birthday camping trip.

The spring weather has fully kicked in here with pleasant temperatures and afternoon rainstorms. It seems so pretty but the summer activities haven't fully developed quite yet. Teton Park road is open but most of the campsites are not, and trails are mostly snow-covered. Not to mention they are closing my beloved "lunch break hike" up High School Butte because it's privately owned and the family wants to revegitate it. Sad! Anyway, my birthday rolled around a few days ago and I was trying to think of something fun to do that didn't involve meeting up with a bunch of friends at a bar. Most of my friends are out of town for off-season right now, so doing something simple with David sounded like the perfect option. I called around to the National Forest offices and Teton Park office and found it difficult to find any campsites that were open. Settling for the semi-boring and $20/night Gros Ventre Campground off of the road to Kelly seemed like what we should do. We drove out there, noticing a stash of RVs parked along the river. Ugh. With some bad weather rolling through, we decided to check out the road up Shadow Mountain and see if it really was "snowed in." When we reached the base we laughed as we watched a car trying to navigate through a heard of bison (they were EVERYWHERE!) to get to its driveway. The base of the mountain had three open campsites which all stared the Tetons straight in the face. There was a closed sign for the road up the mountain, but what we were looking at seemed perfect! The rain stopped and the sun peeked through the abundance of fluffy clouds. We enjoyed an amazing dinner of salmon pesto pasta (made on our camp stove) and dessert -- mocha tres leches cake -- which David made from scratch. (I'm so impressed!) It was such a beautiful evening and I wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else to celebrate my birthday.

yoga & bison

I had been working hard all week and I decided that the morning class of the Yoga Today workshop would be a great way to kick off the weekend. It was amazing, not that I thought it would be anything less. Afterward David and I loaded up the car to head up to Shadow Mountain again. I seriously can't resist the views from up there. It's sooo Wyoming. On our way out we ran into a heard of bison crossing the road (this happens frequently, I just happened to have my camera en tow this time!).

hangin out in front of the view from our campsite.

we learned vishmamitrasana ("friend of the universe" pose) in class this morning. it lined up perfectly with the mountains!

full moon rise.

camping on shadow mountain

Last night I got to go camping on Shadow Mountain. It was a beautiful way to kick off the summer. There was a little bit of rain, but overall it was a wonderful evening. It felt so good to sleep outside again!!

Falling in Love with Fall

As I stare out my window, dark clouds are roaring over the Tetons. The tired yellow aspen leaves cling to their branches, only to be soon whipped off by a frosty gust of wind. Fall is quickly changing into winter here. Last weekend I was driving up to Montana for a wedding and drove through a snow storm most of the way. Grizzly bears feast on roadside berries and moose are trotting around in my backyard. Yellowstone has open and closed their roads multiple times due to bad weather, and dried leaves blanket the ground. The bright colors of the valley contrast against a crisp blue sky on sunny days and snow covered mountains loom overhead. This is one of the most beautiful times of the year in Jackson Hole, and there aren't even that many people here to see it. Before all of my pretty yellow aspen leaves float to the ground I wanted to share a few photos with you that I took this fall. I was also able to sneak in one last camping trip before the snow fell. Enjoy!

Mormon Row Barn.

Classic Teton View.

Moulton Barn.

Schwabacher's Landing.

River Reflections.

More beautiful colors.

Hot air balloon ride!

Aspen Love.

This mama moose was hanging out next to my porch!

Up close and personal.

View of the Tetons at night from Shadow Mountain.

Starstruck.

Camping under the stars.

These are a few of my favorite things...

I had a random (and rare) day off in the middle of the week so I called up my friend Alex to do some hiking. We decided on the famed Garnet Canyon up in Grand Teton National Park. I'd been wanting to visit what is called "The Meadows" for a long time. It's the place where people climbing the cathedral peaks (aka the gnarly Tetons) camp before or after they make their summits. It's a 5-ish mile hike up to this spot, all uphill of course. What else would you expect out here? There is a little bit of scrambling in the end to make the final pitch up to the meadows, but nothing that a semi-athletic person can't handle. There is a huge forest fire burning in the Gros Ventres right now so the smoke settles in the valley in the mornings. It was a pretty weird day with near storm-like conditions early on and then bright blue skies in the afternoon. Here are a few shots from the trip:

Smoke in the valley.

The trail up into Garnet.

The Meadows.

Spalding Falls on the right, looking up at the Lower Saddle.

This one's for you, Middle Teton.

After a great day of hiking we picked up David and headed up to Shadow Mountain for a night of camping. The view was spectacular and it was amazing to sit up there and watch the sun set behind the Tetons. Aahhh....I love this place.