Website Launched To Help You Better Understand Grand Teton National Park

Discover Grand Teton is a new website that helps you explore the natural, cultural, and historic resources of Grand Teton National Park. There's even a Junior Ranger page to help youngsters broaden their knowledge of the park.

There's a new website out there for you to bookmark.

Funded by the Grand Teton National Park Foundation in partnership with the National Park Service, Discover Grand Teton is a great resource to gain an understanding of the natural, historic, and cultural histories of Grand Teton National Park.

With sections on wildlife, geology, and fur trapper and national park histories, this richly illustrated site will give you a working knowledge of the landscape and introduces you to some of the colorful personalities who spent time in Jackson Hole and the Tetons.

The site offers four main sections -- "wild communities," "teton geology," "park history," and "junior rangers." Each of those sections contains subsections that delve into a particular topic.

For instance, under "wild communities" you can choose "alpine," "forests," "meadows," "sagebrush" and "wetlands." Each of these subsections describes the particular setting, contains a map to show where in Grand Teton the particular ecosystem can be found, and provides some photos from the settings and even a narrative on some of the animals you'll find there.

Under the geology section there's a great video animation that explains how the Teton Range came to be. This video even shows the park's proximity to Yellowstone National Park and the eruption of the Yellowstone caldera 2 million years ago. There's also a map that shows historic earthquake activity in Grand Teton, and it can be updated to show more recent quakes.

The park history section includes descriptions of prehistoric Native Americans and when they lived on the landscape, sections on fur trappers and explorers, and the evolution of the national park.

Finally, there's a page dedicated to Junior Rangers that lists various Junior Ranger activities and topics of value to youngsters looking to add to their Junior Ranger knowledge.

This is a website to spend some time with if you are heading to Grand Teton for the first time, or even if you're a repeat visitor. There are interesting timelines, videos, beautiful wildlife images, and historic photographs that all help to bring the park to life.

Kudos to the park staff that helped pull this together and the Grand Teton National Park Foundation for making it happen.