Hidden Falls at Jenny Lake. Grand Teton National Park ~ Adventures in Southern California

Hidden Falls. Grand Teton National Park

Hidden Falls is easily the best waterfall in Grand Teton National Park. The falls are located on the western side of Jenny Lake in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. The shortest route to the falls is to hike around the southern part of Jenny Lake on the Jenny Lake trail. You can expect to see a wide variety of wildlife on the trail. We saw chipmunks, a coyote, several red-bellied marmots and a wide variety of colorful birds I couldn’t name. The falls are listed at around 100 feet tall, but the cascades go on for miles and the sheer volume of water on the river tops anything you'll find outside of Yellowstone.

A recent landslide wiped out the lower part of Jenny Lake trail that leads to the falls, so a new trail had to be cut into the side of the mountain. To bypass the landslide, the new trail adds a significant amount of elevation gain to the hike. However, the new trail also offers a birds eye view of the Lake. Most descriptions online put the hike at about 6 miles total roundtrip. We finished the hike in a little under 3 hours. You can shave 2 miles off the hike by taking the ferry across Jenny Lake.

For more adventurous hikers, you can continue up the Cascade Canyon Trail to Lake Solitude. This hike is listed may places online as a daytrip, but at 19 miles round-trip up a mountain, I would highly recommend spending the night at the lake. Many people say that cascade canyon is the most beautiful area of the Tetons. Next time I’m in the area, I plan on camping at the lake myself.