Day 30: Grand Teton II

Let’s Hike!

Yesterday during the planning we looked at a lot of trails on alltrails and had a hard time to chose one. In the end it was Lake Solitude Trail which was the winner, 26.7 km and ~800 m of elevation gain sounded like us.

There was also the option to go back via Holly Lake, but more in that regards later on.

So we got up early (6:45) to make sure that we get a spot at the trail head, it can get hard to find a spot so we wanted to make sure to not be too late.

We made it to the trail head parking (String Lake Trailhead Parking) at around 08:15, we were lucky with the parking spots, there were only 2 left… So we packed up and then off we went.

The first stretch of the Hike was along Jenny Lake, which is pretty popular and a lot of people are hiking around the lake or just a stretch along it.

This was a nice start of the hike, sun was out and it was the perfect weather, blue sky and neither too hot nor too cold. Along the lake we spotted some Marmots (Yellow-bellied Marmots) which were enjoying the sun as well.

Then the trail made a right turn and we started to climb up the canyon, we would follow the canyon for the rest of our hike.

For a long time the trail was now in the forest and we didn’t saw too many people, but later on it opened up and merged together with another trail and things started to get a bit more crowded. But it was never too bad and the trail was so beautiful which made it more than worth it.

We then came to a divide, left goes to Hurricane Pass and right to the Solitude Lake, this was the spot were we dropped most of the crowd. As we now came higher up, the scenery got more and more rough and rocky. We didn’t cross the treeline, but soon there were only some trees left but not a full forest.

Here the trail also got a bit steeper, so far it was a really smooth climb. It reminded us strongly of Switzerland, it could definitely be some pass in the Alps as well. But the view back always reminded us were we are, Grand Teton NP, because he triumphed them all.

As we got closer to Solitude Lake, there was some Snow on the trail, but never to bad and easily doable. Only the last 50 meters were fully covered in snow, but as it wasn’t steep anymore, it only led to wet shoes.

On the top we then did a break and spotted some more Marmots, they were brave and came quite close.

The lake itself is still frozen in large parts, this reminded a bit of Joffre Lakes, nearly 4 weeks ago :)

Then it was decision time, do we go the same way back or try the other route via Holly lake. We hadn’t any information regarding snow for the trail, and we saw the start of it on the Slope on the other side of the valley. Parts were covered in snow, and as the trail first climbs around 500 meters and then goes over a pass, we feared that the other side could be covered in unpassable snow. So we decided to go the same way back we came, which was a bit a pity, because a loop would be more interesting.

Sun was still out most of the time and we enjoyed the way back more than anticipated. It was just amazing, the outdoors, the nature. Back down in the forest we then even saw a young male Moose! He was too far for our mobile phone cameras (camera with zoom in the car…).

Back in Jackson

The Hike took the good part of the day and we were back at the car around 17:00, before we drove back we did a short feet bath in the ice cold river next to the parking. Then it took us around 40 minutes to drive back to Jackson were we directly went for Pizza, Hike Hunger is real!

Maybe you think the Pizza picture looks a bit odd? That’s because we were so hungry that we ate half of the pizza until we realized we didn’t took a picture ;-)

Short Swim then rounded the day nicely off.

Pictures

Activities

Hike: Solitude Lake