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Rush Hour Bison
One of the many Bison on their morning commute thru Yellowstone.I took a four day jaunt down to Grand Teton National Park and took a nice three day tour of some of the glacial lakes at the base of the Teton range and Two Oceans lake in the Northeastern part of the Park.
Day 1: Two Oceans Lake and Hermitage Point
The first day started out very bland and overcast with threats of drizzly doom intermittent thru-out my hike around Two Ocean's lake. The whole day I saw hardly a soul except for the occasional coyote, moose cow, and a whole herd of elk doing their thang out in the willy wacks. It was a little intimidating being out in bear country by myself, but armed with my trusty walking stick and a healthy dose of paranoia to fuel my sporadic and random shouts, songs, and vocal mumbilings, I didn't encounter one bear. After the Two Ocean's loop, I wandered back to my truck and went a mudding a long the pacific creek road to Cutler Bay where I secured my backcountry camping permits and started the five mile trek to hermitage point.
Somewhere along the way I took a detour and ended up on a closed trail
Day1: The KARRAAKKAA Bird
Here's a fuzzy picture of that Sand Hill Crane, I felt like I was trying to photograph Bigfoot or something. (which isn't hard to do because the whole cutler bay area is just a teaming maze of trails intersecting each other) and came face to face with a
Juvenile Sand Hill Crane. The conversation went a little something like this:
Crane:KKKAAARRRROOOOOOO
Me:HOLY $%!(BADWIDTH)%!@(MISSING)#$, What the hell is that?
Crane: KKAAAARRRROOOOOO KAAAARRRRROOOOOO
Me: You are one large ugly bird, I'm just trying to get to my campsite, it's getting late, I think I'll walk around you if you don't mind crazy red headed large bird shouting thing.
Crane: (flappy, flappy wings) (walky walky into forest edge) KARRRoooooooo Rooooo Roooo
Me: Thanks Mr. Crane, I owe you one, I won't bug you again. (shortly afterwards, I realize I'm on a no longer maintained trail and turn around to experience the wraith of the KARROOOOing Crane yet again)
I finally made it to the hermitage point campsite about an hour and a half before sunset and promptly set up camp, ate dinner, and in a paranoid fashion took anything that was remotely in contact with food (pants included) and shoved them into the provided bear box. This campsite has an amazing view of the Grand Teton across from Jackson Lake. I slept fairly well considering the
Coyote's in West Thumb
Early Morning Coyote slinking around in Yellowstone. temperatures dropped into the 30's that evening and I was on a slope and ended up mushing my face into the side of the tent...ok, it wasn't the most restful sleep, but I slept and woke up to a slight frost the following morning.
Day Two: Leaving Hermitage Point to wrestle a canoe and hike String and Leigh Lakes.
The hike out of Hermitage point had a lot of avian action going on. I encountered three bald eagles, two red tailed hawks (potentially young bald eagles), a flock of pelicans, another crazy Sandhill KARRROOing Crane of doom, some ducks, Canadian Geese and a Partridge in a Pear Tree. From Culter Bay I drove up to Moran to meet my friend Giovanni who happens to be a River Ranger at the park. The original plan was to take a canoe and paddle along String and Leigh lake, but as you see from the pictures, it didn't quite work out the way we planned. So instead I went hiking and hiked into Campsite #15 on Leigh lake and it is perhaps one of the most beautiful secluded campsites I've ever been at. It has it's own little private sand beach on
Coyote Slinking Away
Early Morning Coyote slinking around in Yellowstone. Leigh lake, with an amazing view of Mount Moran and their isn't a soul around. After setting up camp, I strolled around String Lake and saw some pretty sweet trail structures (they were building a bunch of water bars, had some nice Freeway, and a decent stair case) but alas I couldn't find the
Grip Hoist that pulled all the rocks from the woods to the trail. One thing I noticed is the change in old lodge pole pine forest and a forest recovering from a fire is how amazingly different they look. One is very reminescent of the Hemlock stands back east (but smaller) and the other is a lush sage grassy/baby tree filled boulder field with marmots running amok like they had nothing better to do. After all my hiking, I went back to camp, jumped into the glacial lake a couple of time (It was as cold as a glacier, but what do you expect from a glacial lake, tropical temperatures?) and than gathered wood for a fire that evening. I enjoyed a little fire and a nice dinner and than retired for the evening.
