Tetons Under Foot

In our sixteen days at the Tetons, we managed to sneak in two hikes between rainstorms and cold, windy weather. (Ken's philosophy is that there's always a good day coming up for a hike, so why suffer through brutally uncomfortable miles just to say you did one?)

We especially wanted to take the Rendezvous hike (7 miles up a 4,000 foot climb, with a ride down a ski gondola at the end) and the Lake Solitude hike (15 miles round trip to a gorgeous mountain lake), but snow completely blocked both trails halfway up. We've put off both hikes for a return visit to the Tetons.

In the meantime, a moderate 5-mile roundtrip to Taggert and Bradley Lakes seemed doable as an intro hike for me; we're at 7000+ feet altitude, and I wanted to be sure I acclimated before we tried something more strenuous. This is Taggert Lake--still under a thin sheet of ice at the end of May.

Ample snow was still present at the shady parts of the trail, and sometimes a slippery, crunchy mess to get through with only hiking boots.

A wintry aspen grove. The scarring on the trunks is from elk or bison rubbing their antlers/horns. The scars turn black as the aspen recover.

One of the many wonderful views of the Tetons by trail. Snow eventually turned us back before we made it to the actual banks of Bradley Lake, but we got within seeing distance of it on this beautiful hike.

Our second hike, more than a week later and after many days of rain, was a strenuous 8-mile in-and-out in Death Canyon. It passes Phelps Lake here.

Drifts of fog continued to obscure the tops of the Tetons.

A friendly marmot.

The trail gets a bit rugged; I'm puffing a lot right about now, and glad for a camera break.

The recent rains made this river flow more than Ken has ever seen it, and he's done this hike several times. Water gushed and roared everywhere. In the park, the Snake River was close to topping its banks all over the valley, and the dam at Jackson Lake had been opened to manage water levels.

Our hike stopped abruptly at this landslide, which happened only an hour before we got to this part of the trail. A half hour before, we had met a young woman who had literally outrun the slide to get to the down (homeward) side as the hill above her gave way from saturation. She described a deep rumbling sound while it was going down and raced to beat it. She was muddy and still pretty shaken up. There was absolutely no getting over this obstacle safely, and water was still draining from the cliffs above it, keeping the whole area unstable. We reported the slide to the ranger station when we got back an hour or so later--no one had told them about it yet.

A very busy squirrel paused to chitter at me--with her mouth still full!

Another inquisitive marmot.

Nearly back, we stopped for a picnic lunch with another view of Phelps Lake and the Wind River mountains for company.

"Here, Moosey, Moosey!"

My friends Tom and Mimi say that's how they call moose in Alaska. I don't know if it works as well here in the Tetons, for it was never needed: there were enough sightings of these ginormous deer to keep people flocking and cameras clicking all over the park. In Europe, moose are called elk; I wonder what they call what we call elk, then...moose?

The Gros Ventre river, which runs behind the campground. A prime hangout for moose.

And here comes one, now--a special treat, since I'm the only one out this far to keep her company. You're supposed to keep a good distance from wildlife, so I stayed down on the river-rock ravine while she moseyed (mooseyed?) along the upper embankment. She knew I was there, but seemed unperturbed enough (and no baby around) that I just quietly backed off a little and let her decide the safe distance. I eventually sat down at the end of the rock swath (a dry creek bed that nearly flooded its banks a week later) and stayed very still, waiting for what would happen next.

She was the same old girl we saw at the unoccupied part of the campground a couple of days ago. Ms. Moose ambled and munched her way down to the river, drank a sip, took a pee in another spot, sloshed through the river in a large arc around me,...

...and stopped at the other side of the bank to keep browsing across the little stream. We were about 30 feet apart and both just hanging out in the morning sun.

Looking at her devolving winter coat, I could understand why a popular restaurant in Jackson is called The Mangy Moose.

After another twenty minutes in each other's company, Ms. Moose wandered away, and I went back to camp feeling very honored and peaceful for the personal encounter.

As Ken had predicted, other moose greeted us on the occasional morning right by our campsite. That's Ken's car in the foreground. He often spotted them in the far woods while he rode his lifecycle outside the rig.

