Named after Jenny Leigh, the Shoshone wife of British fur trapper Richard “Beaver Dick” Leigh, Jenny Lake is a hole formed about 12,000 years ago by glaciers pushing rock and debris out of Cascade Canyon. The many cascades and creeks in this canyon filled the hole, which is about 420 feet deep, with water. When Grand Teton National Park (GTNP) was founded in 1929 it was only about one-third the size it is today, and Jenny Lake was one of only six lakes included in it.

For the first time since the Civilian Conservation Corps constructed the earliest official trails around the lake in the 1930s, its built environment is worthy of its natural environment. Jenny Lake has long been the park’s flagship attraction — more than half of its visitors stop here — but this was despite the man-made improvements to the area.

Previously, Jenny Lake visitors suffered crumbling retaining walls, excessive and buckling paved pathways, a lack of signs and confusing visitor-created shortcuts. Once they reached the lake — it’s several hundred feet from the parking lot — it took away their breath: Jenny Lake sits at the mouth of Cascade Canyon, in the perfect spot to reflect the snaggiest of the snow-capped Teton peaks to the west, which rise more than 6,000 feet.

When the Civilian Conservation Corps built trails around Jenny Lake in the 1930s, only several thousand people visited the park annually. Since then, the number of visitors to the park has grown; in 2017 the park got 4.9 million visitors, which is less than half of what the country’s most-visited national park, Great Smoky Mountains, got, but enough to land Grand Teton in the Top 10. Over the decades new trails were hastily added around the lake. Also, visitors looking for shortcuts created “pirate” trails that were used enough they came to look like real trails. The South Jenny Lake area was a mess.

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Heavy lifting and craftsmanship from a previous era combined to generate significant headway in the restoration of weary trails above Jenny Lake in Grand Teton National Park this year, work that should make the trails more resilient to hundreds of thousands of feet and weather vagaries of the Rockies.

The ongoing project, funded in large part through the Grand Teton National Park Foundation’s $17 million Inspiring Journeys campaign, had crews build roughly 1,500 square feet of stony masonry dry-stacked walls, an age-old technique that is as sturdy as it is impressive when you consider the time that goes into picking the right rocks for the right spots.

The focal point of this year’s work was the Inspiration Point Trail, originally hewn out of the landscape by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s. The restored sections of trail not only reflect the rustic nature of the original CCC trails, but are designed to cope with the Tetons’ weather: smooth, well-engineered channels of rock that serve as water bars are integrated into the stone staircases.

“Granite stones for walls and steps, crushed granite drain rock for structural fill, and fine-grained fill and topping material were hauled via helicopter to as near the point of use as possible. In all, over 500 tons—a million pounds—of imported rock was incorporated into the Inspiration Point trail in 2015,” Foundation officials said. “Locating granite material that blends with the Jenny Lake area is a project requirement. The material used for the Inspiration Point trail was sourced from the Teton Village area (just south of the national park) and multiple sources in Idaho.”

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This summer it will be increasingly obvious to Jenny Lake visitors that Inspiring Journeys—the multimillion dollar renewal effort at Jenny Lake for the NPS centennial in 2016—is well underway. The second of four construction seasons started in May and, as with last year, the primary focus is on backcountry trail work. In September, physical changes in the frontcountry will also start to become apparent and will impact late season visitors.

• The lakeshore trail on the southwest segment of the Jenny Lake trail system is now open for public use. Thanks to Grand Teton National Park trail crew members, the trail has improved substantially and was raised by 2 feet, making it easier to maintain and more enjoyable for hikers.

• The trail segment from Hidden Falls to Inspiration Point will be closed all summer while crews reconstruct bridges, rock walls, and trail tread. Inspiration Point will be accessed via the horse trail, a forested route that connects Cascade Canyon to the lakeshore trail. To access Hidden Falls, hikers will follow the classic route from the west boat dock and walk about one half of a mile to the falls. Combining these two destinations into one hike will require more time and distance than usual due to the temporary trail closure. Signs are posted along the trails to notify visitors of reroutes, be sure to check-in at a visitor center for current trail updates.

• After Labor Day, underground infrastructure and utility work will begin in the visitor plaza and campground areas. A temporary visitor center will be moved to the south Jenny parking lot and will be readied to serve the public beginning spring 2016. The parking lot will be restriped to accommodate vehicular traffic and maximize parking efficiency in the condensed parking lots.

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