Jackson Hole is the southernmost reach of Colter's probable loop and the easiest place on the modern map for visitors to anchor the story — the Tetons are visible from the valley floor, and the Grand Teton National Park Foundation is a natural distribution partner.
The Jackson Hole valley was used seasonally by Eastern Shoshone, Bannock, and Crow — for hunting, plant gathering, and as a north-south travel corridor. None of these groups lived in the valley year-round; the winter is extreme. But none of them treated the valley as empty, either.
The English word 'hole' for an enclosed mountain valley was fur-trade vocabulary — Pierre's Hole, Jackson's Hole, Brown's Hole, Ross's Hole. Only Jackson Hole is still in routine use. The valley itself takes its modern name from Davey Jackson, a trapper of the next generation. Colter named nothing here that stuck.
By the early 1830s the valley had become a known transit between the Snake River trapping country to the west and the Wind River / Green River country to the southeast.
The 1814 Clark map shows Colter's route swinging through what is unmistakably Jackson Hole — Clark drew the Tetons on the west side of the valley, recognizably. Colter probably described the country to Clark as 'a large hole,' though that line is not direct quotation.
Whether Colter saw the Tetons from the floor of the valley (he almost certainly did) or whether he crossed any of the modern park boundary that did not yet exist. The Clark map distortions here are real — distances are compressed and orientations rotate — but the valley itself is unambiguous.
Jackson Hole is the easiest stop on the entire loop: Jackson, WY is a full-service tourism town with year-round air service, lodging, and visitor centers (Craig Thomas Discovery & Visitor Center is the GRTE flagship). US-89/191/26 runs the length of the valley; the GRTE inner park road is the scenic-loop overlay. Grand Teton National Park Foundation is the natural primary champion of this profile.
Existing Terrain360 capture in the broader region anchors this; Phase 3 target is a dedicated GRTE 360 reach co-produced with GTNPF.
Sources & attribution: Grand Teton National Park Foundation · NPS Grand Teton · Discover Grand Teton · Wikipedia Jackson Hole