We arrived in the Tetons on Tuesday night with enough time to find a campsite at Colter Bay and have a “backpacker’s dinner” on the shore of Jackson Lake with an awesome view of the Teton range. We watched the sun set behind the mountains while we boiled water and made a freeze dried backpacking meal. I wouldn't have it any other way: a gorgeous, secluded view passing a bag of food back and forth between David and I :) Just in time for us to finish eating and the sun to set, then the skeeters came out. In FULL force! AH! We packed it up and hauled ass back to camp. I remember when we lived in Alaska we would try to out walk/run the skeeters, now I was doing it again, 20 years later! For some reason they left me mostly alone but swarmed Daveed. All over his hat, jacket, pants- every where! We got back to camp and took refuge in the tent.
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| Dinner in the Tetons! |
Next morning we woke to a blue bird day with calm waters on Jackson Lake, which made for a gorgeous reflection of the mountains. We decided to do an easy hike so we would have time to check out Jenny Lake and do some other cruisin around the park-- we were on a mission to see some wildlifes! I was super disappointed that I only saw one small herd of domestic buffalo when we first crossed the border into South Dakota. I wanted to see some real deal wildlifes!
We decided to hike to the summit of Signal Mountain, which is about 6 miles round trip. Word. We donned the perfume of our summer: sunscreen and bug spray, and hit the trail. The hike was very pleasant, the first part in the woods, the middle part exposed with awesome views of the Teton range, and the last bit switchbacks up and up in the shaded woods. The skeeters were super bad in patches, even with plenty of bug spray they buzzed our ears and got us on all of the smallest parts we missed with bug spray! GAH! They got me on my forehead and underneath my sunglasses!
We reached the false summit, took a few pics then continued on. We ran into a fire crew that was removing wildfire “fuel” from the woods. They were taking down dead trees and removing fallen trees. If a wildfire broke out, there wouldn't be as much fuel for the fire, causing it to die out sooner and therefore creating a barrier between the lodge, other tourist things and the grasslands that buffalo and elk frequent on the other side of the mountain. We continued to the summit and had the place to ourselves! Due to the wildfire work, the road that goes to the summit was closed, so there was only hiker traffic and no one went beyond the false summit- lucky for us! We had lunch at the picnic table right next to the geological marker for the summit, awesome! We baked for an hour or so in the sun, shirts optional, and enjoyed our lunch.
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| Summit of Signal Mountain |
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| Summit lunch, shirts optional! |
On our way down, we bumped into Pete from Miguel’s! Say what?? We thought he lived in Lexington/the Red, but no! He has been on a helicopter wildfire crew for the past 12 years and lives at Miguel’s during the “off season” from his wildfire job. He was helping out with cutting down dead trees. Super random to bump into him on Signal Mountain of all places! We thought our chance encounter with Dave and Julia in Ten Sleep was random, this tops it! We had a nice chat with Pete then headed for the cover of shade on the trail.
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| Shoreline of Jenny Lake |
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| Cooling off |
After we got back to the car, we had some ice cream, then headed to Jenny Lake. Wow. As beautiful as everyone said it would be. We walked in the lake up to our knees to cool off and boy did it feel good! After meandering along the lake for a while we headed back to the car, ready to EAT. We stopped at the bathroom and met a young couple who were biking across the US! They started in Seattle, I think, and were headed all the way to Boston! They were fun to talk to and also gave us a map of Yellowstone, which is where they came from and where we were going! The guy looked on his fancy maps for a place for us to go eat: his advice was to avoid Jackson Hole as it’s a tourist trap, so maybe try Moose? It’s closer and will surely be cheaper. Word. Well, we missed the turn off for Moose…..I was expecting to drive through a small town, but it turns out Moose is literally a turn off from the main road that runs through the Tetons, it looks like a general store and gas station, not a town :) Soooo, we keep on driving thinking we’ll be in Moose any minute...and then we are entering Jackson Hole. Huh. Oh well, we are WAY too hungry to drive anywhere else, so I guess we’ll eat here. Jackson Hole reminded us of an Aspen type town. Lots of rich people wearing cowboy boots and designer jeans. I’m not judging these people, on the contrary I was laughing at US at how much we did not fit in. We were in our hiking clothes, smelled of sweat, bug spray and sunscreen. I was wearing my hiking hat all day so there was no way I was taking it off, my hair was a sweaty, matted down mess!
We walked around for a bit trying to find a “reasonably” priced restaurant… Yeah right. So we ended up at an Italian restaurant named Nani’s. It was delish! I had their cocktail special of the summer and can’t wait to make it myself! It was called the Spaghetti Western, can’t think of a better name given the town. It had whiskey, amaretto and orange san pellagrino. Yum! Daveed had Blanton’s, you know it’s a fancy restaurant when Blanton’s is on the menu and you are not in Kentucky! We cleaned our plates, rolled ourselves out of the restaurant and realized we had an hour an a half drive back to camp. Woof. We were both so tired and drowsy.
We took the other half of “the loop” back to camp, which is what Pete recommended we drive if we wanted to see wildlifes. Well, we were not disappointed! We saw elk, mule deer and finally, buffalo!!!! Buffalo crossing the road, buffalo in the fields, buffalo in the trees, buffalo every where! Hooray!! Wildlifes! It was a great way to end our short stint in the Tetons.
We got back to camp and ran into the tent, evading the skeeters again.
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