There are days when I love living in Jackson, and days when I hate it. I think that if I made a pro/con list for both Seattle and Jackson Hole, the lists would be nearly equal in length. This place is gorgeous, as is Seattle...but sometimes, it's nice to drive only 30 minutes and find yourself in near wilderness after 20 minutes of hiking. That is Jackson Hole. David and I headed off to the Death Canyon trail for a weekend stint up in the woods. We passed the familiar sight of the Phelps Lake Overlook, only this time, we continued on.
Oh yes, and I forgot to mention that we saw our familiar friend the moose on the side of the road to the trailhead. Meet him:
This hike turned out to be one of the most beautiful hikes I've ever been on. It was pretty crowded with people at times, but the higher we hiked into the canyon, the more solitude we found.
Eventually, after over seven miles of hiking, we reached the bottom of the Death Canyon Shelf. It's a pretty incredible view in this basin. Unfortunately, we could see the storm clouds rolling in so we set up camp as soon as possible.
Not even ten minutes after pitching the tent, the storm had developed into a monster. Thunder and lightning roared in the sky above us, followed by an angry hail. At first I was worried that our tent couldn't withstand the hail but luckily it did and we stayed safe and dry.
Finally we were able to emerge from our shelter to make dinner. Our friend Alex met up with us and told us that he had just seen a bear not more then 200 yards away from where we were camping. Great. This trip just gets better and better...
It wasn't such a big deal. All of us are very cautious when camping in this wild terrain and are respectful of the animals that inhabit our surroundings. We are the strangers here. We never ended up seeing the bear. After running into some trail maintenance crew members we found out that the bear Alex saw frequents the area and doesn't bother humans. Whew!
We spent the night laughing and playing cards in Alex's tent due to the fire regulations. It turned out to be tons of fun and being together in such a close proximity helped with staying warm. Rain began to pour as the night went on, and the sun finally came out in the morning, if only for a brief period of time. I grabbed a quick shot of the muddy ground as I looked out my tent.
I was so hungry and tired, I knew that I wouldn't have much energy to do any extra hiking. As we looked up at the shelf, we could see the clouds getting darker and darker. All of us decided that it would be a good idea to head out.
As we hiked out, we saw two more moose. They were off hanging out in a field near the trail. I also grabbed this shot of Alex crossing this riverin the midst of getting swarmed by evil mosquitoes. I ended up with a nasty bite on my calf, but it was worth it:
As always, I look forward to our next destination. Next time I hope we can stay a little bit drier. I guess you really can't predict Teton weather.
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