The Mountain West, Fall 2018: Part 2 (The Tetons)

(Click on the photos to see a slideshow; hit "escape" to get back to the text.  As always, both Felice and I took these photos.  I edit them on Lightroom, trying to reproduce just what we saw.)

Sept. 13:  We drove into Jackson and stopped at the Bridger National Forest office to buy some maps and get some tips on hikes in the area.  The staff gave us some great advice on boondocking -- I had planned to camp in the forest above Curtis Canyon (near the Elk Preserve), but the ranger told us that the road had been badly damaged by off-road trucks after a recent rainstorm and was virtually impassable.  He suggested instead that we check out another area up toward Moran Junction, near the Triangle X ranch.

We unhitched the trailer at a highway turnout near the ranch and went exploring in the unencumbered truck -- this is one of the most enjoyable aspects of boondocking, cruising around on the back roads, looking for the best available site.  The access road was pretty rough (deep ruts, big rocks, and steep hills), but we were sure that the trailer would be able to handle the terrain (yes, at 3 mph, but that's good enough!).

We first came across a big flat meadow, up on a ridge, with a panoramic view of the Tetons and the Snake River Valley:

Heaven, right??  Nope -- the meadow was covered in wall-to-wall noisy big rigs.  No good.  So we kept crawling along, checking out each of the spur roads branching off from the main route.  This one had no view; that one was too dusty; the third was not sufficiently private.

After about an hour of searching, we found a great site:  a good (but not great) view of the mountains, quiet, secluded, grassy, with room for just one trailer (no neighbors).  The only problem was a deep dip (really a seasonal streambed) -- could the trailer handle this challenge without bottoming out?  We went back down to the highway, hitched up the trailer, and slowly crossed the Big Dip -- success!  This photo does not show the depth of the streambed, but let's pretend that it does:

The campsite had one other minor flaw:  although it was a "lollipop" site (with just enough room in the cul de sac to turn the trailer around), there was a young aspen tree slanted across the "driveway," perfectly poised to collide with the air conditioner on the roof of the trailer.  (It is illegal in most national forests to cut a live tree without a permit.)  But no problem!  I had brought my extendable 10 foot pole (formerly a drywall lifting pole) for exactly this reason.  I lifted the tree while Felice drove under the obstacle:

 
With apologies to Grant Wood's "American Gothic," this photo shows the business end of the contraption -- I attached two long quarter-inch bolts through a small piece of  plywood and then screwed the plywood onto the end of the pole:

Go ahead and laugh -- it worked!!

Sept. 14:  We took the Bradley and Taggart Lakes trail, which was pleasant but not very taxing (mostly level and relatively short).   The Tetons loomed over us throughout the day:

Felice took this photo on her iPhone -- she held the phone down in the meadow grass (for foreground interest) and tilted the lens up at the mountains:

Late that afternoon, back at the campsite, it was warm enough to convene our traditional "snacking circle:"

The sunset that evening was better than average -- during most of the month of travel, there were not many great sunsets, because the sky was too clear and there were no clouds to catch the light.  (Life can be so hard, sometimes.)

Sept. 15:  On our way to the trailhead, we stopped off at Jackson Lake Dam to catch the reflection while the lake was still calm:

We took the Leigh Lake/String Lake trail -- again, not very demanding, but with great views:

At the end of the day, our feet were grateful for the snowmelt:

Sept. 16:  We started out on the Garnet Canyon trail but were persuaded by fellow hikers to try the Amphitheater Lake trail.  It was a very instructive day:  we learned that a ten mile round-trip hike with three thousand feet of vertical gain can be more of an ordeal than a pleasure, unless the destination is really extraordinary.  And to tell the truth, the lake was not extraordinary -- it was just a nice glacial cirque:

The trail surface was rocky and steep, and there were quite a few people.  Not a bad day, but not one of our best hikes ever.

By the way, you can just see in that photo that Felice is carrying a red canister of bear spray on her belt.  The rangers advised us to have spray handy at all times.  Another hiker on this trail told us that a guide and a bow-hunter had just been attacked by grizzlies in the national forest.  We later found out that the attack took place just a few miles from our campsite, when the hunter and the guide had gone back to look for an elk that they had wounded the previous day. 

