2 hours of drive from Grand Teton National Park, we arrived at Trails End Campground. The name of the campground is Trails End, which is located at the trail's end. We stayed overnight here so that we could start backpacking early in the morning next day.
On the way from Teton, the weather was not very good, actually there was a sign of big storm. Luckily we were in the car. The rain again came when we arrived at the campground, so we stayed in the car for a while, then blue sky came. So we went outside and ate dinner. Dinner was sushi pack from Smith's (this is similar to Safeway in the Bay Area, Star Market in Boston). Sushi from American grocery store in Wyoming was mediocre, but better than nothing.
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| Campsite |
Another fun with this campsite was campfire! I LOVE campfire by foraging, but not by purchasing woods at store. During backpacking in Teton, campfires are strictly prohibited, so it was so much fun!
This campsite has a parking lot for horse trailers. Multiple horse trailers were there and more than 10 horses were resting. They are very cute!
After dinner while we were enjoying fire, we saw two backpackers going up the hill on the trail with headlamps. Mr.N said that they were probably CDT hikers. They probably resupplied food in nearby town Pinedale, did a hitch hike to the trailhead from likely a camper at the campground, then started hiking at 9 p.m. How hardcore the CDT hikers are.
For those of you who have never heard of: CDT stands for Continental Divide Trail. 3100 miles total, meaning 4989 km. It connects Mexico-US border and Canada-US border through New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana. One of the long distance trails in the United States in addition to Pacific Crest Trail and Appalachian Trail.
Next morning we drove 1 minute to the trailhead. I was surprised by seeing so.many.cars in the parking lot. That was as popular as...or maybe more popular than Grand Teton National Park.
At the trailhead there was a guy also starting. He asked us where we were heading, we said Titcomb basin. He also, but because he had an ice axe, Mr.N asked if the guy was attempt to climb a peak. He said this time was just scouting. Then he started hiking and we did too. However, literally 3 second later, he disappeared and we never saw him. He was super duper fast.
Within 1 hour we met a couple of backpackers group heading out. They told us we missed a storm a day before. The trail was really muddy and it seemed that the storm was big.
Then we saw a couple who were walking with llamas. Each person had a l;ama. In the middle of the trail one llama sat down. She was protesting. She was like, "I am tired! I don't wanna walk. I WILL rest!" The lady's llama was protesting.
So the guy gave his llama water and took out food for his llama. The lady said her llama usually got excited if the llama saw food. However this time, her llama put even her neck on the ground! (the lama was sitting but the neck was still standing). Now body and neck were both on the ground. It was sooooo cute and soooo funny. Because we had our long distance to go that day, we left there. Hope they found a way to encourage the lama to walk again.
All people on the trail were backpackers, but one group was hiking towards Titcomb basin. They were old guys (70's I guess). I was impressed how hardcore they were.
To be continued...
Only a less than a mile to the Amphitheater Lake from Surprise Lake.
Then Amphitheater Lake! It was 3000 feet elevation gain, but I didn't feel any difficulty. Probably because 1) trail is not rocky and easy to walk, 2) trail is not straight up, switchback is offered
About 1), I mentioned that on a previous entry, but 2) is also a big factor to make a hike easier compared to hikes in East. There is not a single switchback in the East, so I was appreciating how generous the Teton National park made a trail full of switchback. I had never thought about this until I lived in the East. It is funny!
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| Amphitheater Lake |
Amphitheater lake is very gorgeous. High mountain and really calm water at the bottom. It was a beautiful day with blue sky. We had a great time sitting at the shore and eating lunch and chilling.
Mr.N and Ms.F1 jumped into a lake. It makes sense people who grew up in Montana are not afraid of cold water. To me it is too cold! I was wearing a jacket even on a sunny day on a warm rock.
Behind us sometime pika were communicating, "Peeeee!"
Pikas look like rodents but closest animal is rabbits. They are so cute! One of pikas ran behind us with carrying grass. They dehydrate grass and store for winter food. Cute cute cute.....
After we enjoyed being at a beautiful lake, we started descending. Some clouds came and thunder sounds were generated in the distance, but nobody cares in this area. It is common to have a short thunderstorm in the afternoon, people just continue to hike.
