Tetons
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The Tetons. Enough said ...
The jagged peaks of Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park have left visitors in awe for generations. But what caused these mountains to rise so high? Oddly enough, part of the answer starts hundreds of miles away—in California.
It has to do with the San Andreas Fault, a famous crack in the Earth’s surface that runs through much of California. On one side of the fault is the Pacific Plate, a huge slab of the Earth’s outer layer, and on the other side is the North American Plate. These two giant plates slowly grind past each other—the Pacific Plate moving northwest, and the North American Plate moving in a slightly different direction. This constant motion causes earthquakes in California, but over millions of years, it also stretches the land across the western U.S.
As the land stretches, it starts to crack and shift. One of those cracks is the Teton Fault, right next to the mountains. On the east side of the fault lies a valley called Jackson Hole. On the west side is a block of land that has been pushed upward to become the Teton Range. As Jackson Hole slowly slips downward, the mountains on the other side rise higher and higher. This process is still happening today—although very slowly, with the Tetons rising about one foot every 100 to 150 years.
While the land was rising, glaciers helped shape the rugged look of the Tetons. During the last ice age, massive sheets of ice moved through the mountains, carving out deep valleys and leaving behind rocky debris. When the ice melted, it revealed the sharp peaks and clear mountain lakes that make the Tetons so breathtaking today.
The Teton Range is one of the youngest mountain ranges in North America. These mountains have been rising for less than 10 million years. That might sound like a long time, but compared to the 50–80 million-year-old Rockies or the 300-million-year-old Appalachians, the Tetons are like teenagers. Because they haven’t been around as long, wind and rain haven’t had much time to wear them down—so their dramatic, craggy shape is still beautifully intact.
TETONS CONNECTION TO THE WILD WEST — The Teton Range in Wyoming presented one of the last great frontiers during the Wild West era. Towering and formidable, the Tetons were largely bypassed by homesteaders due to their rugged nature, but they were central to the lives of mountain men, fur trappers, and early explorers—many of whom became folk legends in Western lore. By the time of the Wild West, the Tetons were part of the great wilderness that lured adventurers westward. They also sat near routes used by Native American tribes such as the Shoshone and the Blackfoot. As Jackson Hole began to see settlement in the late 19th century, the Tetons loomed as a backdrop to cattle drives, hunting expeditions, and the creeping edge of civilization.
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