Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ited before the faulting, whereas the young sedimentary rocks have been forming since the
faulting, especially on the lake bottoms.
U.S. Highways 26/89/191
Continuing straight north beyond Moose Junction, the highway intersects with Antelope
Flats Road, which leads to several campgrounds, the town of Kelly, and the Gros Ventre slide.
Gros ventre—pronounced GROW VAUNT locally— means “big belly” in French. The low
mountain range here and a subgroup of the Blackfeet tribe share this name.
he
Gros Ventre Slide
left an enormous scar that's still visible—though it happened nearly
a century ago—on the hillside east of the main highway. It's interesting to compare this land-
slide with the Quake Lake slide near the West Entrance to Yellowstone (see
page 36
), which
buried a campground and killed 28 people in the 1959 Hebgen Lake earthquake. The Gros
Ventre landslide occurred when the unusually wet spring of 1925 caused sandstone layers
overlying slippery shale to give way suddenly, shaken by a relatively minor earthquake. The
landslide itself killed no one, but two years later the natural dam it had created suddenly gave
way, flooding the town of Kelly downriver and killing six of its citizens.
To visit the slide and the Forest Service exhibits at its base, turn right at Gros Ventre Junc-
tion, pass the little town of Kelly, then continue more than a mile to a road on the right that
passes guest ranches in the next 5 miles (8 km) and arrives at several interpretive signs. The
best view of the slide is down a short trail near the signs. Drive less than a mile farther for a
view of lovely Lower Slide Lake, which dammed a nineteenth-century wagon route into Jack-
son Hole.
Eighteen miles (29 km) from Moose Junction you reach Moran Junction. (See “From Mor-
an Junction to the South Entrance.”)
FROM DUBOIS TO MORAN JUNCTION
Instead of traveling via Jackson from the south, you may choose to reach the South Entrance
via the southeast, from Dubois.
D
UBOIS,
W
YOMING
D
UBOIS
M
UNICIPAL
A
IRPORT
Population: 970 3.5 mi. (5.5 km) NW
A small western town with one main street, Dubois (called DOO-boys by residents) is about
83 miles (134 km) from the South Entrance on an excellent road over high Togwotee (TOE-
guh-dee) Pass. Dubois has inexpensive motels, several restaurants, and the National Bighorn
