How I Spent My Summer--Travelogue: Part VIII

Trip #8--Jenny Lake
When Nick's friend, John was here, he showed me pictures of the sun setting behind Jenny Lake in Grand Teton National Park.  I was stunned.  Growing up, spending my summers in West Yellowstone, I spent alot of time in Yellowstone but hardly ever ventured into Grand Teton.  I never had time.  When I'd go to the park I'd usually have to be back by six o'clock to get ready for the show.  Grand Teton was just too far.  I had always viewed Grand Teton as the awkward kid brother to Yellowstone anyway.  I was wrong.

Yellowstone has many things that make it unique, and there is alot to see there, but the views in Grand Teton are magnificent.  I will be spending more time in that park in the coming years.

We planned to caravan to the park with our friends, the Airths and then hook up with some other friends, the Whitings for a picnic in the park.  The Whitings had camped there the night before.  After the picnic we planned to hike to Hidden Falls on the west side of Jenny Lake.

Jenny Lake is a glacial lake that was formed about 12,000 years ago at the end of the last great glaciation.  The receding glacier left a terminal moraine which defined the banks of Jenny Lake.  The lake is considered by many to be one of the most picturesque lakes in all of North America.  I would tend to agree.  From the east bank of the lake, the view of the Tetons is spectacular.  There is a viewpoint on the east bank that centers the lake between Mount Teewinot and Mount Owens.  Great photo op.

We left between ten and eleven o'clock in the morning and drove along the Moody Highway, then through Driggs and Victor before heading over the pass into Jackson Hole.  While in Driggs, we stopped at a grocery store for some supplies and there was a bear exhibit with a bunch of taxidermied bears and a ranger talking about what to do in case you run across a bear in the wild.



The Tetons from the Idaho side

Random taxidermied bear

When we arrived in Grand Teton National Park, we used a minor entrance near Teton Village to enter the park.  We drove through about ten miles of a beautiful mixed forest of Aspen, Douglas Fir, Lodgepole Pine and White Pine.  Wildflowers were abundant even at this late date in the summer.  As we drove past the three Tetons, the sun struck them in a spectacular way and I regret we didn't stop for photos, but we were on a schedule and had to make the picnic area because our friends had been waiting there for a few hours.



The view from the picnic area

Friends sharing a meal

We picnicked at the north end of Jenny Lake next to the south shore of String Lake.  Jenny Lake and Leigh Lake are connected by a long skinny body of water called String Lake.  String Lake is very shallow and is used for swimming, poling, canoeing and boating.  It was fairly busy when we first arrived.

Back in the 1800's at the end of the fur trade, there was a colorful trapper beloved around here named Richard Leigh.  He went by the nickname, Beaver Dick and there is a park near here named for him.  He was from England and according to accounts had bright red hair.  He was second only to Jim Bridger as far as fame and knowledge of the surrounding territory goes.  He married a Shoshone woman and by all accounts was very much in love with her.  Leigh Lake is named for him while Jenny Lake is named for her.  All through Wyoming and Idaho, mainly the Teton range and basin there are features named for Richard Leigh.  He must have been quite the character.



Recreation at String Lake

The hike from String Lake around the northwest side of Jenny Lake was spectacular.  Everything was green.  There had been a fire in the last ten or fifteen years and there were standing blackened tree trunks around but the new growth of both trees and underbrush were beautiful.  As we started across the trail, it threatened to rain and a few drops fell.  All the revellers at String Lake packed up and left.  It was an exodus. 



Fire and rebirth

The hot chick

Friends on the trail

The trail was beautiful from start to finish.  Often when I hike, the trail is okay with moments of WOW but this one was fantastic the whole way.  There was something to see every foot of the trail.  From mountain vistas to wildflowers to mini waterfalls to sweeping views of the lake, this trail had it all.  I will hike this trail again.

About a mile and a quarter along the trail the heavens opened up and we were hit by a torrential rainstorm.  Huge raindrops were coming down.  We stood in the shelter of some large trees for fifteen or twenty minutes waiting to see if the rain would stop, and just when we were about to decide to abandon the trail, we saw the sun peek out from behind some clouds and the rain stopped.  We continued down the path.



Random mini waterfall along the trail

Caught in the rain

Spectacular view

We made our way to Hidden Falls and climbed up the trail a quarter mile or so to see the waterfall.  This particular waterfall is a series of steep cascades that go on for about 80 feet.  This is one of the most popular hikes in Grand Teton National Park.  There weren't many people on the trail today because of the rain.  The storm had hidden advantages.  First it drove all but the most adventurous people away, and it cooled us down on an otherwise hot day.



Hidden Falls

The trail back was slow going because we had a few little children that were tired.  I took up the rear and stopped often to take alot of photos.  When we got back to String Lake, the kids decided it would be the thing to do to wade in the lake.  It's a very shallow lake, so the sun warms it pretty well during the day.  It was pleasant.  Next time I'll bring my water shoes and trunks.



Mount Teewinot, my new favorite mountain

I loved the line and texture here.  I'm a designer, what can I say?

Kids in String Lake

The Whitings headed for home after the picnic and before the rain.  The Airths decided to go home via the pass, and we decided to head home through Yellowstone.  In retrospect I wouldn't do it that way again, it was alot of nighttime driving behind bad drivers pulling trailers, and it added about three hours to the trip.  On the bright side, though we did get to see the sun setting on the Tetons and we added another waterfall to our list.  Just inside the southern border of Yellowstone is a beautiful waterfall called, Moose Falls.  It drops off a cliff for about 35 feet.  Another great day.



Jenny Lake from the east shore flanked by Mount Teewinot and Mount Owen

Sunset in the Tetons

Moose Falls, Yellowstone

How I Spent My Summer--Travelogue: Part V

Trip #5--Sentinel Meadows

Chimene and I decided we needed to get away, just the two of us, so we scheduled a day trip into Yellowstone to do a little hiking.  This was one of those days that we wanted to see things you don't normally see in the park.  We opted for a short hike just before Madison Junction called Harlequin Lake.  I hadn't been on this particular hike since I was a teenager, so I thought it was time for us to see it.  Harlequin Lake Trail is a short hike, only about a half mile long to a cute little lake covered in lilypads.  It was nice, but not a trail I would wish to hike again.  It was short and once you are at the lake there is nothing to do because the tree line is right up to the shore.  I wanted to see it after the fires of 1988 came through.  It had been a much sparser forest back then, but after it burned, the new growth is so heavy that it is almost impassable.  It's a trail worth doing once every twenty-five years or so, I guess.



Harlequin Lake

We decided to take the Firehole Loop Road, which is something we almost always do when visiting Yellowstone.  There are several sets of falls along this stretch of the Firehole River.  There is a small falls furthest downstream, then the larger more picturesque falls that everyone stops to photograph, then the swimming area, and finally above the swimming area is another falls that we had never explored before.  We hiked down to the water's edge to view this section of the falls up close.  We were glad we did.  It was quite stunning.



Chimene and I at Firehole Falls

The upper section of the falls

We stopped at our second favorite pinicking area at Fountain Flats Drive, photographed some random elk and paid our respects to Mattie S. Culver.  She was the wife of the innkeeper at Fountain Flats in the 1800's.  She died of consumption in March and the ground was too frozen to bury her so her husband, E. C. Culver froze her body in two whiskey barrels laid end to end and waited for spring to bury her.  To this day, you can wade out in Nez Perce Creek and pick up white "rocks" and find parts of broken plates and bowls.  When the Culvers would break a piece of china at their inn, they would toss it in the creek.  That "trash" is now an historical park relic and is illegal to remove from the park.



A random elk at Nez Perce Creek/Fountain Flats Drive

Mattie's grave

We picked up the trailhead to Sentinel Meadows at the end of Fountain Flats Drive and Ojo Caliente spring.  Ojo Caliente is a very hot pool that boils down into the creek.  In fact it's the hottest water in the park at 211 degrees.  When I was a teenager, we used to come into the park at night and swim in the river just below Ojo Caliente.  It was some of the nicest water in the park and would alternate between very warm water and cool water depending upon where you swam.



The old swimming hole at Ojo Caliente

In the 1870's, the army was garrisoned in these meadows and named them "Sentinel Meadows" for the three large thermal mounds that dominate the valley.  Superintendent Norris, the second superintendent of the park discovered a hot spring that was just the right temperature for a nice leisurely soak.  The soldiers would do their laundry in the spring and bathe in it as well.  Norris built a small log building at or over the spring and called it "Queen's Laundry Spring" and the structure was called the "Soldier's Bathhouse".  I had hiked to Soldier's Bathhouse when I was a teenager but hadn't been back since.  We decided to find the bathhouse but didn't have any luck and ended up having to blaze our own trail back to the car.  After we returned, I looked at a map and researched where we had gone wrong and next time I'm sure we will find the structure.  When I was a kid, we used to go hot-potting all the time, but now it's very illegal and the punishments are prohibitive so it's no longer worth it.  I do miss that though.



The Sentinels

When we were blazing our own trail back to the car, we stumbled upon a random bison.  He was too tired to gore us so we escaped unharmed.  On the way back to the car, Chimene noticed a really cool rock outcrop and decided that we needed to climb it.  On one side there was a cute little geyser, but on top the view was spectacular.  We will definitely do this hike again.



Random bison

Really cool tree roots

Random rocky outcropping

Random thermal feature

The view from the random rocky outcropping