The Grand Trip

Hello everyone. Tannya has tried to get me to do a post in the past, but I usually don't want to or have anything to really expound on, but this time I do and I'll do my best to make a decent post.

So a few weeks ago Dallin (my little brother), Supe, JJ and I went on a pretty amazing trip. We got together on a Wednesday evening, got the car all loaded up with our camping and climbing gear. Then we began our journey to Jackson Hole, WY. As we were driving we passed through Ogden at about 1:00am and we decided it would be best if we didn't try to drive all night, so we stopped and slept for a few hours at Tannya's parents house. It was a good idea to get some sleep, but a few hours later, at 5:00am we were on the road again. After a couple of hours of driving we decided to get some gas, so we stopped in Idaho Falls. As we were refueling, we realized that we had forgotten to put the gas cap back on when we had filled up in Ogden at 1:00am. So JJ, being resourceful like he is, started walking up and down the highway and found pieces of trash on the side of the road that we could use to create a makeshift gas cap. We ended up using a piece of tire tread that was cut into a circle the size of the gas hole, and then we took a rag and wrapped it around the tire tread and shoved the tread into the gas hole. It ended up working out pretty good, or at least we think that it did. We will never know.

After a few more hours of driving and a quick stop in Swan Valley to get a Square Ice Cream Cone, we finally made it to Jackson Hole and the Grand Tetons. We got changed into our hiking clothes and got started on the trail that we would be taking to get to the top of the Grand Teton(the highest peak in that area). We wanted to hike/scout out the first 6 or 7 miles so that we wouldn't waste time on Saturday trying to find our way. Well it ended up paying off in more ways than one. We did get a good idea of where we were wanting to go, but we also found out how strenuous of a hike it was going to be. Dallin and I were so tired that when we got to the lower saddle we just sat down against a rock and rested/slept while Supe and JJ went the last 1/2 mile to scout out the "Eye of the Needle" So of the views from the first part of this hike were amazing. This is looking up at the Grand Teton from the parking lot. The hike took us up around the back left side of the mountain. From the parking lot to the summit you go straight up about a mile and a half. That's a lot of climb in elevation.

JJ, Supe and Dallin taking in the beautiful surrounding in Garnett Canyon.

Spalding Falls in Garnett Canyon. The falls don't really look all that big, but if you look closely you can see 2 hikers towards the bottom of the picture. That gives you a little perspective of how big the falls really are.

So after we finished the hike we were all dead tired, so we went to Albertson's and got some food for dinner, and drove to a dirt road where we could park and threw our sleeping bags on the road for the night. When we woke up Friday morning we were all feeling a whole lot better then we had the night before. Friday was our rest/recover day so we didn't really do much, but we did go for a little walk and found this cool little pond.Then we went and found a nice quiet place to have lunch and to take an afternoon nap. You can all admire our luxurious camping accommodations. We were livin large.

Then as we were waking up from our nap, we saw this moose come walking by about 150 yards away. Then we went to Jenny Lake and took a nice little stroll around part of it as the last activity of the day.

After our trip to Jenny Lake we drove to the trail head and that is where we ended up making dinner and spending the night. We just slept in the parking lot which made it easy because we didn't have to drive anywhere when we woke up. We were just straight onto the trail.

We started hiking at about 3:00am Saturday morning. There were 8 or us. Dallin, Supe, JJ, Gary(my father-in-law), Kyle (my brother-in-law), Bryon (Gary's neighbor and good friend), Clayton (a kid from Arkansas i think, that is taking some time off from Medical school while he goes on a Vision Quest. We met up with him in the parking lot on Friday night and offered to let him join our group since he was by himself and didn't have any climbing gear. It was very interesting to see some of the subtle changes that he made as he spent some time with us.), and I. So we started on the trail with our headlights going and as the sun started to come up there were some amazing views.

After a few more hours of hiking and a couple of scares that the weather was going to turn bad, we finally made it to where the climbing begins. It wasn't really that technically difficult of climbing, but it was very high up and very scary if you aren't used to it. I thought that it was pretty exciting. This gives you a little bit of an idea of what it was like.As we were climbing it was about 50 degrees and the wind was blowing at about 20-30 MPH and Dallin and Kyle got really cold and tired. So when it wasn't their turn to climb we had them lay down to get out of the wind and to get some rest. At this particular spot Kyle was on a ledge about 5 feet above Dallin and as Kyle was sleeping his legs would twitch, sending little rocks rolling over the edge and hitting Dallin in the helmet. It was really rather funny to watch it. Dallin had no idea what was going on or where the rocks were coming from.

Finally, after 8.1 miles of hiking and climbing which took us about 13 hours, we reached the summit. The views were amazing. They were so beautiful. It was at least 10 time better then what i was expecting.
Then we had to hike back down to the parking lot. At about 11:45pm we all made it back to the parking lot. I've never been so completely exhausted ever before. But it was worth every bit of it, and I'm already planning a trip for next year.