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Introduction (Not yet proofread by Sarah.)

Every year or two, we spend about a week doing a staycation of sorts at Grand Targhee during the early season. The obvious benefit is that it’s not outrageously expensive during early season, but the downside is that not all the terrain is open, and rock skis are probably a good choice most years. Of course, being from the Jackson side, Targhee’s early season snow beats our garbage snow-maker snow on Werner and Moran.

Below are some photos of our times at the Ghee, as well as one comparing crowds at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort vs Targhee. It’s sad that we live in the Hole.

This year we spent Mon-Sat in the Sioux Lodge Loft and had Thanksgiving at the Powder Cache Restaurant. If you’re looking to stay at Targhee, your options are limited, so I’m not trying to provide a highly-detailed review—more of the high/lowlights of what we’ve experienced as a family staying at the Ghee.

Location

Grand Targhee isn’t that far of a drive from Driggs, but with a baby it’s nicer to stay at the resort than down in the valley. Still, the price for the convenience is typically so high that we usually stay at Teton Valley Cabins (which I love), or the Super 8, which is not outrageously priced. The Sioux Lodge itself is right by the Shoshone lift and the Huckleberry conveyor; you can ski down from the lodge to Shoshone. We typically do that, then go from Shoshone to Dreamcatcher (DC), Blackfoot, or Sacajawea, just to avoid the walk to DC. For example, from the north stairs to the cat track which leads to Shoshone, it’s about a 50-ft walk or so. The walk uphill to DC is about 250 feet and includes some stairs. As a free item, the lodge is right across from the pool, so about 100 feet or so, and about 250 feet to the main restaurant.

Anyway, the convenience of ski-in/out is awesome, and you’re about 250-ft from the little convenience store, the cafeteria, and the Trap Bar, if you like bars or their food (I personally think that the food at the cafeteria is actually the best, but I won’t get into that too much). The way the Sioux Lodge is laid out, it’s best to get a northern room so that you’re closer to the cat track. If you’re going for a loft, try to get room 288, as it has a large window that overlooks Shoshone and you won’t have neighbors on both sides. Since you’re in a loft, you’ll also see DC from the top.

Below are photos from room 288. Pretty cool, huh? And no, I’m not sure if every balcony comes equipped with a raven.

As a quick note, unless you need the extra beds, the standard rooms in the Sioux Lodge are probably a better value than the loft. We got the loft due to our baby—my mom was providing childcare, so this gave her a little extra room to spread out. The bunks beds in the standard room are far more accessible, also.

The standard room from a previous stay is below, and I’m sorry the photos were taken with a potato:

Beds

We have stayed in both the standard rooms at the Sioux Lodge and the Loft rooms. The beds are the same, except the lofts come two pullout beds, one of about queen size, and the other perhaps standard. I’ve had no trouble sleeping on any of the beds. They aren’t anything special, but they’re not too hard or too soft, at least for me. There are plenty of pillows, extra blankets, etc. None of us have slept on the pullouts, but the larger one seemed decent enough if you didn’t weigh too much. Both of the pullouts were very easy to manipulate with just one arm.

You can see the beds below, and it’s notable how squished the bunk beds are.

My wife, baby, and I stayed in the loft, and my mom and child took the bunks. The bunk beds are tight on top, but my 9 y/o liked it. I didn’t care for all the boogers wiped on the ceiling…gross.

Room and Other Amenities

The lofts come with a small fridge/freezer (watch the setting or you’ll lose your salads), a microwave, a tiny coffeemaker, a boot dryer (ours was a dilapidated 6-boot, non-heated dryer this time, but the previous one we got was a heated, 4-boot one which worked), a table with 4 chairs, a coffee table, TV, and wifi. The wifi in ours was awful—I could not work remotely with any efficiency at all, and to accomplish anything, I had to go to the top of the loft and sit on the edge of the bed. For $300+/night, it’s really a cheap move to not have good wifi in the rooms. Due to the location, I couldn’t get 4/5G, either, so no using my phone as a hotspot. It’s worth noting that the rooms do not have AC if you’re there in the summer and prefer an icebox as I do.

Two of the photos below are from a previous trip.

The hot tub and pool, as noted above, are close by, along with a little fitness center. I used the hot tub once and it wasn’t very hot this time around, so I didn’t stay long. The main pool is heated well enough for a regular pool. Since the area is small, I imagine it can get crowded during peak hours, probably between 6-9PM.

Each room also gets an outside ski locker. We didn’t use ours this time as we were parked right below.

Service, Food, and a Story

It’s tough to get good service in the Teton area, for the same reason that it’s almost impossible for my family to live here—cost of living. In that regard, Targhee is generally decent, and sometimes has standouts. For example, the check in ladies (Danni and Jaca, sp?) were totally the bomb, as were the people at check in the previous time we stayed, who also upgraded us for free. Yue Little has also had great interactions with ski patrol. Overall, service is typically nice in a laid-back way, at least on the skiing side of things. Maid service was intermittent and spotty but well intentioned, and making a quick phone call for anything you need solves any potential problems.

As for good, I prefer the cafeteria (bacon cheese burger, tip the cooks separately for it to actually go to them), followed by the Trap, and then the Powder Cache Restaurant, as the latter has given me some weird takes on traditional fare…I would avoid the potato salad, which was once cubed potatoes in a vinegar sauce of some sort, as best I could tell. The Powder Cache does have an awesome dining room which is gorgeous and worth getting a photo in, though!

