Annual cattle drive set Saturday at Grand Teton

Visitors to Grand Teton National Park Saturday may find themselves reliving a bit of western culture.

A traditional cattle drive will get underway on a two-mile stretch of Highway 26/89/191, about one mile south of Moran Junction. The road will be closed between approximately 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. as cattle are herded from their pastures on the Pinto Ranch, east of Moran, to summer pasture at Elk Ranch Flats.

Park Rangers will provide traffic control.

Pinto Ranch wranglers will drive a herd of about 290 cattle westward, using a right-of-way along Highway 26/287. They will cross the Buffalo Fork Bridge.

Motorists may want to choose an alternate route, like the Teton Park Road between Jackson Lake Junction and Moose Junction.

In accordance with the 1950 Grand Teton National Park enabling legislation, some historic grazing priveleges were retained. Since then, the fenced and irrigated Elk Ranch Flats pastures have been used for grazing each summer.

Several years ago, Grand Teton asked the Pinto Ranch shift their cattle from a historic, free-range Pacific Creek grazing allotment to the fenced Elk Ranch Flats pastures to minimize potential conflicts with predators in the Pacific Creek drainage.