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| Eating eating |
On the way back there were two nice meetings. One is greedy squirrel. He got a stash and he was so focused on eating pine cone. Cute! It must be really yummy.
Another meeting was two 82 years old women, twins. 82 (if I remember correctly, anyway 80-something) girls who went to Stanford, which means that they are really clever, especially considering the era they went to college, were hiking strong. Wow. Even more surprisingly, one of them will climb Grand Teton in a few weeks and will beat a record of the oldest person who climbs Grand Teton. It is super impressive and I though I also want to keep hiking until such kind of age.
This was a very beautiful hike.
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| Bison |
After the hike, we drove back to our campground. On the way, we saw a bunch of bison. There are babies and kids!
Two babies were captured in the right picture. Babies have lighter color. Baby bisons are so cute!
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| Bison crossing the road |
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| Baby running |
Luckily, we encountered the bison group crossing a road from one side of grass field to the other. All cars stopped for bisons, but they might be scared, they ran to cross the road. After running and reached the other side of the field, bisons seemed to feel secured and relived, and stopped running and started walking.
The running bison, especially babies were very cute as you can see in the picture above.
Then we stopped by Oxbow Bend Turnout. There is a famous photo taken by Ansel Adams in the Teton. Ansel Adams is a famous photographer who took many beautiful ones in the wilderness in the West. First time I heard his name was when I went to Ansel Adams wilderness. It is in the Eastern Sierra. My favorite spot in the wilderness is Thousand Island Lake which reside within the Ansel Adams Wilderness.
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| At Oxbow Bend Turnout |
His famous picture in the Teton contains Teton mountains and snake river. The specific point he took it was Snake River Overlook, but Oxbow Bend Turnout was also great. It was drizzling when we stopped there and the drops turned out shiny in my picture. In any weather, there is beauty there. I am glad that Teton offered a variety of weather, including sunny, cloudy, thunder, and drizzling, but not rainy days. Rainy days are also pretty, I admit, but I also confess not very happy for hiking.
Mr.N and I took many pictures and Ms.F1 and Ms.L focused on eating chips for the first half and then switched to taking pictures on the latter half.
I asked Mr.N, "Oh they are eating chips, maybe bored, should we hurry up?"
Mr.N said, "They are spoiled by beautiful view in the West, so it is okay."
Then Ms.F1 wanted alcohol for evening, so we went to general store. Ms.F1 bought wine, Mr.N bought beer.
At the campground we had campfire, had salad, soup, alcohol, etc and had fun. Suddenly at 8:30 p.m, strong winds came and rain came so we ran into the tents and slept.
We had great day with spectacular scenery.
This day we went day hiking.
To avoid parking far away from a trailhead, we had planned to get up early at 6 a.m. (although we woke up at 6:30).
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| Teton range and prairie |
Our plan was to hike up to Amphitheater lake from Lupine Meadows Trailhead. On the way from Colter Bay campground to the trailhead, the morning view was pretty. Big Jackson lake, and continuous Teton range on the right. The left is big prairie.
Geology here is interesting. One side high mountains at over 13000 feet (~4000 meters) and the other side vast flat prairies. You could get an idea from the picture above. According to a park brochure, Teton fault rose one side and the other dropped by earthquakes. The mountains were eroded by rain/glaciers. Surprisingly these mountains are one of the youngest in the world! Wow.
The parking lot at the trailhead was not crowded this day. It was unexpected, compared to the day before. We realized that this day was Monday. That means still people living in the driving distance come here for weekend is the majority of the crowds. Luckily we were able to park right in front of trailhead in the shade.
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| trailhead |
The left picture is the sign at the trailhead. 4.8 miles to the Amphitheater lake, and +3000 feet elevation gain.
I started walking and immediately felt how easy to walk on a trail in the West compared to East. Not rocky at all. No need to use hands to proceed a hike. That's what I remembered all the hikes in California, Colorado, Utah, Montana, Arizona, and all the West. It is nice.
All the way to the lake, there were many many colorful pretty flowers. These below are the representative, but X1000 times of flower there. From red, yellow, blue, to violet, I thought I saw all the colors I knew and beyond. It is very pleasant to hike such a pretty trail even if that was a continuous uphill.
Ms.F1 told us that she would be slow, because she was still in the process from surgery, but actually she did great. She was leading the hike!
