When:  Thursday, June 10 to Monday June 14, 2021 (four nights)
Cost:   $75/night plus tax ($333.00 total).  We booked 9 months in advance, and our campsite neighbors who booked a few weeks before their stay paid twice that.
Where:  Teton Valley Resort
Beer: Grand Teton Brewing

Visiting Grand Teton National Park is a “bucket list” given.  What wasn’t a given involved figuring out where to stay.   There are options in Jackson Hole, Wilson, Teton Village, and of course, the numerous options in the park itself.   We opted to stay at none of those for one main reason: 

WE DID NOT WANT TO DRIVE THE RV THROUGH TETON PASS. 

Because we were coming from Salt Lake City, our planned route to the national park meant we would have to traverse The Pass – which comprises about 11 miles between the Idaho State Line and Wilson, Wyoming.   Also known as Highway 22, the road contains one lane in each direction and is filled with numerous switchbacks and grades up to 10 percent.  The road is so bad that trailers are not permitted between November 15 and April 1.   There are also several runaway truck “arrestor” or “Catchnet” systems to literally catch out-of-control vehicles with a series of cables and canisters.  That was enough for me (Lana) to veto any thought of driving the RV through The Pass.  Kudos to you if you are braver than I am, and have made it through The Pass in your RV.   

Luckily, there are a few RV options west of the mountains located in Teton Valley.   We elected to stay at the Teton Valley Resort  located in Victor, Idaho.  We liked it so much that we thought we would dedicate a short video to the campground.  At the time of our stay, there were only 33 RV sites, but it looked like the resort was undergoing significant construction so there may be more on the horizon. The campground contains a number of very cute cabins with updated modern finishes, and they are building more of those as well.    

We booked our reservations well in advance, and got a bargain at $75/night. Our neighbors at the campground booked just the week before and paid close to double that. While the cost will vary, staying there is competitive and likely better than what folks will pay in Jackson Hole. As of this blog, the NPS’s rates at Colter Bay are $94 for a back-in site.

Breweries near Grand Teton National Park

Staying in Victor also meant that we would be able to explore the beer scene on the west side of the mountains as well.  We spent a whopping $120+ at Grand Teton Brewing so that probably tells you it was our favorite brewery in the area.  The brewery was founded in 1988 in Wilson on the other side of The Pass by Charlie and Ernie Otto as the Otto Brothers’ Brewing Company. That was Wyoming’s first modern “micro” brewery.  The brothers claim to have brought the idea of “growlers” to breweries, and also take credit for changing the Wyoming laws to permit breweries to have retail locations.   In the late 1990s, the brewery moved to the Idaho location, and the name change to “Grand Teton Brewing” occurred in 2000.  We bought some of the Mountain Berry Wheat, Parks IPA, and Old Faithful Ale from their national parks series.   

Wildlife Brewing is also located in Victor.  I tried the 4 O'clock Session IPA while Kasie had the Go Big! Golden Ale.   But Grand Teton Brewing was by far our favorite.

Driving north about 10 miles to Driggs, Idaho, we had a phenomenal dinner at Citizen 33 Brewery.  We enjoyed the amber braised pork lettuce cups with cucumber kimchi and sweet chili soy.  That sweet and salty mixture of flavors was some of best we tasted on our entire trip!   We sipped on the Idaho ObSESSION IPA and the Purple Draaank lager.  Good beer names.  Good beer too.

In sum, the west side of the Tetons has a lot to offer.  There’s a good mix of locals and tourists, and plenty of stuff to do.  Depending on traffic conditions, the national park entrance is just an hour or so away.  I hear the drive to the park on the Pass is beautiful too…I just wished I would have had my eyes open too see it 😊.