Last Weekend

I went to the Tetons with Nathan, Chris, and Nick, and I've been waiting for Chris and Nick to post their pictures  of the trip so that I could ruthlessly steal them and add them in here...but they're slackers and have not done so.  You'll have to deal with a few less pictures than normal, oh no!

Nathan lives in Jackson, WY, right outside of the park, and was going home with his roommate for the weekend.  He said that we could crash at his house Friday night and then we'd go hiking on Saturday.  On the way down we stopped in Yellowstone because Chris and I hadn't been there.  Nick has many times over, which is ironic because he really doesn't like Yellowstone...he thinks it's too touristy.  Now that I've been there I have to agree...

Though I really, really, really liked how much blue action was going on here...

...and this was incredibly neat, despite being at least 100 degrees because of the steam...

Old Faithful was just ridiculous.  The three of us spent more time being entertained by the people-watching than the geyser.

Definitely touristy.  I didn't really want to battle the crowd to get a picture, so I just lifted the camera up over my head.  This means worst horizon lines ever!

The Old Faithful Inn was amazing, though, even if you're not an architecture nerd.

After this we drove on our way through the park and entered Grand Teton National Park, which impressed us far more than Yellowstone did as soon as we got near Jackson Lake and the mountain range came into full view.  That it's not so touristy also gives it points.  And that people didn't (illegally!) stop their cars in the middle of the road to look at a bison.  Or elk.  Or marmot.  Wow those people are annoying.

We stopped by the visitor's center for a bathroom break, food break, and to see what time we needed to show up to get a backpacking permit.  Turns out that that time was 8 AM.

For some reason it took them a much longer time than necessary to read that sign, so I got bored and took some window-pictures.  Dig the matching shorts and tube socks?

We got to drive past the range while the sun was setting.  I think this was when I heard Nick in the backseat go "Nick, stop reading trail maps and look at pretty things!"

I didn't really get any other good pictures...

Nathan's parents are both park rangers and so they had every map of the park known to man.  They were also very keen on bear spray even though we told them we already had bear spray...  They boarded us for the night and made us scones for breakfast the next day!  And then it was off to get a haircut for Nathan and then to get a permit!  The trail we wanted to hike was still covered with snow, and although that's our specialty, they wouldn't let us go on it without ice axes.  The appeal of hiking with ice axes wasn't quite enough to justify the cost for us, so we went on another, slightly harder trail...up Granite Canyon to the divide and then back down Open Canyon.

The morning started out warm...some beginning of the trail scenery here...

..and definitely only got warmer.  It was one of the hottest days I've experienced out here.  We kept taking breaks to dunk our hats and heads in the creek, which felt amaaaazing.

At one point Nick rounded the corner and had a moose's butt in his face.  We scampered around the corner as fast as we could - I don't think it even noticed us - shouted, and then cautiously rounded it again.  We would go on to encounter more moose as the day went on.

By afternoon we were climbing up the canyon walls - sad because there was no more cold creek, but nice because it was all of a sudden Wildflower Heaven.

We got to the Mt. Hunt trailhead and decided to go to the lake, which Nick claimed wasn't far but really is waaaay up that hill in the picture below.  I hate steep climbs, and partway up Nick looked down from where he was (way ahead) and just shouted "sorry!".  He's usually quite wrong about how hard most climbs are, so I wasn't surprised much.  The guys left their extremely heavy packs with some kind campers near the trail, but I kept mine because it was light and had food.  Me without food = bad news for anyone around.

 

We went to the lake with the idea of swimming, but it was so cold that only Chris got in.  On the way back Nick had a Diabetic Crisis, so it turned out to be a very good thing the food was with us.  Chris and I were walking in the front when we hear Nathan go "uhhh...guys...you should probably come back here" and Nick's just collapsed in the middle of the trail.  After a food break everything was fine, but Nick was rather gloomy the rest of the day which was very out of character.  He said it just came out of nowhere, so I don't know why he'd beat himself up over it happening... *shrug*

Once we got back to our packs we took another break to filter water - and wow, water filters are the most handy things anyone who backpacks could possibly own.  There is no convincing me otherwise.

Nick still gloomy.

Unfortunately after this we still had to hike to our designated camping area, which was further up the mountainside. 

By the time we got to our camping area we were so worn out we just picked a spot in the beginning of the zone, which meant more hiking for us the next day.  We also found out that it meant more mosquitoes, and so as soon as dinner was done we retired to the tent and went to bed.

The next day we woke up, packed up while dodging mosquitoes, and made our way to a creek to filter water and have breakfast.  Creeks are so, so, so handy.

About this time I realized my hair was INSANE.  Apparently sweat, dirt, sunscreen, and sleep make for a decent hair gel.  (Oh and parents, my face is no longer broken haha.)

After breakfast we continued on to the Mt. Hunt divide.  While hiking we realized that the reason I've been dying the past two hikes has been because Nick had been leading, and we have two opposite hiking styles.  He's an endurance master and I'm basically a sprint-hiker.  Near the divide Chris and I let him and Nathan continue plodding up the mountain and then sprint-hiked our way after them.  I fared so much better :D

Yay!  Please note that the divide is higher in elevation than the mountain we climbed last weekend.  We had lunch and then let Endurance Nick plod down the mountain the same way. I didn't care about the way down, but Chris prefers sprint-hiking down as well...

We had a pretty uneventful hike compared to the day before...stopped at a creek partway down to get more water and cool off because it was still insanely hot.  Around this time we noticed that our shirts were crusty in swaths from all of the salt in our sweat.  Basically, we were disgusting.

We decided not to go to Phelps Lake to swim because we'd already hiked 23 miles and were just exhausted.  Back at the Trailhead we realized that the trailhead map didn't have a good chunk of our hike on it, even though our maps did...  There should be a line connecting Granite Canyon (from near Marion Lake) to the Mt. Hunt divide.  Might explain why we only saw one other person on it all weekend.

Back at Nathan's his parents had made us dinner, and there was no better food in the world at the time.  Then Nick, Chris, and I took off and made our way back to Bozeman via Idaho, which Nathan suggested because he likes the wheat fields.  Nick began the drive and I finished it after we stopped in West Yellowstone for a snack break.

The Tetons from the Idaho side: