 With Jackson Priced Out, a Nearby Valley Takes Off • RUSTY and Karen Vest and their three children journeyed to the Rocky Mountain West from their home in Tennessee 12 years ago for a grand loop though Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. Their vacation ended with a week in a rented house at the head of the Teton Valley in Idaho.
After that trip, Mr. Vest, who manages a building materials company, found himself frequently returning to this junction of Idaho and Wyoming, which some call Wydaho, to fish for trout and to unwind. “I’ve toured all over the U.S. and never really found a place I wanted to come back to again and again,” he said as he ate fajitas with his wife at a community picnic one recent weekend in the Teton Valley.
But the valley and its largest town, Driggs, have a way of roping people in. It often happens the first time they get a clear view of the rugged and hypnotic Tetons to the east. So in 2006 the couple bought 120 acres of bottomland beside the Teton River, and they are reassembling a 180-year-old log cabin they shipped from Tennessee.
The Vests were back in the valley last month (their cabin is under construction), once again thrilled by the strutting sandhill cranes that come to the surrounding farm fields to feed after leaving their summer home at Yellowstone. “We love the wildlife — the birds, the fish,” Ms. Vest said. “That’s what it’s all about.”
 The Scene • The Teton Valley — 15 miles wide and twice as long — is cupped between the Big Hole Mountains to the west and the Tetons to the east, straddling the Idaho-Wyoming border. Along the valley floor-------------------------------> more
Rapid Growth Fuels Construction in Idaho's Teton Valley • West of Wyoming's famous Teton Mountains, the land drops to form the Teton Valley of eastern Idaho. This spacious basin is home to 6,500 people, a number that is expected to triple in the next three to five years. Many of the residents commute to work in Idaho Falls or across the state line in Jackson, WY.
With the Teton, Big Hole and Palisades mountain ranges defining the valley's edges, developers are taking advantage of the area's natural beauty by constructing hotels, condominiums and large new homes. One of the attractions bringing in new people, in addition to the scenery, is what some experts consider the world's best trout fishing on the Teton River and the Henry's Fork of the Snake River. The area offers a host of other outdoor adventures such as hiking, horseback riding, mountain biking, white water rafting, hunting, and skiing. As if this was not enough, a number of golf courses are already part of the landscape, with more under construction.
The rate of growth is fueling expansion-------------------------> More |
Teton Valley Idaho is just 30 minutes from prestigious Jackson Hole, Wyoming and is home to the three beautiful towns of 
