Grand Teton National Park by Studio Retouched fotoshop

Grand Teton National Park is a national park in Wyoming in the United States, south of Yellowstone. The park is named after the Grand Teton, one of the mountains of the Teton Mountains, 4197 metres high and the highest mountain in the park.

The park includes much of the valley below, the Jackson Hole. The Teton Mountains got their name from a French trapper, who called them tétons, French for nipple. The park covers an area of 1255 km² and has been a national park since 26 February 1929. There are almost 320 km of hiking trails in the park.

The Grand Teton mountain range is part of the Rocky Mountains and is also north-south oriented. There are no hills around the mountain range. This is because the Grand Teton was formed by the upwelling of the earth's mantle. In the process, area where the mountain ranges now lie was pushed up, while the valley next to it, Jackson Hole, dropped 9100 metres and formed a rift. Due to the erosion of the mountains and the valley being largely filled with sediment, the difference in altitude between the mountains and the valley is 2350 metres.

The mountain range acquired its present appearance as glaciers left U-shaped valleys (trough valleys). Higher up the mountain range, glaciers have formed cirques, bordered by moraines, arêtes and peaks. More than 100 lakes have formed among the valley's debris fans, of which Jackson Lake, dammed by the moraine of a large glacier, is the largest with an area of 103.4 km² and a depth of 134 metres. The smaller Jenny Lake lies a little further south.

Through the valley runs the Snake. This river originates partly in the Teton Wilderness in Yellowstone National Park north of Grand Teton National Park. It is fed by three tributaries, Pacific Creek, Buffalo Fork and Gros Ventre. After 1674 kilometres, the Snake flows into the Columbia as its main tributary.