The Gros Ventre — Landslide Country & Granite Hot Springs

On June 23, 1925, roughly fifty million cubic yards of the north flank of Sheep Mountain broke loose and slid into the Gros Ventre River valley in under three minutes, one of the largest and fastest landslides ever recorded in North America. The debris dammed the river and created Slide Lake; two years later the natural dam failed and the resulting flood destroyed the downstream town of Kelly, killing six people. A short interpretive loop trail climbs onto the toe of the slide, where boulders the size of cabins and the still-bare scar on the mountainside make the scale of the event vivid. Interpretive signs explain the tilted, water-lubricated sedimentary beds that set the whole slope in motion. It is a sobering, geology-rich first stop and a quiet one, well off the Teton tourist track.

Just below the slide, the Gros Ventre Road runs along the shore of Lower Slide Lake, the reservoir left behind when the landslide dammed the river a century ago. Drowned trees still stand in the shallows, and the red Chugwater sandstone cliffs of the Gros Ventre range reflect in the water on a calm morning. There is a Forest Service boat ramp and shoreline where you can stretch your legs, watch for moose in the willows, and take in the view back toward the slide scar. It is an easy, scenic pause before the drive back down-valley and south to Granite Creek.

On the way south toward Granite Creek, the Camp Creek Inn sits along the Hoback River in the canyon, a rustic roadhouse with a saloon and grill that has fed travelers on this stretch for decades. It is a convenient, unfussy lunch stop with burgers, sandwiches, and cold drinks before the turn up the gravel Granite Creek Road. If you would rather eat outdoors, the Granite Creek campground and hot springs area have picnic tables among the pines at the head of the canyon.

A short, rewarding walk from the Granite Creek Road leads to Granite Falls, a broad, powerful cascade where the whole of Granite Creek pours over a rock shelf into a churning pool at the mouth of the canyon. In early summer the snowmelt makes it thunderous; by late summer it mellows into swimmable pools that draw locals on hot afternoons. The trail is easy and family-friendly, threading through open forest and wildflower meadows with the pink granite peaks of the Gros Ventre range rising ahead. It is the perfect leg-stretcher before soaking, and a scenic reward in its own right.

At the head of Granite Creek canyon, tucked among the pines below the Gros Ventre peaks, sits one of Wyoming's most beloved soaks: a stone-and-log bathhouse and mineral pool built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1933. Spring water emerges hot and is cooled to a soakable temperature, warmer in winter and cooler through summer, in a rustic pool ringed by forest with the mountains rising all around. The setting is completely undeveloped beyond the pool itself, a small fee is charged at the gate, and the drive in on the gravel road is part of the experience. A long soak here, with the light going gold on the peaks, is the ideal close to the day before the drive back to Jackson.