Teton Pass, Gateway to Jackson Hole

Look east toward the low saddle in the range and you are looking toward Teton Pass, the mountain gateway that has always connected this valley with Jackson Hole. The pass tops out around eight thousand four hundred feet, and for generations it was the only practical way in and out of the Jackson side. Homesteaders hauled the first horse drawn wagon over it in eighteen eighty six, and for decades the crossing was a working freight road, with road houses along the way where people and livestock could rest.

When the railroad reached Victor, at the foot of the pass, in nineteen twelve, Teton Pass became the busy link that carried mail, goods, and tourists over the mountains toward Jackson Hole and on to Yellowstone. The Forest Service built an improved road in nineteen thirteen, widened it in the nineteen twenties, and the modern highway over the pass was not completed until nineteen sixty nine. Today thousands of workers still commute over Teton Pass between the more affordable Idaho side and the resort jobs of Jackson, and the steep grades and avalanche paths make it one of the more dramatic mountain highways in the region.