The Grand Canyon

After hiking The Teton Crest Trail we drove to Yellowstone National Park for a day so we could rest our weary backs and feet, but by the end of the week we were rested and ready to hit the road again. Our next hiking trip is in the Grand Canyon, which is a hike we've done many times before, but we just can't resist hiking it one more time.

We always hike down the South Kaibab Trail.  It's a good choice for going down rather than up because it has no water or shade. It's also a little shorter than the Bright Angel Trail.  The trailhead is nice, with trees at the top, but those trees are only at the top.

You can see the trail winding down the canyon in the middle of this picture. The trail is rather steep, but then you are hiking down the Grand Canyon!

No, those aren't steps on the trail. They're actually water breaks, and there are a lot of them, spaced just far enough apart to make hiking more difficult.

Cedar Ridge is a good place to take a break. The mule trips stop here, and it's a 3 mile round trip hike from the South Rim to Cedar Ridge.  This is a good choice for a hike if you want to see a little of the Canyon below the rim, because you can go down and up in an afternoon without any problems. Just remember to take a lot of water with you!

The Grand Canyon is so beautiful. It's hard to hike without stopping to take pictures, but none of my pictures show the Canyon's true beauty.

Skeleton Point is three miles from the trailhead, and offers a 360° view of the Grand Canyon.

The trail is that ledge on the right.

The mules are coming! These crazy people rode the mules down the Bright Angel Trail and spent the night at Phantom Ranch. Now they have to ride up the South Kaibab Trail until they can get off those mules, and trust me, they're ready to get off those mules. I know, because that's how we got to the bottom of the Grand Canyon the first time we came here, and I'd never, ever do that again.  I trust my own feet more than I trust the mules.

You can see that we're getting down into the inner canyon.

Here come the pack mules. All the supplies for Phantom Ranch come down by mule, and they take the trash and mail back up. We talked to the mule skinners, and they told us that none of the mules with humans have fallen off the trail and into the canyon, but that's not the case with the pack mules. Yikes!

Ah, we can finally see the Colorado River. The trail keeps going and going, but at least now we can see the river.

This is the Black Bridge, and we have to cross this bridge at the bottom of the Canyon to get to the trail on the north side of the river, but it's still a long way down there to that bridge.

Wait a minute! What to my wondering eyes did appear but BIG HORN SHEEP! YES! Live, and in person, big horn sheep!

A ewe's gotta go when a ewe's gotta go. Even when some human came around the bend with her camera. Bob thinks this is a terrible picture, but I had to show that we finally saw big horn sheep. I took a nice little video when she ran past me and was close enough to touch, but I can't get that video on this blog.

We finally reached the black bridge, and crossed to the other side. Now we have to hike down the long, sandy trail to get to Phantom Ranch, and our home for the night.

When you hike to Phantom Ranch you check in here and then head to your dorm or cabin. All meals are also served here in the canteen, and the food is delicious. Breakfast is scrambled eggs, bacon, pancakes, peaches, and coffee. Dinner is worth staying for too. If you make reservations early enough you can have steak, salad, baked potatoes, corn, and chocolate cake with chocolate icing. If all the steaks are reserved you can have vegetarian hikers stew, but you still get the chocolate cake!  The stew is good, but not as good as steak after hiking all those miles.

Ah, we had a cabin. I woke up at 5:30 a.m. and headed to the reservations desk to see if a cabin was available, and we were lucky. The usual procedure is to make reservations at least 11 months ahead of time. We've been here often, and we've had bunks in the dorms as well as cabins, and we definitely prefer having our own cabin.

The cabins are really cozy, and have air conditioning and heat. We were there in late September, and we needed the air conditioning this time, but it was much cooler than it's been on our previous visits.

We spent the night at Phantom Ranch and headed up the next morning. The trip tomorrow will be a much more difficult trip than our trip down.

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Teton Crest Trail - Day 4

This is our last day on the trail, and it's definitely a downhill hiking day. The trail we're on, The Cascade Canyon Trail, is really a great trail for our last day because it's not very rocky or steep. We also encountered signs of civilization on this trail, but I'm not sure if that's good or bad.

Bob's enjoying his last cup of coffee before we head out. Those Starbucks singles really taste great for breakfast on the trail.

The sun is up, but down here at our campsite it's still brisk. Ha. Did you notice that Bob's wearing his down jacket again?

Looking back towards the Tetons.

I worried about seeing a bear for three days and three nights. Now, on our last day on the trail, look what we saw! Not a bear, but bear poop! What did that bear eat? Holy cow!  It was a huge pile of orange berries, and when I asked Mr. Ranger about it he confirmed it. Fresh bear poop. FRESH! We just missed seeing a bear on the trail! Bob was really disappointed. Not me!

We're below the tree line now, but we can still see glaciers way up there.

There it is: Jenny Lake, and our truck's waiting for us on the other side of the lake. Ah.....

We did see this moose when we were close to the end of the trail. He was happily munching leaves and didn't move at all when he saw us.

This is his momma. Mr. Ranger was there trying to keep everyone back because you don't want to get between a momma moose and her baby.