Below: Eating at various times and years, with the last being a T-day platter.

But there was a very black spot on our staycation, and it was Thanksgiving dinner itself. We made reservations and it was a prix fixe menu for $75/plate, which is steeper than the typical meals served, but hey, you’re a captive audience. I’m fine with that, because the employees are missing out on Thanksgiving, so at least they’ll get nicer tips. The food itself was fine—we all went with the turkey, taters, and Brussel sprouts for the mains. The full menu is below:

Now let me tell you, I cannot express my love for huckleberry as a function of my arms. Imagine me saying, “I love it THIIIIIISSSSS much,” and spreading my arms really wide apart, and finding that I can’t use my arms to show just how much I indeed love this delectable berry. As such, I ordered the apple-huckleberry cobbler with ice cream for dessert. My wife did the same, while my mom decided to get the sticky pumpkin-chestnut gingerbread. She debated the cobbler, but decided that we could share.

Now let me tell you, I cannot express my love for cobbler as a function of my arms. Imagine me saying, “I love it THIIIIIISSSSS much,” and spreading my arms really wide apart, and finding that I can’t use my arms to show just how much I indeed love this delectable dessert.

Now let me tell you, I cannot express my love for buttermilk biscuits as a function of my arms. Imagine me saying, “I love it THIIIIIISSSSS much,” and spreading my arms really wide apart, and finding that I can’t use my arms to show just how much I indeed love this delectable dough.

Unfortunately, Vicca was getting a bunch of teeth coming in and consequently was somewhat fussy. After the main course, I decided to take her back to the room so that the other diners wouldn’t be inconvenienced by her behavior. I told my family to eat dessert there and just bring mine in a box.

Back at the room, I calmed Vicca down, and then my family showed up a bit earlier than anticipated. They’d gotten all the desserts to go so that we could spend time together. I was happy to find this out, and while holding the baby to keep her from freaking out, I opened the box with the ice cream scoop and flipped it into the box with the cobbler, then sat down.

And looking inside the box, I was surprised to find that there was no cobbler. Instead there was a crisp, though honestly it looked more like a mush—akin to oatmeal. The huckleberries were few and far between. The dessert was effectively apple oatmeal. I was highly disappointed as I dislike oats and was looking forward to a cobbler. I remembered ordering a cobbler, so perhaps they’d gotten the order wrong—I had a copy of the menu on my phone, and I looked at it and realized there was no option for a crisp. Weird. My wife also doesn’t care much for crisp, so I told her I’d got return it.

Since Vicca tends to do best with me, she asked if I would stay so that she could make the swap. It’s only about 500′ of walking and she was still dressed, so off she went.

Yurena returned shortly later and said that the staff had exchanged hers, but not mine, as I had put the ice cream scoop in the crisp box, so they couldn’t reuse it. One can deeply meditate on the mindset that leads a restaurant to serve one something that one didn’t order, not even having the actual menu item, and then to furthermore refuse to replace it with a piece of gingerbread the size of a fist—and on Thanksgiving no less. This was deeply unacceptable for the thousands I was spending on this vacation, so I changed out of my pajamas and went back over to the restaurant pretty steamed.

The atmosphere on my arrival was a little bit less pleasant than before (and fine enough, because we didn’t bother eating there again), and I had to pull the Karen move of calling the manager again. He wasn’t on the premises, so I told them I’d stay and wait until they could fetch him so we could have a chat.

When he arrived, I saw on that he was from Tennessee—if you’re from down south, you KNOW that a crisp isn’t a cobbler. I took a menu and showed him what the menu said, and then what was in the to-go box, and asked him how it could have happened, because he knew as well as I that a horse treat isn’t a cobbler. He conceded and asked what I’d like, and I said that I’d like to have a cobbler, but I was betting that none existed, because it was either never made, or made and ruined, so I’d take the care instead.

4 minutes later, I had my gingerbread and was on the way out. It was unfortunate that the resort was out the cost of a pack of oatmeal and an apple, but I’m hoping that they’ll survive and be able to train the staff on what a cobbler is and additionally how not to leave a nasty mark on a family’s Thanksgiving. Ugh. Anyway, we never returned to the restaurant.

Summary

Grand Targhee is the GOAT when it comes to fine skiing, and most of the staff are well-intentioned if unrefined at times. The Sioux Lodge Loft is a great way to reduce the stress of travel and gives a marvelous, ski-in, ski-out experience, which might be worth it for families with kids who are viewing the added expense as a vacation write-off. For smaller families, the Loft probably isn’t worth the upgrade from the standard Sioux Lodge rooms, and will add some extra stair climbing. All the rooms in the Sioux Lodge are charming, but some rooms have basically unusable wifi, so keep that in mind if you have to do work during your vacation.

Oh, and obviously on powder days, being RIGHT there is a godsend.

Final Rating

Decent rooms at a less-decent price. Limited dining options can be a real bummer, and you’ll be paying a lot of money for food which is unremarkable at best. For a charming experience with more dining options nearby for a fraction of the price, consider Teton Valley Cabins.

Below: Pictures from Teton Valley Cabins.