The Grand Teton range is arguably the most iconic mountain in all of North America.

Millions of people see it every year but miss the ancient history hidden at the top.

In the video below our host climbs the peak and examines the story behind a mysterious structure discovered there in the 1800's.

The current belief is that humans moved into what we now call the Teton Range around 12,000 years ago, as the last ice age began to recede.

By the way, that last ice age is not yet over. You're living in it.

When those people came to this area they would have seen the Tetons and, as humans are curious, would have wanted to go up to the top and have a look.

Did they leave anything behind?

The climber in this video says that they did.

Watch the video as he makes his way to the top. The very top, then shows us what he thinks is an ancient structure.

Have a look.

Is it or is this something modern humans created?

Here is what we know

attachment-Teton Top Structure
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The enclosure did not look like this kind of rubble when the white man first set eyes on it. Nobody had been taking care of it, so it has fallen apart.

On the morning of July 19th, 1872, 11 men from the Haden expedition climbed the Grand Tetons.

They believed that no other human had ever done it.

But what about the tribes that had been living there before the white man showed up?

Of all the men who climbed only 2 made it to the top. Nathaniel Langford and James Stevenson

Lanford later wrote in his diary:

On one of the adjoining buttresses, which was but a little lower than the very summit, we found a curiosity in the shape of granite slabs piled up on end, in circular form, 6 feet diameter, the space filled in with disintegrated granite, eroded from these vertical slabs, and completely filling the interstices between the rocks at the bottom.

This was probably done hundreds of years ago, for hundreds of years must have been required to fill this space with granite fragments small as these.

 

We were glad to come down from the extreme summit, and find shelter in this enclosure from the freshly blowing breeze, for although we were exposed to the full rays of the sun, and the sky was cloudless, still it was cold enough for us to don our overcoats which we had carried in snug rolls on our backs. In this sheltered spot we ate our luncheon.14 Within 200 feet of the top, we found marks of the mountain sheep, and near the saddle,15 we frequently found flowers in bloom, coming up through the snow.

Those two men thought that they were the first humans to climb to the top until they got there.

Obviously, with humans living in this area for thousands of years, somebody would have wanted to explore the highest points.

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