Trekking in the Tetons
August 12th– 13th
We woke up early Friday morning, excited about our trek. On the way to the Death Canyon Trailhead, we stopped to visit the ruins of an old Mormon settlement. This was one of many places we passed on the Mormon trail. The settlers eventually sold these lands to Rockefeller in the early 1900’s who later donated them to the National Park system. We also saw a moose with its baby next to the river. At 11 AM, we finally started the trek. We passed a number of day hikers as the trail gently climbed towards the lookout of Phelps Lake. We stopped to take a couple of pictures and continued the path which followed the river feeding the lake. We found a rocky overlook that looked like a good place to stop for lunch. Towards the end of lunch, I heard a sound in the bushes behind me but when I turned around I didn’t see anything. Then Fabien turned around and saw a small black bear snooping around behind us, clearly attracted by the smell of our lunch. We stood up and started clapping our hands and yelling at him, he ran off a little ways, turned back and stared at us. We kept making noise and he finally ran off up the hill. I finished the rest of my lunch standing up.
After lunch, the trail climbed through some rocks and then rejoined the river: a crystal clear, gushing mountain stream. As the sound of the roaring water faded, we reached a meadow of beautiful wildflowers and the beginning of Death Canyon, an ironic name for a place brimming with life. The views were amazing- white capped granite peaks, meadows of wild flowers, glacier fed streams- they were really among the best views we had on the entire trip. Around 4, we found a nice primitive camp site with a view of the meadow and Death Canyon Shelf, a thousand feet above us. We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing, reading and scanning the cliffs for bighorn sheep.
Before bed we were extra cautious about ridding our campsite of smells that would attract animals: our bear canister was several hundred feet from our tent where we had cooked dinner, we tied up the dishes in a bag in the tree. We climbed into our sleeping bags ready for a restful night of sleep. Around midnight, I heard a strange digging sound outside of the tent. I was sure that there was an animal and I was afraid it was chewing on our backpacks. I woke Fabien up; we listened together, and started making noise hoping to scare it off. The sound continued…We were pretty sure that it wasn’t a bear, so I opened the tent and shined my flashlight outside. The sound stopped and we couldn’t see the animal so we went back to sleep. Suddenly, the sound started again. This time I shined my light outside the tent and saw a huge porcupine gnawing at something next to the backpacks. He looked at me and waited, I started making noise and he ran off. This time, we hung our backpacks and hiking boots from the branch of a nearby tree and picked up everything off the ground and put it in the backpacks. Back in our sleeping bags, we settled in for a long night’s sleep. I woke up again to the sound of digging and realized that our persistent porcupine had come under the fly of the tent and was gnawing on Fabien’s flip flop. He was about 6 inches from me- I shined my light on him. He stared at me. I started making noise and moving the side of the tent- he ran off trying to drag Fabien’s flip flop with him but dropped it just outside of the tent. So we put our flip flops in the backpacks and got back in bed. That persistent porcupine kept coming back looking for them. I never realized how attractive Fab’s stinky feet could be. Eventually he gave up, and we got back to sleep around two in the morning.
After a fitful night’s sleep, we woke up the next morning in a good humor and surveyed the damage. Our porcupine had chewed some of the leather from Fabien’s flip flop trying to get salt, but everything else was fine. We had breakfast, looked for the ever elusive bighorn sheep, and packed up camp. The first part of the hike was tough; we came to the end of Death Canyon and started climbing, a steep trail with numerous switchbacks until we came to the pass at Death Canyon’s shelf. The last part of the climb was through some remaining snow. We were above the tree line and the landscape was fragile but beautiful. Around lunchtime, we came to Marion Lake, a pretty lake fed by the melting snow. We saw a couple of marmots hanging out on rocks nearby. We took advantage of the beautiful location, and made a hot lunch. The trail was easier after Marion Lake; we descended to Granite Canyon and passed another meadow of beautiful sunflowers. We followed the river and looked for a suitable place to camp. One side of the path was boulder fields, the other was heavily vegetated. We met a volunteer ranger who told us that there were some “organized” camp sites in the canyon, but that we could camp anywhere away from the trail or river. Around 5, we were getting nervous because we hadn’t found anything suitable. Luck was with us, and we finally arrived at the first organized site, a pretty little site next to the river. Exhausted, we set up camp, relaxed and made dinner. This time, we didn’t have any nocturnal visitors and managed to get a good night’s sleep.
Sunday morning, we had a relatively easy stretch of trail to finish the loop. We stopped at Phelps Lake for snack before hiking the last two miles back to our car. This unplanned trek turned out to be one of my favorites.
Posted from Lake of the Ozarks SP, Missouri
Tags: BIG TRIP 2011, In English 2005-2006, Wyoming
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