Day 7 we awoke in Jackson and had a leisurely morning, before heading back into the park for Cascade Canyon.  This was the busiest place we had been — some of that was due to nicer weather, but some of it was due to the popularity of this hike!  We made it a little over 5 miles, to just before the Canyon forks north and south.  We again had a hot lunch and chilled for a bit, before heading back down.   This hike gave us a little over 50 miles of hiking and backpacking!

For dinner, we spoke to the hotel receptionist about some options, and decided on The Lift, a 15 minute walk towards the town ski slopes.  I imagine during the winter this place is happening, but at this time a year, it’s away from the down town business, and is more of a locals place.  We both had excellent meals.

On the walk over we saw a glass building with all kinds of colorful florescent lighting.  Upon closer inspection, we discovered it was an indoor garden, growing all kinds of vegetables on rotating shelves.  Pretty cool to see!

The next day we flew home.  We will definitely be back to hike the Teton Crest trail some day!  But we need to come in very late July or August, for that to be possible.

We awoke to no rain, but we did have a decision to make.  Pretty much all of our gear was wet, other than the clothes we had on.  And the forecast was not looking good.  Our itinerary had us heading to the car, and driving north into the main part of the park to Paintbrush Canyon, so we decided to hold off on a final call until we were in the car.

On the way down we met three guys who had been out for the night at Phelps Lake.  We enjoyed talking to them, and when we reached our car at the trail head and it started to rain, we offered them a ride since their car was still almost a mile away.  They squeezed in, and we got them to their car.

Once in, Kelly and I made the call to see if we could find a hotel for the night.  We first tried Jenny Lake Lodge, but it was VERY EXPENSIVE!  We drove up to Signal Mountain Lodge, which was more reasonable, and checked in.  We had about an hour of very strong sun so I laid everything out and got it mostly dry, before the weather turned again.  We looked up in to the canyons and new we had made the right decision!  We enjoyed a nice meal and a warm bed.   And dry clothes!

(While we certainly could have trudged on, we would have spent many hours in the tent waiting out the rain.  The next day we hiked to Paintbrush and met a couple coming down how had camped, and they said they were pretty much poured on all afternoon, evening, and night!)

After a night of mostly rain in Death Canyon, we awoke to a break in the weather that allowed us to have breakfast and pack up the gear.  I would have been tempted to stay another day/night in Death if it had just rained, even though our permits said to move out.  It was an amazing spot, and Kelly and I were the only ones for what seemed like miles.  No one else was in the Death Canyon camping zone!

A few minutes after we left the site with all our gear on our backs, Kelly suddenly stopped.  We had scared a bear cub up  a tree, less than 50 yards a way.  It was really cute, and I wish I had a picture, but we were also worried as we didn’t see Mama bear.  We stood very still and Kelly shook her bear bells, and after maybe 30-40 seconds, the mama appeared and ran up the hill.  Baby bear came down the tree and followed.  Shew!

We had to cross the same avalanche field and snow pack.  What was odd is that we approached the avalanche field, we saw a pack and poles, but no one around!   I yelled out, not wanting to scare anyone, and still nothing.  As we passed the bag I noticed a sheath and thought either “machete” or some kind of saw.  As we started to cross the field, it was apparent someone was out working trying to clear the field with a small hand saw!  Eventually we met the ranger and spoke to him.  His 1st question was “was anyone else up there last night,” to which we said “no.”  🙂

As we started down Death, it really started to rain and was really cold.  It was a bit of a death march, in some ways.  After an hour or two, I was getting really cold, but Kelly was marching along.  I started thinking of the B&B’s hot tub.  When we reached the fork in the trail at Phelp’s Lake, however, we did not turn back to the car.  We headed up towards Open Canyon.

After a few minutes we stopped for a warm lunch of rice noodle soup and tea, and though I was shaking from cold and wet, it made me feel a lot better.  And once we started up,  I did warm up.  I could tell Kelly was struggling, a bit.  Turns out her feet were pretty much ice blocks.  After a while we did come across three back packers — they were heading down and bailing — they had had a pretty aggressive plan of much higher peaks, and just didn’t have the gear.

When we found the site at Open Canyon, we set up, again just in time for a hail storm, though this one was much smaller than the night before.   We did have a brief, 30 minute period of sun, where we hung up our wet clothes to dry, but alas, it got dark too soon.

The river coming down in Open Canyon:

Day three — time to start backpacking!  But only after an awesome breakfast at the B&B.   Again, to keep things simple, I’m just doing a single “tile mosaic” of all the images and will write at the top what we did, but will include videos here and there as well.

After breakfast, we headed into the park on Moose Wilson Road, a bit of a back door road into the park that passes by Teton Village, and then is 9 miles of tight and twisty road to the park.  Before the park, though, we hit the turn off for Death Canyon Trail head.   The 4×4 Jeep allowed us to drive the rough mile long road, through some major pot holes, to get all the way to the trail head.  We did pass a lot of cars parked much earlier, but in reality, we saw a minivan make it pretty far.  I personally would not have attempted that!

The trail to Death Canyon has a 1 mile lead in to a view of Phelps Lake, and then heads up the canyon.

The 1st part of the hike, we saw a fair number of day hikers, but after that, we saw a few runners and day hikers.  One of the runners was wearing the same Prana shorts that I run in — something I’ve not seen before!  He also had no GPS and said he wasn’t training for anything, just out running.

The hike along the “river” (all snow melt) in Death Canyon was stunning:

We reached the top, where it flattened out, and we hiked along the creek with stunning mountain peaks and snow and waterfalls on each side.  We saw a few moose, and very few people.  One was a runner, who was wearing Prana shorts – something I’ve only know myself to do!  He had no GPS and said he wasn’t training for anything, just out for a 12-13+ mile run in an incredibly beautiful place.

We crossed a few snow packs, and even had to cross an avalanche field with down trees and snow:

After that, it was another mile or so until we found the perfect camp site.  We were on a bit of a rock knoll — really a 3 sided cliff – with a small flat grassy spot on top.  We set up the tent and grabbed a quick lunch, just before we got hit by a huge hail storm!

After the hail, it did rain for quite a while, but we were lucky enough to get a short window where we could cook dinner without  rain.

Photo’s from the day: