Day 5: I can’t believe I’m still alive after all the walking we did today. Walking isn’t exactly the right term for it though. Walking is what you do around the block, what we did today is much different. Up mountains and down mountains, but the pay off was worth it. We saw some really beautiful scenery.
The day started off easy enough. We didn’t get up early today because we wanted to go over to the Teton Village and ride the tram there up to the top of Rendezvous Mountain. It was a very scenic view on the way up, and once there, I got yet a different view of the peak of the Grand Teton.
One of the other things to see here is the area where the parasail flyers launch. The wind coming up the side of the mountain was so strong, all they had to do was unfurl their chutes and away they went. Karen and I briefly considered taking their tandem rides, but, well, you know, I had all that camera equipment and everything, so we decided just watch this time.
After watching them, we hiked about a half mile down the mountain in order to see the sights in the Granite Canyon below. It was nothing spectacular, but the thing about hiking down the mountain a half mile is that you then have to hike back up that same half mile. Oh, and did I mention that we are now at 10,450 feet, the temperature was 42 degrees, and the wind was blowing at about 20mph. To say that we are not acclimated to this sort of this is an understatement. But we survived the stairs at Yellowstone so we figured this wouldn’t kill us either. 🙂
After catching our breath and drinking a bottle of water, we rode the tram back to the bottom and took off for a drive. We wanted to drive over the Teton Pass and see what Idaho looked like. At the top of the pass, we had to stop and take a picture at the “famous” Jackson Hole sign. More running for me as I set the timer and then tried to look natural in the picture while out of breath!
Well, Idaho (at least the part right here) isn’t too impressive. We’ll have to try a different part of the state another time. I’ve heard parts of it are very pretty.
After crossing back into Wyoming hear Wilson, WY, I spotted the nest of a couple of Osprey. After getting out the “big lens” I realized that one of them had caught something and was eating it. The other one I guess was standing guard because it seemed to be yelling at me to “move along…nothing to see here.”
At this point in our day, we were just driving around. We took the Wilson/Moose Road, which by a stroke of luck just happens to connect Wilson Wy to Moose Wy. You’d think they planned it that way or something. 🙂 This is a less traveled road in the area and parts of it are even unpaved. But then a sign caught my eye: “Death Canyon”! You know I had to check that out.
We drove toward the area and came upon a sign that said “4 wheel drive recommended”. Well, I’m in a rented Nissan Accura and it has 4 wheels so I figure we’re good. We continue on through the pot holes and make it to the trail head. We met a couple walking back and asked them what was up ahead and they tell us that there is a beautiful view of a lake and it’s well worth the hike. It’s only 1.6 miles. We can do that, so we load up the camera gear and take off. They forgot to tell us that it was 1.6 miles ALL UP HILL!
The path was nice though and after about 45 minutes we arrived at the lookout. They were right. A very nice view of Lake Phelps from 7200 feet.
The best thing about a 1.6 mile hike up hill is that the return trip is all downhill. We made it back to the car in about 30 minutes, headed into town for dinner, a shower, and began the process or copying out pictures over to the laptop. I noticed that we’re up to 72gigs of pictures. RAW format really eats up the space, but it sure makes editing easy. I’m sure once we get home a lot of these will get weeded out as dups or out of focus or just “what was that” shots.
Tomorrow, another try at a sunrise shot. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and we’ll have a clear shot at the mountains. Until then, I’m exhausted and am heading to bed!