Sept. 17:  This was a day of errands in Jackson -- laundry, shopping, work, etc.  No photos of the laundry, although the name of the laundromat was Missing Sock Laundry -- well played! 

Sept. 18:  Forcing us out of a warm bed (grumble), the Tetons reflected the sunrise:

  

We took the Cascade Canyon trail, starting with a ferry ride at Jenny Lake that saved us a couple of miles of walking.  We covered about nine miles and gained over 1000 feet.  The trail was fairly busy, but for good reason:

  

(Those berries are evidently inedible -- there were huckleberry bushes all along the trail, but the bears had harvested all of the fruit.  They would not touch those reddish-orange berries, though.)

We spotted a female moose basking in the morning sun:

 This is a wide shot of the same scene, showing the breadth of the canyon.  The moose is at the bottom of the photo, left of center:

Felice managed to snag a shot of the elusive pika:

These adorable little critters not only look like stuffed animals, they even sound like squeaky toys -- cheep! cheep!

All along the trail, the foliage was changing color:

Another group of hikers spotted this bear on the wall of the canyon, high above us.  It looks close due to the telephoto lens, but it was probably a hundred yards away.  I think it was a grizzly, judging by the ears and its size, but I am not sure:

Later in the day, we spotted a bull moose, but he was hidden in the shadows and was too far away for a decent photo.

Sept. 19:  We woke up to a very smoky day -- the mountains were barely visible from our campsite.  A forest fire had broken out southeast of Jackson.  So we pulled up stakes and headed to Colorado, stopping for the night in Fruita (another 450 mile day).  The route took us through Flaming Gorge in Utah and then through Rangely, Colorado.  I had heard that the road from Rangely to Fruita was bad, but it wasn't -- decent pavement, not too steep or twisty, and wonderfully empty.  (Perhaps my recollection is influenced by the fact that Felice bought a pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream in Rangely and then slowly spooned it into my mouth as we drove south in the late afternoon -- very pleasant!)

Next:  Part 3 (Crested Butte).

The Mountain West, Fall 2018: Part 1 (Great Basin National Park)

(Click on the photos to see a slideshow; hit "escape" to get back to the text.  As always, both Felice and I took these photos.  I edit them on Lightroom, trying to reproduce just what we saw.)

The original plan for this autumn was a trip to the Northwest and British Columbia, both of which unfortunately caught fire.  But in late August, we studied the daily online air pollution maps and noticed that much of the smoke coming from the West seemed to be arching up over the Tetons, with the flow of the jet stream; Colorado and Utah were clear, too.  The various webcams looked good, so hurrah for Plan B!

Our first destination was Great Basin National Park, since it was sort of on the way to the Tetons.  The big goal on our first day (Sept. 9) was an RV park in tiny Pioche, Nevada, 450 miles from home, a long day of driving.  But surprise!  We had a strong tailwind most of the day (which makes a big difference when towing a trailer), and we got to Pioche in the afternoon.  It was hot.  Stop, or keep going?  We knew there were no other RV parks along the route, but maybe we could get to a campground in the evening, using our trusty headlamps to set up camp in the dark . . . .

We just kept barreling north on Highway 93, through the scenic but desolate high desert.  Northern Nevada is not like the area around Las Vegas -- it is mountainous, with chaparral on the hillsides.  The road was empty:  just the way I like it.  To alleviate her usual "trapped in the passenger seat" restlessness, Felice tried out a NASA-style bungee workout cord that I had improvised.  (The verdict: not wonderful, but better than nothing.) As we approached Great Basin, Felice pored over the map and discovered a BLM campground, Sacramento Pass, perfectly located on Highway 50.

We stopped around sunset (550 miles -- a new daily record for us!) and set up camp, and yes, the headlamps were successfully deployed.  For future reference, the campsites nearer to the highway have a little more road noise (not surprisingly).  There is an interior loop up a steep roadway, called the Equestrian Area, that is farther from the highway (but which seemed crowded for a Sunday night in September).

That night, the Milky Way display was one of the best we have ever seen -- the bright "star" on the left is actually a planet, Mars.  The photo does not do justice to the deep rust color of Mars; on the other hand, the photo slightly exaggerates the beauty of the Milky Way, so it comes out even:

 
As it turned out, the view of the Milky Way was better from Sacramento Pass than from Wheeler Peak Campground in Great Basin:  since the horizon to the south was not blocked by the mountains, the bright center of the galaxy was fully visible.  (Those are high, thin clouds just to the right of the galactic center, not part of the Milky Way itself.)