The last time we hiked The Teton Crest Trail we hiked around the lake.  It's two more miles, and we decided that we don't really need to hike those final miles again. Been there, done that, so we took the water shuttle across the lake this time.
That paper on my pack is the hiking permit we got from the National Park Service. They limit the number of people on the Teton Crest Trail, so we applied for our permit in January and hiked it in early September.

And we're done!!! We always celebrate when finish hiking a trail with an ice cream treat. Of course, after we went back and got cleaned up, we headed to The Blue Buffalo, a wonderful steak restaurant in Jackson for the real treat!

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Teton Crest Trail - Day 3

Once again it was around 30° when we woke up, so we hurried to make our coffee, pack our gear and start that climb. Day 3 is always a good day for us on this trail because we know what's ahead, and trust me, it's worth hiking to see.

Sunset Lake looks small from here, and if you zoom in you can see a few tents scattered around. Our camp site was in the larger cluster of trees on the right, nestled on a small hill.

We had a nice surprise when we got to the top of the hill. Two little marmots were playing nearby, and they didn't seem very upset when we walked past.

You can see a little bit of Utah off to the West.

Another sign assuring us that we're still on the trail. Apparently some people were upset because firearms aren't allowed in the National Park.  Every sign had firearms either scratched off or covered with duct tape.

Here we are! We made our goal, and those are the GRAND TETONS behind us. This is Hurricane Pass, which sounds scary, and probably is at certain times of the year, but we love it here. It's windy, and a bit on the cold side, but the sun was shining, and we were very happy.

Aren't they just beautiful? This is the side of the Tetons you can't see while driving past in Grand Teton National Park. You have to work for this view. (Or see in on our blog!)

We met some young hikers who are getting ready to head down into the South Fork of Cascade Canyon. It's all down hill from here, but it's not always easy heading down!

This is were we're heading, past that lake with a cut in it's side. It's a glacier filled lake, and the trail goes just to the left of it.

Just another view of this beautiful part of our country.

You can see the trail here, and it winds around and down. It's steep at times, but really not too bad. The worst part is going past the lake, and the glacier that looks like it's ready to slip off the mountain at any time!

One last look at the beautiful Grand Tetons.

We're heading down the South Fork now.

I found another wildflower just nestled in the rocks.

We're below the tree line now, and our camp site for the night is at the lower end of the camping zone, down a little hill beside the creek. It was a really nice area, but it's much harder to see bears now that there are trees around us again.

I'm still knitting, and the chairs we made from our sleeping bag pads are pretty comfy to sit on to knit or read in the evening. It's warmer here too, so we didn't have to wear our boots all the time, and it felt good.

This is our last night on the trail, and we still haven't seen any bears, so I'm happy. Tomorrow we head to Jenny Lake and some ice cream, and real food!

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Teton Crest Trail - Day 2

When hiking the Teton Crest Trail you are not supposed to prepare food or eat near your tent to keep food odors away from where you're going to sleep, so we ate near the lake and talked to other people hiking. Freeze dried food tastes pretty good when you're really hungry, and it's quick and easy to prepare. It wasn't too hard to fall asleep after our long hike, so our first night on the trail was a good one.

This is last night's camp site. It was dry while we were there, so the camp site was pretty dusty, and I tried to pack everything while in the tent to keep the dirt off our gear. It's really hard to pack up when it's in the low 30's in the morning, staying in the tent is much more inviting.

The blue container in this photo is our bear canister, which I call the bear barrel. All the food we take on the trail must be kept in this bear barrel overnight, along with any scented items we might have, like deodorant. It's constructed so that bears can't open it or crush it to get at our food. It's pretty heavy, and goes in Bob's backpack for him to carry all day long.

We're on the trail again, and it's a clear cold morning. We hiked in shorts and short sleeves the last time we hiked this trail, but this year I started every day wearing my down jacket, and Bob wore his long sleeved shirt. It warmed up mid morning so we could hike without our coats, but we definitely didn't hike in shorts and short sleeves this year.

This is looking back at Marion Lake, where we spent last night.

The sky was clear, the weather was cool, and we kept on hiking and enjoying the scenery. I took many, many pictures, and it's so hard to decide which ones to post. We were happy to finally see the Grand Teton far off in the distance.

When we hiked this trail before there were beautiful wild flowers every where, but this time the weather was much cooler, and there was a hard frost a few days before we started our hike. These were some of the few flowers we saw, but they're still very pretty.

This looks like Monument Valley, but it's here on the Teton Crest Trail.  The sky was clear and beautiful the entire time we hiked this trail.

This is looking towards Death Canyon Shelf. When Bob said we might spend the night on Death Canyon Shelf I had a fit because I just knew I'd fall off that shelf in the middle of the night. As you can see, the shelf is very wide so I had no worries about falling off, but we kept on going. We want to spend the night at Sunset Lake.

Another sign: BEAR HABITAT. I know that, you don't have to remind me!

This is a good place to take a break, with the Grand Teton straight ahead.

It's hard to see, but there's a trail in that canyon, The Death Canyon Trail. It's a side trail that you can hike to get to the Teton Crest Trail or you can hike down it and off the Teton Crest Trail too. No, we didn't take it, we kept on hiking.

Sunset Lake dead ahead! We can set up our tent anywhere around the lake, and there are a lot of nice camp sites. It's a good place to stop for the night because there's a major hill to climb first thing in the morning.

Tomorrow...The Grand Teton!

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