true mecca for many sports. From hunting elk to fly fishing, snowmobiling, skiing, snowboarding, road bike riding, mountain biking, hiking, horse back riding and much more. Take a few runs at Grand Targhee Ski Resort or Teton Pass, or bike the Big Holes, wet a fly in the Teton river, go to a rodeo, hike the Alaska Basin Trail, or take a road drive to visit Yellowstone National Park or Grand Teton National Park. Our valley is a region of contrasts.
Excellent fly fishing in summer or cross-country skiing in the winter. Driggs is also culturally unique as the Native Americans made Teton Valley their fur trade center.
The rugged and jagged, snow-capped Tetons to the east and the rolling Big Hole Mountains to the west cradle the gentle, flat course of the Teton River through the valley. The river has been a source of water for farms and ranches since the valley was founded in the early 1800’s.
History
The Lewis and Clark expedition member John Colter asked for and received his leave from the venture. He made his way into the valley that is now know as Teton Valley. In 1812 Vieux Pierre ventured into the same valley and included it in his reports to the Hudson Company which was a heavy fur trading company. Fur traders from all over the know country came to the quiet little valley, attracted by the game.
The friendly Indians held trading rendezvous and festivals until a bloody battle with the Blackfoot Indian Tribe scattered traders and settlers around 1834. The battle became known as “the battle for Pierr’s Hole” After that only horse thieves, outlaws, and others looking to hide use the valley until the 1880’s.
In 1888, B.W. Driggs, who is said to have been a lawyer in Salt Lake City heard about the valley and visited to see if it would good for ranching and farming. He was amazed at what he saw and persuaded a group of Mormons to settle and organize the valley. That same colony and the work it did in digging canals, clearing land is much the same as it was over a hundred years ago.
How the Tetons were formed
The Tetons are the youngest of the Rockies. The range was born some nine million years ago by intermittent, but violent, seismic activity.
In the time before the mountains’ rise, vast seas repeatedly advanced and retreated, leaving behind a thick blanket of sedimentary rock. Between 60 and 70 million years ago, ancestral mountains rose as a broad, northwest-ending arch and the last seas retreated eastward. East of this arch became the site of enormous sheets of gravel interspersed with thick volcanic ash, lava and freshwater lake sediments. Enormous tensional faults fractured these formations and today’s Teton Range started rising. Broken sedimentary layers of ancient sandstone, shale, dolomite and limestone still cap each end and the backside of the range.
Mountain glaciers of the last major ice age shaped the Tetons more than any erosional force. At upper elevations, where most of the snow accumulated, the heads of huge, slow-moving glaciers scooped out depressions. At they crept, frost wedged in the rock cracks, increasing their quarrying. Sheer cirque walls, rugged ridges and jagged peaks reflect the dynamic carving of these great masses of moving ice. Rocks of all sizes, falling onto and picked up by these glaciers, furthered their grinding power.