Watch your step...moose poop is everywhere.

A moose and baby we saw from the road en route to Gros Ventre Slide, a huge mudslide that happened years ago and that has left a bowl of a scar in the side of a mountain.

A rarer sighting--a young bull moose. He's at the back end of our campsite loop, on the path I usually took to the Gros Ventre river.

Note the other photographer moving in for a better shot. This moose had five people converging from both sides. I decided to stay farther back than the others to give him escape room if he wanted it, but Mr. Moose instead plopped down for a cud chew.

I sure could have gone for a foot-long telephoto lens at this moment...

Tetons: A First Visit

We've finally made it to Grand Teton National Park, and there's still snow on them thar hills and temps in the forties--our cold-weather streak continues. Even Patchouli was reluctant to leave bed in the morning.

Ken has come here every year for the past 40 or so, and knows his way around really well. We had hoped to take many hikes in the mountains, but our 16-day stay brought 14 days of rain, fog, and cold, and snow blocked many of the upper trails. (We finally got so disgusted with the weather that we swung back into sunnier Utah to wait out the snow.)

This and the next two blog entries give some photo highlights of the days we actually got out and about in the area. Amazing and charming wildlife all over the place--most of these critters showed up on our first day here, when Ken gave me a driving tour of the area. Talk about a grand display for my first visit to the Tetons!

Rugged and snowy skyline, even at the end of May. We saw the entire topline of the mountains only once in two weeks.

The Tetons as seen from the Gros Ventre campground. What a view to enjoy on my morning run.

The typical greeting committee on the way in and out of Gros Ventre campground. They were particularly thick on the afternoon of our arrival; one big boy wisely decided to wander off the road as Ken's motorhome inched by.

Bison were always here or on the other side of the hill, where the main road runs through the park between Jackson (at the south) and Yellowstone (to the north). A few bright brown calves cavorted with the herd.

Half of Gros Ventre campground was still closed for the winter, and this old girl took advantage of the empty loops for a nibble. Ken told me we'd probably have moose closer to our rigs, as well. Notice that there's no leafing out of the cottonwoods yet, and it's already nearly June.

APB All Cars Block the Road--a bear has been sighted! Ken says he's never seen a bear this far south in the Tetons. This fellow was just beyond the visitor's center in Moose Junction; we spotted him another time later in the week, so he must hang around this area. He's a black bear, despite his honey color.

Chipmunks galore in the forests and campground. Always so darned cute bouncing around like superballs, but boy are they hard to catch in a photograph!

Coyote on the afternoon prowl along the road into Gros Ventre.

An area between campsite loops in Gros Ventre was cordoned off with yellow tape to keep people away from a cluster of hollowed out cottonwoods. The reason? These baby great horned owls. Every day, two to ten parka-clad birders would hang out here with coffee mugs and cameras, their spotting scopes trained on this hole in the tree, in hopes of seeing the babies pop out. This was the second or third year the great horned pair had nested here. I was lucky to get this shot near the end of our stay (the trees are finally leafing out).

One of the great horned parents was always hanging out in a nearby tree, watching all the action below, which included me saying good morning during my run.

Pronghorn antelope make their home alongside the bison in the grasslands between Gros Ventre and the main road. They were often too far away to get a good shot of a whole herd. Two babies sprang around after each other in a mock battle, which was fun to watch.

The ubiquitous Uinta ground squirrel. These rodents were all over the region and gave Patchouli something to drool over from his cage cabana at the campground. He nearly caught one on a walk before it dived into a hole under a shrub.

Several Mountain bluebirds made their homes at Gros Ventre, and were just about the only flash of color in this winter-drab area, aside from some yellow and neon orange tents.

Now that's a different kind of RV.

One Saturday, the SnowKing lift was running for free as a "customer appreciation day" gift. This is a small ski resort south of town. Freezing cold winds at the top, but a marvelous view of all of Jackson Hole, the Tetons (once again under clouds), and the Elk Wildlife Refuge (that big expanse of grassland to the right). Most of the elk had moved north into Yellowstone by this time of year, so we didn't see many. We were glad to have brought a lap blanket with us for the lift.