Teton Backcountry

Days off…and three days of backpacking on the Teton Crest Trail!

Mary and I headed up Granite Canyon, where we found wild raspberries and delicious thimbleberries too, a kind of raspberry I had never tasted before.

Once we climbed out of the canyon and onto the ridge by our campsite, the trail was mostly flat and we had loads of time to kill. So we hiked off trail (involving some interesting scrambles up scree slopes) to Indian Lake, which very few people ever visit.

The second day we stayed high on the crest trail, overlooking Death Canyon. Yes people have died there. Someone back in the 1800s and also someone last week of a heart attack.

This year was apparently a bad year for wildflowers, but there were still more than I had ever seen. Lupine, monkeyflower, groundsel, and paintbrush grew along streams and in wet fields. We even saw a few patches of columbine (above).

The second night we camped at Sunset Lake (such a creative name). It was so nice out we went without a tent, so partway through the night a mouse decided to run across my face. In the morning, hungry marmots tried to steal our breakfast.

We came over a pass to a view of the Grand Teton and this glacier. Hooray, now I have seen a glacier before they all melt! The meltwater lake at the bottom is such a bizarre green color that it seems like a chemical sludge pond rather than a pristine mountain lake.

More off trail hiking to lakes! Actually, off trail hiking over rockpiles isn’t that much different than on trail hiking on some of the peaks in the Whites. Though these lakes were lovely, with all of our off trail detours we ended up doing over 15 miles with full packs the last day. I was a bit sore the next morning.

And, the highlight of the trip…PIKAS! We saw pikas scrambling around rock piles and making loud whiny calls. Pikas are small alpine rabbitlike animals and they collect grass and make little hay piles to survive the winter. I think I was way more excited to see the pikas than any other animal here (with the possible exception of otters). All the other hikers seemed to think the seven moose we saw that day were more exciting though. Silly of them.