Sept. 10:  This was a bonus day -- we were supposed to be in transit, but our marathon drive to Sacramento Pass meant that we were able to get to Lehman Caves for the morning tour.  The tour was interesting -- the guide knew quite a bit about the local geology, and the formations were satisfyingly grotesque.  Amazingly, these shots were all taken on Felice's iPhone -- none of our other cameras worked well in the dim lighting:

There was even some wildlife -- this little guy is a pseudo-scorpion, about an inch long:

After the cave tour, we headed up the hill to Wheeler Peak Campground, at around 10,000 feet.  The road to the campground is steep and twisty, but a good tow vehicle would have no trouble pulling a small trailer up that grade.  The interior roads in the campground were pretty tight but not impossible.

The views of the ridge from some of the campsites were excellent:

Our campsite was in the trees, but we could still see the mountains from our front window:

As you might expect at 10,000 feet, the stars were terrific, even if the nearby peaks cut off part of the Milky Way:

Sept. 11:  We had already acclimated to the elevation for a couple of nights, so why not tackle the Wheeler Peak trail?  The last time we tried (almost exactly two years ago), the snow and ice and howling wind stopped us about halfway up.

All along the trail, the aspens were at peak color:

There was no snow, which made the footing a lot easier, even if the dry mountains were a little less scenic:

Up on the ridge at well over 12,000 feet, the wind was (once again) howling --  my guess is that it was above 40 knots, not quite as bad as the last time we were here.  We were so high up that the sky was a very dark blue:

I tried to narrate a short video, describing the view into Utah and much of Northern Nevada, but the wind blasted the microphone:



Felice did her best Rocky the Flying Squirrel imitation:



We were within a thousand feet of the peak when we had to turn back -- I am not sure we will ever make it to the top of this mountain.  (For the record, we climbed well over 2,000 vertical feet and hiked more than 8 miles.)  On the way back down to the trailhead, the aspens were backlit by the afternoon sunlight:

Sept. 12:  We hitched up and headed out of the campground through a tunnel of aspens:

We headed northeast through northern Utah and Wyoming toward the Tetons, stopping for the night in Thayne, Wyoming, a 430 mile day.  Not an epic drive, but plenty long.

Next:  Part 2 (The Tetons).

Sequoia and Kings Canyon: May 2018

(Remember that you can click on the photos to see a slideshow; hit "escape" to get back to the text.  As always, both Felice and I took these photos.  I do the editing on Lightroom, trying to reproduce just what we saw.)

To celebrate our 40th anniversary (and the end of my very last semester), we spent a week in the high country, of course.  Lodgepole Campground was still available on a first-come, first-serve basis, so we snagged a pleasant campsite near the river.  (The Giant Forest area is too far from boondock country, so that's why we chose to stay in a campground this time.)

May 17:   We hiked to Tokopah Falls, an easy 4 mile round trip, which left us plenty of time for exploring some stretches of the river that were not right on the trail.   From the riverbank, we could look up at the Watchtower, rising more than two thousand feet from the valley:

The Watchtower looked particularly ominous to us, since we had just heard that a hiker had been killed on that trail a couple of days earlier.  The trail was closed due to ice and snow, but some brave person unfortunately ducked under the barrier.

Most of the snow along the trail had just melted, and there were some "snow flowers" poking up here and there.   These plants look like fungi, but they're not.   Instead, they live symbiotically with a fungus; the fungus provides the flower with nutrients, and the flower provides carbon to the fungus.  The bigger flower on the left is about six inches tall:

As we got nearer to the falls, we saw a well-nourished marmot scurrying through the talus:

The falls were running powerfully; even though this was not a big snow year, we happened to visit at the peak of the thaw:

May 18:  We had always wanted to try the trail out of Lodgepole to Cahoon Meadow toward Twin Lakes, and this seemed like a perfect day for it.  As it turns out, we were not impressed.  There are almost no views from the trail, and the forest is pretty ordinary.  There is one tricky stream crossing -- we chose to cross on a log instead of getting wet:

From one point on the trail, we could see the skyline of the high country near Alta Peak:

We could also see the Twin Peaks area – notice the distinctive "horn" shape of the glacially-sharpened spire:

May 19:   It was a misty day, but we optimistically chose to tackle the Hump, a fairly strenuous hike from Wolverton to Heather Lake:  maybe it would clear up!  As we toiled up the steep hill, however, it got even cloudier.

