Kelly Warm Springs: The Tropics of Wyoming’s Grand Tetons
Howard Goldstein
photographs by the author
Just south of Yellowstone National Park in northwest Wyoming, the Grand Tetons rise abruptly from the Jackson Hole valley and pierce the sky in great gray peaks and ridges of granite. These mountains form
the spine of Grand Teton National Park
(GTNP), a place that is simultaneously
iconic of the national park system yet
unique in many ways among the American
parks. The very mountains themselves are
a wonder, as the unusual mechanics of
their uplift created a jagged snowcapped
range that towers above the valley without
any foothills.
The current park was also designated in
stages and born of compromise, with much
of it having been at one time private land.
As a result, GTNP uniquely allows some
hunting inside its borders; contains parcels
of private land, an airport, and working
ranches; and completely surrounds the
tiny town of Kelly, Wyoming. The park
also contains another unusual feature, one
far more bizarre in the boreal mountains of
the Rockies than the presence of hunters
and livestock—wild living tropical fish.
About the Spring
Most of the lakes and rivers of GTNP are
extremely cold, but water trickling down
thousands of feet through porous rock
layers in the Gros Ventre Mountains east of
the park is heated by geothermal gradient
and emerges along a small fault. This is
Kelly Warm Springs, a single (despite the
official plural name) natural spring that
bubbles up through the earth at a constant
80°F or so. Flow is somewhat variable but
consistently high, sometimes reaching one
million gallons per day.
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www.tfhmagazine.com
October 2010