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| Lakes and Jackson Hole |
On the way not only pretty flowers, but also beautiful lake and vast Jackson Hole valley was visible. In the right picture Bradley Lake and Taggart Lake are visible. Over the lake and forest, immense Jackson Hole valley is seen. Over that another mountain range stands.
I had never seen this sort of scenery: different kinds of geological features in one sight. That moved me with surprises and wonders.
Mr.N and Ms.L taught me that there are many elk in the valley in the winter. Wow. So dynamic.
Now we reached the Surprise Lake. Ahhh. So beautiful. Blue transparent water surface reflecting massive mountains. The mixture of white, grey, and green makes such a touching view. If I have three colors of ink, I never create such beauty. This is magical. I wanted to see this style, which is very Western, for a long time since I moved to East. WONDERFUL.
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| Surprise Lake |
There are official backpacking campsites here. It would be nice to spend a night here. Mr.N and I was enjoying the view here, but we noticed that Mr.F1 and Ms.L went straight to the Amphitheater lake. Good, they were goal-oriented. We started walking to catch them up.
To be continued...
This summer we went to Wyoming for backpacking. First destination was Grand Teton National Park!
Friday evening at 4:16 p.m., I finished my experiment (FYI: I am a scientist). 4:17 p.m., I left work to head for Boston airport. Because traffic is insane in Boston in the evening rush hour, I decided to take public transportation. Via T line, I arrived the airport around 5:30 p.m.
Flight is to Salt Lake City, Utah. SLC is the most convenient city to fly to go to Grand Teton. There is an airport in Jackson, which is very close to Grand Teton, however, there is no direct flight from Boston and more expensive than direct flight to SLC.
Flight was at 7:30 p.m. with JetBlue. Everything was fine, but they didn't provide earphones. They sell with $5. Stingy!
Also the entertainment display was not working for a lady at the row in front of mine. She sat diagonally, so I was able to see half of her face talking to a flight attendant on an aisle. I could tell how pissed she was from half of her facial expression. The flight attendant said some of the seats' displays just didn't work and tried to finish the conversation. The lady asked if she could get cash back. The flight attendant said yes and to fill out her name/seats etc on a tablet device.
Learning 1 : next time if display is not working I will ask cash back!
Learning 2: JetBlue attitude is not very sincere.
Because we arrived in SLC at midnight, we decided to stay at a hotel. It is only $60 for 2 people with free breadfast. AirBnB is about $30/person, so this was a good deal.
Next day we drove to Grand Teton. Utah's scenery is really nice. There are many high mountains, dry mountains, and some Utah-ish orange rocks. West is my favorite!!!
I saw a In-N-Out burger on the way and I got so excited. In-N-Out is my favorite burger and only fast food I approve. It used to be only in California, but now I learned it expanded into some Western states, including Utah. I decided to stop by In-N-Out on the final day to the airport.
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| Teton |
After 5 hours of drive, we entered the Grand Teton National Park. This was my first time visiting Grand Teton. Soon Grand Teton was in my sight! I was just wowed. The mountains standing high are so cool. Handsome. The granite with white snow in the blue sky with this region-specific shapes of clouds. Every aspect of the sight is special and special time for us.
Then, we went to the visitor center in the Grand Teton National Park to check out the condition of trail. The Paintbrush Divide, where we would go through during our backpacking was signed "require ice axe"
Hmmmm. We didn't bring it. Mr.N said that rangers usually exaggerate the situation and often don't need ice axe when they require it. I was concerned, because I don't have much experience with snow. We thought for a while and I decided to buy it, because I don't have it at home. I can use it in the future. Mr.N has already an ice axe at home, so he decided to rent one. It is better just to have it in case rather than turning around.
Then we headed for Colter Bay campground. We planned to meet with Ms.L (Mr.N's mother) and Ms.F1 (Mr.N's sister) here. They live in Montana and drove to Wyoming to meet with us. Kindly, Ms.L came to Teton a day before and secured the campsite. In Grand Teton, online reservation is not available. You need to show up to get a site by being in line. Thanks to Ms.L, we only needed to show up. We met Ms.L in a year, and Ms.F1 in a couple of years. Nice to see them, especially in the wilderness.