Day Three: Leigh, Bearpaw, Trapper, and North Jenny Lake
This was a
Coyote Close Up
All The Coyote and Buffalo Pictures were taken in Yellowstone National Park very nice day, though a busy one (I hiked roughly 16 miles this day) as I went up to Bearpaw and Trapper lake which is a really nice hike thru some alpine meadows and recovering forest area. The wildlife on this side of the park isn't as prominent as by Two Oceans lake, but I think that is mostly due to the popularity of the west side of the park. North Jenny lake was also a cool walk, lots of glacial till and recovering forest. The hike ended up by Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point both very beautiful. Hidden Falls still had a bunch of snow around it, but since I was wearing my steel toe logger boots, I figured what the hell and tromped on thru to take a look. It was amazing, it was this huge waterfall the fueled the crazy cascade canyon creek (how's that for alliteration, BOOYAA). Inspiration Point was truely Inspirational, behind you is the Teton Range, the Grand Teton on you left and Mt. Owens on your Right and than in front is a great view of Jenny Lake and the sagebrush fields left over by the glaciers. I meet a cool family on
Holy Snow
This is the Snow Bank on my way down to the Tetons. top of inspiration point. They all had their binoculars out and were looking over the lake and the conversation went a little like this:
Me:Oh do you guys see a moose out near the lake? (Thinking I was clever, as I had got info that a Moose frequents Jenny Lake in the late afternoon)
Them: Oh no, It's a Yellow Bellied (insert weird bird name here sounds something like WYERHENEHTEREKachaikda)
Me:OOOOOOOOHHHHHH
They let me look at the little bird creature and it was quite pretty it had a yellow body, red head, and black feathers. I also met this family on the way back down, they had spotted some weird bobbing bird that jumps into the stream and walks around the bottom to collect food. I struck up a nice conversation with them, only to find out that they know the same Biologist at Acadia National Park, that worked with the Maine Conservation Corp on upper Hadlock Pond! It's a small freaking world. On my way back to the trail head, I came face to face with a Bull Moose who was grazing in the trail. I waited a whole twenty minutes just watching him eat and stare at me
The Road In
From South Yellowstone to the Tetons before I decided to bushwack around the big fella and continue on my way. One last thing about the trail, on the way up to Inspiration Point, they actually BLEW OUT a huge part of the mountain to make the trail, it's something else if you actually take the time to stop and realize you're walking in what used to be complete solid rock. That evening I stayed at the Teton National Forest outside of the park, it was pretty uneventful.
Day Four: Homeward Bound and other cool things
That morning I went into Jackson Hole with Giovanni had not one, but two breakfast's, one at a bagel shop and the other at the Bunnery both exquisite. Some other cool things that occured on this trip and if you ever make it over this way, you should check out, were the following:*The old historic structures and churches in Grand Teton National Park.
*The amount of snow that was still in south Yellowstone on the drive down and back.
*The amount of wildlife in Yellowstone is always fun (on the way to Grand Teton, I had a large delay as 40-50 Buffalo decided to migrate on the highway -it was
morning rush hour)
*Stopping to see Old Faithful go off (Expected wait time if going to Old Faithful at random, 35 minutes to next erruption which is the perfect amount of time to do the 1 mile hike to the Old Faithful Overlook which is less crowded than the ampitheater)
It was a sweet trip and if I were to do it again, I think I would make the Lake Tour a true Lake Tour and go from BearPaw/Trapper Lake all the way down to Taggert Lake and back. I wish the pictures could really do this park justice, but unfortunately I am afraid that they don't.
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Sara K
non-member comment
sweet ass pictures!
Hey Lukester, those are some crazy cool pictures you have there. That looks like it was an incredible trip! I think Erik and I will definitely have to try to get through there on our way out this summer.... See you in a couple months! P.S. Can you imagine trying to tie that canoe onto the Aspire? Aw, RIP little periwinkle car....