Thursday July 26th
Again, as it was a driving day, we woke up early to break down the camper and get on the road. With the exception of Grand Teton we had campsite reservations for all of our destinations. Grand Teton allows very few of its hundreds of sites to be reserved online, and we were unable to get one. So this is definitely one time we wanted to arrive early as sites were first come first serve. We had decided to head towards Gros Ventre (apparently this is a French word pronounced Grow Vaunt not Gross Venture). We choose this locations as it would be closer to Grand Teton, for hiking, and to Jackson, for civilization.
We were able to secure a lovely campsite, again no hook ups, without any issues, although the campground, and all sites in the park, did fill later that day. We got our campsite all situated then headed to Jackson to do some exploring.
We checked out Snake River Brewing Company, which offered some excellent beers.
Then we headed around town to give ourselves a little walking tour. We stopped in a couple of outdoor stores to make some additional purchases such as Croakies for me, bear spray for hiking, and a bigger water filtration pouch to make water filtration less tedious.
We took an obligatory selfie with the elk antler arches in the town center. Before you get in a tizzy, know that elks drop/shed their antlers yearly and the local boy scouts go out into the fields to pick them up to be used for decoration. No elk were harmed in the making of these arches. They do have a large Elk preserve between Grand Teton and Jackson, however this is primarily their winter refuge as they stick to the higher elevations and cooler temperatures in the summer.
After our walk, we went back to the camper for dinner, planning, and sleeping.
Friday July 27th
This was the day that we decided to do a big hike. We had chosen Amphitheater Lake, as it was desired length, 9 to 10 miles, and desired difficulty, strenuous, with the promise of pretty incredible views. We woke fairly early to get started by 7am, but it did take us a little while to get ourselves together and to make it to the trailhead, so closer to 730 start time. This trail, like many out West, ascended the whole way out, and descended continuously back. Overall the trail gained 3000ft to peak at 9700ft over the course of 4.5 miles or so, as I said, strenuous.
It traversed through mature forest, which we enjoyed while walking through very low hanging clouds/morning fog. Getting above the forest and cloud line afforded us our first sites of Grand Teton, as we would be climbing essentially half way up the mountain. After the forest it traversed across meadows overlooking lower lakes, which was incredibly beautiful. Unfortunately this was the beginning of many long switchbacks that would guide us to the top.
We like to consider ourselves to be fairly in shape, especially when it comes to activities like hiking which seem fairly straight forward. However, this hike tested us. The altitude was getting to us. We had slowly been working our way up to higher and higher base altitude for our campsites: Badlands 5000ft, Ten Sleep 6000ft, Grand Teton 6500ft, with plans for 7700ft at Yellowstone. By slowly working our way up, I mean still over the course of about a week, which is not enough time to truly acclimate. By the time we had gotten to 9000ft on this hike we were moving at a glacial pace. Every time we would stop to catch our breath it seemed like it only took a few more steps to get out of breath again. Yet we persisted. We made it to the top after about 4 hours of hiking and enjoyed some truly incredible views of two glacial lakes with the Tetons rising up behind.
We were able to take pictures, rest, and refuel with our standard hiking grub: clif bars, pop tarts, apples, trail mix. Greg took an extra little trail up higher into a notch to get better views while I continued to recover. We made our way back down the mountain in close to half the time it took to go up.
We were totally exhausted by the time we made it down and ready to relax back at the campsite. We made some dinner, drank some beer, read, and just relaxed for the rest of the night.
Saturday July 28th
After our big hike we decided to have a more relaxed day. So we slept in and then headed to Jenny Lake. At the lake we busted out our bikes for the first time on the trip. We biked from Jenny Lake to Moose Junction, about 9 miles. They have a very nice multi-use trail along the park road, and one that parallels 191 from Moran to Jackson. It was an easy ride and we enjoyed the big downhill quite a bit, or at least I did as it was the first time I felt comfortable going very fast because it was smooth and I could see where the road stayed straight.
At the Junction we were able to check out the place we would meet the next day for our boat tour in addition to a couple of outdoor stores. We were in the market for a sun shirt. Our climbing guide had a lightweight moisture wicking sun shirt with a hoodie that had SPF 50 in it so he did not have to worry about burning or sunscreen; we were jealous. We also noted that they had a grocery store stocking up on our way out the next day.
We biked back to Jenny Lake. At this point we realized apparently we had been biking slowly downhill the whole way out as we were now biking slowly uphill, which was much less enjoyable. However the views were even better as we now had the Tetons looking out at us and not at our backs.
At Jenny Lake we decided to go for a quick hike, you know, ideally 2 miles on relatively flat ground. We just walked out until we decided to turn our stop. En route, we made the decision to go out to Moose Ponds at it sounded nice enough and per the signs was closer than the other stops. At Moose Ponds we were commenting on the poor naming as there was no moose to be seen, until other hikers drew our eyes over to a moose mom and baby. We stayed to watch for a while and were rewarded with them moving out of the brush and towards the ponds. Moose love ponds because they eat aquatic vegetation. They are also amazingly agile swimmers who can dive up to 18 ft and hold their breath for up to 1 minute! We took a slew of pictures.
We then decided to finish the Moose Pond Loop which was another couple miles but did bring us back to the car. Overall, it was a very pleasant day.
The plan for the rest of the day was hitting up necessities like showers, laundry, and the grocery store. We asked at the check in for our campground and discovered our shower options were as follows: Drive 1+ hour across the park to another campground for showers but no laundry or drive back into Jackson about 20 minutes and pay $7 each to get a shower at a rec center, then move to a laundromat a couple of miles away. As we felt $14 for showers was a little steep, I personally opted for a self-administered sponge bath out of our dishwashing tubs followed by a tub hair cleanse with use of solo cup, all classy like. It felt amazing. Then we headed into town for the laundromat and grocery which were in the same parking lot. We also decided to eat dinner out, but took our time deciding on a location.
The best part about going to a Laundromat is that they have massive washers and dryers, so we could fit all of our clothes into one massive 23 minute load for the low price of $4.25, totally worth it. So I washed and dried, Greg grocery shopped, all in the same parking lot.
At this point we were very hungry, hungry enough to make decisions. We opted for MacPhail’s, a locally owned burger and shake joint. It was an excessive amount of high caloric food, of which we relished every single bite, and everyone else took home doggy bags. Burning 3000 calories a day has its benefits.
We headed back to the camper and slept the deep sleep of well-fed individuals.
Sunday July 29th
Today we woke up relatively early, ate breakfast, and headed to Moose Junction. Our early breakfast of choice has become yogurt with granola. At Moose Junction we checked in for our scenic river cruise, which takes you down the Snake River inside the national park. Thank you Paul Koeppen for this awesome gift. We met the other family on our trip, a family of 5 with two boys and a girl all in late high school to early college. Then we set off with our guide, Scott.
It was beautiful scenery with some intermittent wildlife. We caught a Pelican and a whole family of Bald Eagles in addition to some marmots cheering us on from their rocky perches. A small group of pictures below:
We got back to our parking lot, grabbed lunch and headed on to Yellowstone.
Up Next: You guessed it, Yellowstone!
Honey Popping 