Since I unexpectedly stayed at the Colter Bay campground on Wednesday night, I had an easy trek to my first destination of the day – real showers and the laundromat! As I drove the half mile to the laundromat, I saw that there was a lot of fog hanging around the lake, with the mountains peeking out overtop. I knew it wouldn’t last long, so I threw on some shoes and headed out to the same trail I was on a couple days ago.

By the time I actually got to the good mountain views, most of the cloud coverage was gone, but I still walked along the water for awhile and took even more pictures!

After that short side trip, I headed back to take a shower (which was amazing!) and do my laundry. It was nice to have a break and be able to fully charge my phone, catch up on what I had missed over the last 5 days and just generally take a break for a little bit. I finished laundry about lunchtime and headed back to Trapper Lake.

When I got to the Leigh Lake trailhead, I briefly talked to a Ranger who was headed out on the trail. I was still packing up my stuff, but he was sure I would catch up to him at some point on the trail. I did eventually catch up to the Ranger and he offered me a kayak ride if I would help him to get to the north side ranger station. Unfortunately, I didn’t know where that was (especially in relation to where I was going), I’m not a strong swimmer should anything go wrong and it was already starting to get quite warm out, even under the shade of the trees. So, I passed on the offer, but later I found out that the Ranger station was very close to Beartrap Lake, so I would have had about half a mile of hiking to go after that, but I think I still made the right decision based on the information I had at the time.

When I got to camp, the lake looked a lot different with the sun shining over the mountains.

When I first saw the Ranger in the parking lot and told him where I was staying for the night, he told me that the night before there was a bear sighted at Beartrap Lake (the lake about half a mile before my campsite) and to make sure that I kept all of my food in the bear box. So, as soon as I got to camp, I quickly packed all of my extra gear into my very own bear box.

Shortly after I got there, my marmot friends came to visit again.

Since I made it to camp by late afternoon, I set up my tent and decided it was time to take a nap while the sun was so hot. I slept for a little bit and apparently there were a few other folks who took the trail, because at one point I heard someone say, “Look, there’s a tent. I didn’t see that on the way in – it’s well camouflaged.” 

I made another campfire and just spent the night relaxing and watching a beautiful sunset over the mountains.

After a short delay, I’ve finally started writing about the rest of my trip out west… for the full recap (by day), check out my Westward Adventures page.

Wednesday morning I headed back to the trailhead and got some great views of the mountains that were partially obstructed the afternoon before by the rain showers that came into camp.

After the meadow, I walked back past Leigh Lake, which had great reflections of the mountains in the early morning.

From there, I went back to the Jenny Lake trailhead to start my hikes for the day. First up was Hidden Falls. It was a steep hike and I was (again) glad that I had my hiking poles with me. Even though it was the middle of the week, it was very busy around Jenny Lake, but the hike was definitely worth it.

On my way up to Hidden Falls, I passed a trail that was under construction. Unfortunately for me, it was the trail that goes between Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point. So instead of taking a short hike to my second stop, I backtracked down to the main trail around Jenny Lake and started from the bottom of the Inspiration Point trail.

It was a long and hard hike to the top of Inspiration Point – 7,200′ – but again, very worth it. You could see out across the trees and Jenny Lake and even watch the ferry boat bringing more people across the lake.

After spending some time hanging out on the top of the mountain, I headed back down to the main trail again and instead of going the whole way around Jenny Lake which would have been at least a 15 mile hike (in addition to the 2 miles I had to go to get to my campsite for the night), I just went back the way I came.

As I started my trek around the lake again, I could see the clouds starting to form and could hear some thunder rumbling in the background. At that point, I was glad I made the decision not to go the whole way around the lake so that I could head straight to my campsite for the night.

As I got to the Leigh Lake trailhead it started to rain a little bit, so I quickly re-packed my overnight bag and as I finished, it started to rain a lot harder and the thunder got a lot closer and I started to see some lightning. So, instead of risking hiking through that weather, I hopped back in the car and tried to wait out the storm. The bad part was that the cell reception in the parking lot was really bad, so after about 45 minutes I drove up the road a little bit until I found better reception, took a look at the radar and it looked like there was going to be a break in the storm around 6:00, so I headed back to the trailhead and waited some more. Around 6:15, I decided the weather didn’t look like it was going to get better anytime soon, so I headed back to the Colter Bay campground to stay for the night instead. 

I stopped by the ranger station to let them know I wasn’t staying at Leigh Lake that night and see if there was any way to change my reservation to Leigh Lake for Thursday night. Unfortunately, someone had already booked the last campsite there, so I stuck with my original reservation at Trapper Lake. The bad weather never did hit up at Colter Bay, so I think I made the right decision to head up that way, especially since I was going to end up there Thursday morning anyway.

Monday morning, I got up, dealt with my wet tent and headed back to Jackson to continue hiking in the Tetons since Pinedale wasn’t going to work out. On my way down on Sunday, I passed through lots of little towns, sometimes with populations less than 100 people. I got to see cows on the road and migrating antelope making their way up towards Jackson.

Since it was still fairly early in the day and there had been so much moisture overnight, there were clouds hanging in the mountains as I made my way back through some of the small towns, including Bondurant (population: 93).

The Death Canyon trail that I had planned to hike (originally a 3-day trip) was still on my list for a day hike, so after stopping in Jackson to pick up some more hand warmers (for future reference, you may need to look behind the gun counter to find these at Kmart), I was on my way to the trailhead. The road to the trailhead was mostly one-lane, very bumpy at times and seemed to go on forever, but eventually I got to the trailhead, right around noon. The first big site was the Phelps Lake Overlook at 7200′. 

From Phelps Lake, the trail became more and more rocky and also more steep…

but you could see so high into the mountains – it was amazing! 

