Lakeland Holiday Cottage ….
We’re in Wyoming this last week for our son’s wedding in Jackson Hole. It’s given us a chance to check out lakeland holiday accommodation US style in the Teton National Park and compare it with Cumbria’s Lake District. Of course The Larches is hard to beat, but our pine built cabin here with decking and a hot tub gives it a close run! At an altitude of 6000 feet and surrounded by aspen trees, we look out across the 8 mile wide Jackson Hole valley.
There are similarities with the Lake District National Park, though here it’s on a grander scale. Grand Teton rises steeply to 12,700 feet just 10 miles to our north and I set off a herd of elk on my run one morning. Yesterday we found the bison. The two parks were founded in their present forms in the years 1950-51 and are roughly the same size. Both focus on conservation and are hugely popular, but the real difference comes with the maps!
Where the Cumbrian fells have often old Viking names, the US maps are littered with a modern vocabulary like Surprise, Solitude and Amphitheatre Lakes, Disappointment Peak, Battleship Mountain, Death and Paintbrush Canyons, Symmetry Spire; or have names of settlers, soldiers or surveyors – Mt Owen and Bradley Lake.
The French trappers scored some hits too with the Gros Ventre (stomach) plain, Rendezvous Mountain [see photo above] and Teton (breast) the tallest peaks in the Park. Teewinot Mountain and Lake Taminah are just two of a few native American names which have survived the settlers’ onslaught!
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[...] We’ve been in Jackson Hole, Wyoming‘s lakeland this last week checking out the differences between Lake District Parks in the US and the UK. (See blog post – Lakeland holiday cottage). [...]