Along the way, we came across a small pack of mules heading down to the trailhead and carrying rescue baskets.  The mule skinner told us that these were used during the search and rescue for the hiker who had been killed on the Watchtower trail.

When we got to the viewpoint at the saddle above Heather Lake, there was still a fragmentary view of the nearby peaks – Felice quickly snapped this shot:

As we ate lunch, it got foggier and foggier.  We decided to take a "no view" shot, just for the heck of it:

May 20:  Dorst Campground was closed, which meant that the hike to Muir Grove would be extra long and (as a result) would be uncrowded.  In fact, we had the whole grove to ourselves for about two hours!

The dogwoods were coming into bloom:

 We hiked out to the northwest corner of the grove, to visit our favorite trees:

Here is a close-up of that shot, just to make sure that the sign is legible:

SWAK:

 May 21:   To satisfy our craving for some boondocking, we moved north to the Big Meadow area.  After getting set up, we drove down to Redwood Canyon.  The dogwoods look their best against the red bark of the Sequoias:

Shortly after we started hiking, it began to rain: time for ponchos!   Every so often, the sun came out for a few moments; Felice caught these backlit droplets on fir needles.  The raindrops look like thin white streaks due to the slow exposure:

The rain had stopped by the time we got back to the campsite -- Felice's thumb is pointing to a range of snowy peaks to the south:

This is a "view from the trailer" shot -- note the door frame on the left.  Shell Mountain, with a dusting of fresh snow, is the granite dome on the left side of the shot:

Part of boondocking is coping with unlevel campsites -- no asphalt pad out here!  We were on a steeply sloping granite slab -- note the thick pile of orange plastic "legos" under the tire and the flat rocks under the "landing gear" for the steps.  Without the Glowsteps, we would have had a three foot gap between the ground and the original steps:

May 22:  There are very few things more pleasant than being warm and dry inside a trailer during a cold and rainy night.  The next morning was clear, chilly, and fresh.  Felice took this shot on her iPhone:

As we drove out Highway 180 toward the Mist Falls trailhead, we could see evidence of the huge Rough Fire of 2015 -- skeletal groves of dead and dying trees.  Yes, fire is a natural phenomenon, but that does not mean we have to like it.

On our way up the trail to Mist Falls, we passed through a big talus field where we had seen rattlers on a couple of different occasions.  This time, in the same rockpile, we were treated to a beautiful (and harmless!) Kings Canyon kingsnake, about three feet long, slithering across the path.  Felice grabbed her camera just in time:

We stopped for our now-customary shot of the Sphinx, that bat-eared formation in the top left corner of the shot:

Felice waded into the thick mist at the base of the falls:

It looked like fun, so I decided to join her:

We sat by the head of the falls for quite a while, enjoying the thundering water:

This is an overview movie, taken from the base of the falls:


This is a pan, taken with the Slo-Mo app on Felice's phone:


This is a rooster tail formation in the middle of the cascade:


For lack of a better term, this is a huge "cauldron" or "standing explosion," toward the base of the cascade and just before the falls accelerate over the ridge of resistant rock.  This thing is around ten feet tall; every so often, the water backs up and shoots high into the air.  It's hypnotic:


This is the same feature in slow motion:


And here are the boots in slo-mo.  Spoiler alert:  they don't move much:


And now, the grand finale.  The final portion of the Mist Falls trail is very dull: sandy and flat, with an unimpressive forest.  Worse yet, it had recently been subjected to a prescribed burn -- there were even a few smoldering smoky hot spots here and there.  We were trudging back to the truck in a light rain when Felice heard crunching noises behind a rock outcropping.  She peered around.  There was a small bear, gnawing on a burnt stump, licking up ants and grubs:



The bear paid us no attention at all.  If you look closely, you can see that the bear is wearing a rectangular white tracking collar on the back of his neck.  (One would think that the Park Service could design something a little sleeker and more fashionable, but I guess not.)