Teton Crest Trail

August 9-12, 2014

Teton Crest Trail: Granite Canyon to Paintbrush Canyon
Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming
40 miles
Gallery and Video

I endeavor to do at least one thing I love everyday… read a book, cook a meal, hook a trout… the really good days are those spent outdoors in good company. Most of the time, I am lucky enough to do a few of these things.

Some stretches in life are more memorable than others and I think the reason is that these ‘things I love’, well, I am doing those all day for weeks without end. Time stands out: Portland summers of bicycles and beer, making my way across the Costa Rican countryside during the rainy season, and exploring the great West with my best friend for 4 months. Vivid and romanticized, I hold these memories as dear, and I am lucky enough that these times just keep on coming around every corner. A few weeks this past August were the highest of the high. I married my soul mate amidst an incoming Rocky Mountain thunderstorm surrounded by a small group of intimates, viewed geysers and grizzly bears in Yellowstone National Park, fished some beautiful cutthroat trout infested waters, rafted down the Snake River in the highest concentration of bald eagles in the Lower 48, and spent a few cushy nights in the kitch resort town of Jackson, Wyoming. Weeks and weeks of good things, but the high happens to coincide with the elevation. Time spent above 9,000 feet on the Teton Crest Trail was the most colorful.

Melody and I met up with our hiking partners, Petra and Jeff, at their campsite on the north end of Grand Teton National Park. Good hiking buddies are hard to find. As Damien Jurado says, “5 miles in the walk, you already want to do them in.” These 2 were exceptional. They fired up some BBQ chicken and kale salad, one hell of a wedding gift if you ask me, and we slept soundly that night.

  

Shuttling the car to our endpoint at Jenny Lake took a good chunk out of the morning, and we started our walk late at Granite Canyon, but no bother. We would average about 10 miles a day, with more than enough sunlit hours on hand. The first day’s walk brought us up and up, 3000 feet of gain, a good challenge with sizeable packs on. We spent most of our time under cover of evergreens with a pleasant creek running nearby to cool things down. The hike led us through much brush and blind corners, and Jeff was on point, making enough noise to assure any black bears didn't find our group a surprise. We did not encounter much wildlife beyond birds and a couple of parasailers floating their way over the ridge tops, but as the trees began to give way to green subalpine meadows, the wildflower glory made itself apparent. All types that I can name- paintbrush, elephant’s head, lupine, columbine, and balsam root- and a whole lot more that I would like to learn.

The afternoon heat eventually took its toll on our collective energies, and Marion Lake could not have come soon enough. The lake is tucked below a small cirque and has that aqua-sandy color which we would see so much of. I took a quick dip and Melody and I walked back chilly and hungry to our tent. Let it be known that every campsite we slept at had a built-in bear box to store our food. A frustrating redundancy, as we were all carrying bear containers, and to anal retentive packers, those 2 extra pounds weighed heavily in our bags.

A cow moose made her way across the meadow that next morning, giving the already peaceful dawn a surreal quality. This is postcard camping. She stopped long enough to give us a once over and continued on her way over the crest of the pass we would also cross over. Our trail took us across Death Canyon Shelf and the majority of the day was spent above treeline. The alpine flowers were most present at these elevations. We were graced by 360 degree views of granite peaks, including the Grand Teton off in the distance. It was becoming more obvious why this is regarded as one of the best trails in North America.

  

Marmots had built small cities under the ground where we walked. They did not seem much afraid of us and observed the strange bipeds from a distance. Petra and Jeff did yoga. I gorged on dried fruit and jerky. Melody made every photo count. We found cougar tracks. And then we descended into Alaska Basin, soaked swollen feet in streams, and quipped on what a paradise we were walking through. The ascent out of Alaska Basin was one of the more grueling of the trip. We all took a swim in the snowmelt waters of Sunset Lake. The rocks on the more shallow parts were painful on our feet, and the water in the deep was intolerably cold, yet refreshingly necessary to stave off the heat of the day. Jeff stayed in the longest and told us how clear it was when he opened his eyes under the surface of the lake. I couldn't bear to get back in to see for myself.

Our clothes dried promptly and the final push up Hurricane Pass was the only stretch dominated by sagebrush. There were no tree stands whatsoever and I felt more like I was baking in a desert than basking in an alpine oasis. The payoff was incredible. The Tetons, Grand, Middle, and South, all splayed out before us, Table Mountain to the north, glaciers and canyons below, and lakes and creeks below them. The high point, photo opportunities, and then we were descending into South Cascade Canyon, our resting place for the night. The trail went on and on, and each campsite we came across was taken. The group was thoroughly worn out, and in my own impatience I said I would push on and claim the first campsite I came across. I jogged down steep switchbacks which I would need to return back up. And I did, eventually, claim said campsite near one of the creeks following the canyon, but not before I had thoroughly distressed my new bride for being gone too long. I feel comfortable doing things in the wilderness that I should probably not do, like jogging alone on a trail in a park with a high concentration of black bears, so let’s just say I earned the tongue-lashing I received on our walk back to the campsite.

 

That day was our longest, hence, a short evening. Our hearty trail mates made a good start the following morning, and we couples hiked separately for the first leg up North Cascade Canyon. Being next to so many streams on this trip made our thoughts drift to Oregon, a reflex for Melody and me. We caught up to our friends relaxing under a shade tree at Lake Solitude. Eager, I put together my fishing rod and started flinging spinners into the water. An 8-inch cutthroat took it on the first cast and I came up empty-handed for the remaining 10 minutes. However, watching the fish follow the spinner made me want to get out to the middle of lake with a streamer and see what those cutthroats did next.

The hike from Lake Solitude up Paintbrush Divide was exposed, 1700 feet of gain in 2 miles. I hid under the tiniest of evergreen shrubs for a few moments, and later we lounged on some leftover snowmelt. From the top of Paintbrush Divide we had great views of the northern Teton Range, including Mt. Moran. The whole range’s steep, technical summits make the rounded mountain tops outside of Logan seem like child’s play to ascend. Our path below the pass took us through scree fields and glaciers, unsteady footing. We made our way down the canyon and could see the lakes of Jackson Hole off in the distance. Our campsite lay at Holly Lake. Ospreys glided over the water’s surface in search of a meal. I fished the circumference of the lake, had some hits, and eventually came up empty. Prettiest place I’ve ever fished. My companions did sun salutations and headstands on the shoreline. It was quite a luxury hiking 10 miles a day, giving us so much daylight to relax each evening.

  

The following morning was our most eventful. The trail down Paintbrush Canyon descends quickly. The further down we were, the bushier and more wooded it became. We heard some other, unseen hikers shout. Jeff unholstered his pepper spray and yelled out for us to get off the trail. The charging black bear saw us and made a beeline into the bushes. It was all over quickly. I am grateful that that was the extent of the encounter, and I wish I could say it was all I was thinking, but I pouted being the only one who did not glimpse the bear.

The trail eventually wound out of the canyon and alongside Jenny Lake. We took a shuttle boat across the lake, our little surprise for Petra and Jeff, and they treated us to ice cream. We drove them back to their car and met up at Snake River Brewery for beers and goodbyes. Our own trip would last for another couple weeks, exploring northwestern Wyoming’s wildlands, doing things we love in every moment.

This was our honeymoon. Melody and I had our first fight as a married couple. I brought my bow tie and she a plastic bouquet, and we took photos in our underwear. This is our favorite backpacking trip, and we are grateful to have said this about so many trails in our past. We are lucky enough to know we will say it about many more in our future.

-Grasshopper