This is definitely the type of trail I was hoping for when I started planning my hikes out west. 

There were also lots of small waterfalls randomly coming out of the mountainsides. 

After hiking for awhile, the trail switchbacks up the mountain beside a huge stream with lots of rushing water.

I did come across some snow on the trail, and it was a lot easier to go across the first time (heading uphill) than heading back later in the day, but the snow was still hard packed and I had my hiking poles, so that made things a lot easier.

Eventually, the trail leveled out and got closer to the water. 

When I made it to the Patrol Cabin, I decided to keep going (mostly because I didn’t remember my map correctly and was thinking I could make it to the Death Canyon Shelf). I hiked for another couple of miles before realizing that I probably wasn’t going to make it to the shelf before I would need to head back to the trailhead. These miles were mostly in the woods and provided some relief from the sun that was beating down on the previously rocky trail. On my way back to the trailhead, I came across a moose who had found some good grass to eat beside the trail a hundred yards or so ahead of me. 

Luckily, I saw him and was able to snap a couple of pictures before he decided he wanted to come a little closer and continue eating grass along the trail. This is when I decided that I wasn’t going to be able to just take the trail around him (he was now standing on the trail), so I crossed the stream on a log and started to make my way down stream to get beyond him. 

As I did this, he found a new spot to eat grass and I had to re-cross the water to get back to the trail. I took off my shoes and the water came up to my knees and was really cold (snow runoff), but it wasn’t too far, maybe 8-10 feet, to get across and then when I got to the other side, I dried off my feet while keeping an eye on the moose who was continuing to eat, but keeping watch on what I was doing as well. After I got my shoes back on, I snapped another few pictures and headed on my way to leave the moose to his foraging. 

On my way back, I got to meet another trail friend – a marmot who I thought was going to come right up to me to greet me. He saw me coming down the trail, stopped and then when I stopped, he came up the rocks beside me and when I didn’t move, he just looked at me for a minute and then scampered off.

The hike back was mostly downhill until I got back to the Phelps Lake campground turnoff, so it was a much easier hike back. I was also able to see the sun start to go behind the mountains, creating fun shadows around the rocks, trees and water.

Going this direction also let me see more of Phelps Lake. 

It was probably around 6:30 or 7:00 when I finished hiking that night and since I didn’t have any other plans, I drove up to the Colter Bay campground to stay for the night. It ended up being a great place to camp because I could drive my car right to the campsite and get everything situated for the rest of the week. 

Next up: Colter Bay, Swan Lake, Heron Pond and my first night at Trapper Lake.

Early Sunday morning I headed down to Pinedale, WY with the hopes of hiking to Titcomb Lakes, but in my research, I failed to realize that Pinedale is actually a couple thousand feet higher than Jackson which means that I only made it about a mile or so into the hike before hitting too much snow to continue. 

So, instead, I headed to Green River Lake campground that the guy at the visitor’s center recommended. He wasn’t kidding that it was really remote.

I lost cell phone reception about 3 miles onto the dirt road which went on for 20 miles until I finally reached the actual campground. I had passed so many great camp site options along the river that I decided not to stay in the official campground and instead find a spot along the river to spend the night. I ended up driving back about 11 miles until I found a spot along a bend in the river that looked like a good option and drove my car down beside the river. 

It was a perfect spot with lots of downed wood and a pre-built fire ring, so I was able to build a small fire while watching the sun set over the mountains. There was a short shower, but nothing more than just sprinkles, so I went ahead and made a fire while waiting for the sunset.

Needless to say, I was not disappointed with the sunset that evening – it was amazing! I went to bed pretty early that night (soon to be a theme of my trip) and I was woken up to the sound of something large splashing in the river. Of course, my first thought was a bear (because why wouldn’t a bear go swimming at night?!), but when I turned on my flashlight and shined it out my tent, I couldn’t see anything, but I did hear something fly away. I’m assuming it was probably geese that had some in to stay for the night and I interrupted their settling-in procedures. Luckily, after that, I didn’t have any other strange noises in the middle of the night!

It was surprisingly cold that night, probably due to the lack of anything to block the wind around my tent, so I put on all the layers I had brought and was still a little on the cold side. I knew that I had a hand warmer in my first aid kit in the car, but I really didn’t want to get out of my tent, so I stayed put and managed to get some good sleep.

The next morning when I woke up, my tent was soaked! I hadn’t thought about the fact that there was no tree coverage and I was right next to the water, so my tent had collected a ton of condensation overnight. Luckily, I was able to shake a lot of the water off and then hang it over the seats in my SUV to dry out before I headed to my next stop. I would definitely recommend having a plan for this if you’re going to be camping in the open or (as happened to me later in the trip) you get caught in a lot of rain which will also soak your tent.

After the half marathon on Saturday, I took a quick shower and decided to wander around the park a little bit to try to figure out my options for hiking later in the week. My first stop was a visitor’s center and after talking with several rangers about the trails I originally wanted to hike, they felt that the snow was still probably too deep / treacherous to go without an ice ax, so I quickly nixed that idea and figured I would do some day hikes instead and just camp closer to civilization.

After the visitor’s center, I stopped by the Taggart Lake trail and decided that would be a good short (4-ish miles) post-race hike. 

After the Phelps Lake overlook, the trail was much less crowded and I found myself alone a lot of the time.

The weather was looking a little dark, with lots of rain clouds in the distance, but luckily, the rain stayed far enough away from me that I was able to just finish the hike before it started. 

On my way to dinner, I passed by the road that went up to the top of Signal Mountain, so I did a quick backtrack and headed up to the top for a sunset / rain cloud view of the mountains. It was an amazing view!

Since I was almost to the part where I could make a loop out of my trip, I kept going and came across the Jackson Lake dam which was really neat.