"Wild & Scenic" Raft Trip

I’m so thankful that we had another day of gorgeous weather – especially today, since we had reserved a float trip down the Snake River quite far in advance. I booked the 6:45AM trip for the views of the mountains in the early morning light and with the hope of glimpsing some wildlife along the river. All 4 kids were troopers about getting up so early, and were even quite chatty. Luckily the couple who had to share a raft with our two families didn’t seem to mind.

We started our trip near Moran Junction with our guide Jess, who was fabulous! He was so knowledgeable about the wildlife and the Tetons, as well as quite personable (especially with the kids, even letting them take turns guiding the raft!)

The river level was high, so the water was running (seemingly) fast. The boys would have liked to go even faster – they were so excited when we hit a patch of rougher water! Jess pointed out so many of the peaks and glaciers during our 2 hour trip – looking back thru the gazillion photos I snapped, I’m having trouble remembering which one was which. I’ll only insert a handful of them here within this post. 

And as we were hoping, we did get to see some wildlife! SCORE!

This bison just watched us as we floated by

Elk

From the day I called to book it, I have been so excited to go on this float trip… this totally exceeded my expectations! Hopefully this will be as memorable for the boys! I’m pretty sure J will never forget (see my previous post), since he spent the last 20 minutes anxious for it to end. As soon as Jess beached the raft at Deadman’s Bar, J ripped off his life jacket, jumped ashore, and high-tailed it to the nearest bathroom.