Grand Teton Day5 no.1

Monument Plant

This day's hike was started with 700 feet uphill to the Mt.Hunt Divide (elevation 9710). Since we started hiking at 7:30 a.m., nobody was on the trail. Crisp cool air made me feel very pleasant.

Here and there in the Teton, I saw monument plants. First I saw them near the trailhead to go to Amphitheater lake. Ms.L taught us they are monument plants. They spend 20 years to bloom and only one year of bloom and die. 

Some monument plants were near the Mt.Hunt Divide. They seem as if they really enjoy every moment of their life. It is short but they are standing tall, strong, and cool. 

Mt. Hunt Divide

 

 

Chilly air really fits the brown mountains with green tall monument plants. How precious the scenery is. 

The brown and grey rocky mountains are magnificent.  There are some lines in the mountains. I can see the long history there....then I realized the fact: are these really youngest mountains in the world!?

Pika

We were contemplating at the top for a while and enjoyed the quiet time. Then suddenly someone said, "Peeeeeee!"

Pika! On the top of the rock of the 10000 feet!

Looking at the gorgeous view and telling his friends something. Cute!

Many talus are offered in the Teton and I really enjoyed seeing pika. They are truly adorable. 

over the divide

From this top long downhill were followed. Well, downhill is not difficult (suprising?), so I extra enjoyed the view. 

After the divide, geology was clearly changed (right picture), and different type of green hills and mountains showed up. I am not a geologist, but I admired how beautiful each geologically different creatures (mountains) are. I felt like mountains are alive by seeing mountains after mountains. Each mountain looks different on the same day. On the same day in  different time, mountains' appearance change drastically as if they have emotions. 

On the trail in this morning, the next wildlife I saw was deer. I was probably the first person of the day on that section, because dayhikers are hardly there in this section. Therefore the deer didn't seem to expect human. Besides Mr.N and I were not talking but walking quiet. Deer was surprised and ran away by climbing the hill. Sorry deer! Deer was cute. 

Marmot

Then next wildlife on that morning was a marmot. Sometimes marmots are chubby or even fat. Looks like they eat as much as they can before winter comes. 

One point I saw a really fat marmot. He tried to run away, but he was having a hard time running fast. It was funny and cute. 

Wildlife in the Teton is simply amazing.  

Marion Lake

Then we arrived at Marion Lake. Mr.N was planning to swim in Marion Lake since long time ago. Generally it was hot in the day time, so good for him. I always feel chilly just stopping on a trail, so I watched him going into the lake. 

The lake was very calm and beautiful green. I actually thought that this green was mysterious. It is like this green is as if I was being drawn into the green, because of its magical green. 

We ate lunch here and wanted to stay a little more, but we had 9 miles to go, so we started walking again. 

To be continued...