I'm Confused! "Jackon" versus "Jackson Hole" WY
 

Are these the same place? If not, how far apart are they?

Thanks you.

I had the same question before we went there. Yes, they are the same thing. Jackson is the name of the town and airport.

Jackson is the town which is in a larger area called Jackson Hole.

Are we sure about this? I'd always understood that Jackson Hole referred to the ski area, which is within the larger area of Jackson.

Anyone? Anyone? Ferris?

AL ((d))

Jackson Hole includes Jackson, Teton Village, etc.

The original meaning was the Jackson glacial valley. The Gros Ventre mountains on the east and the Tetons on the west are the mountain ranges that helped to direct the path of the glacier.

If you are on Signal Mountain, you are standing on a glacial feature known as a moraine. If you look out over the flats of the glacial valley floor, you will see glacial features. The ponds out on the flat usually are in glacial features called kettles or kettle holes.

Because of the faulting and uplifting in the area, the geology gets very complex quickly.

For anyone interested, the ancestral uplift started about 50 million years ago. What we see now is the resuls of normal faulting that began about 9 million years ago, thus making the Teton range one of the youngest in North American.

The height of the range is somewhat misleading, e.g people say "Humpf. These are not very high mountains." Well, that depends on how you measure it; the structural relief, that is the number of feet of displacement caused by the slipping upwards and downwards, is at least 35,000 feet.

I know that was not your question. But when you look at the peaks, just remember that the roots of the Teton range lie at least 10,000 feet farther under your shoes than the peaks do above them, depending of course on where you are standing and what you are measuring.

In laymens terms. The "hole" of Jackson Hole is what trappers referred to as a valley. So the entire valley is Jackson Hole. Contained within Jackson Hole is the town of Jackson, Teton Village (where Jackson Hole Mountain Resort is), Wilson, Kelly a lot of Grand Teton National Park, etc.