Guidebooks explain:
that over 100 million years ago, a collision of tectonic plates along North America’s West Coast bowed up a vast block of sedimentary rock deposited by ancient seas;
that beginning 10 million years ago, movement on the Teton fault generated massive earthquakes, causing the mountains to rise and the valley floor to drop;
that starting 2 million years ago, massive glaciers up to 3,500 feet thick flowed south from Yellowstone, filling the valley, eroding the mountains, and transporting huge volumes of rocky glacial debris; and
that as ice sheets filled the valley, alpine glaciers sculpted the jagged Teton skyline, carving peaks and canyons and depositing moraines along the glacier’s edge.
All quite fascinating.
The Grand Tetons and Jackson Lake
However, no guidebook explains how very small one feels when viewing the colossal Tetons from near or far.
Listen! Be silent. Observe. The Earth is constantly renewing itself, they seem to say.
This truth becomes clear (as crystalline as Jackson Lake) when a person stands in the Tetons’ majestic shadow. These powerful giants return us to a sense of proportions in making us realize how fragile and brief our own life is in the cosmic scheme of things, yet how immensely significant our human awareness, calling us at every moment to participate fully in all that is.
