Morning breaks. Two words that were more welcome than any other words in my vocabulary. The night was cold. The gear did an admirable job, and we were actually somewhat comfortable. We had survived, but as we lay in the tent, we could feel how cold it was outside our small little 35sq ft paradise.
We each ventured out briefly, but quickly returned to the tent and the warmth of the sleeping bags. It was very evident that we were just going to have to wait it out, desperately needing the warmth of the sun to be able to get moving again. Being in the canyon, the sun would be several hours behind schedule, but blue skies were above and we were happy to be right there, right then.
Our first obstacle would be our shoes, notably Jills. Her shoes had gotten wet through the hiking and snow trekking, and they had become so frozen in the sub 20 degree temps that they were too rigid for her to even get her feet into. Of course, they were also so cold that she wouldn't have had them on for a minute before her feet would have started to freeze.
I fired up the trusty JetBoil stove and proceeded to "cook" her shoes. Hovering the shoe about 6 inches above the stove, I was able to quickly dethaw her shoes. It worked so well with hers that I proceeded to "cook" mine as well. My shoes were fine to wear, but Jills still needed to dry some, so we put them on a rock and waited patiently for the sun to help the cause.
I can't say enough good things about our gear, as it was impeccable. The North Face tent, although not spacious, kept us warm and very dry through some nasty conditions and packed up super small. The camp stove fired up easily and boiled countless liters of water, and the Thermarests kept us insulated from the icy cold ground at night. Good gear doesn't come cheap, but sometimes you get what you pay for. I had survived sub 20 degree temps in a 20 degree rated bag that was at least 6 or 7 years old.
In the meantime, our tent had started to build up enough heat inside that the condensation was getting annoying. We would need to wait until the tent dried out enough to pack up anyway, so we suited up with our clothes for the day and put the rain fly out to dry as we did camp duties.
Soon the sun crested the peaks, and all was right with the world. Our original plan was to stay 2 nights up in Cascade Canyon, with our return doing a loop past Lake Solitude over the Paintbrush Divide (10,500 feet) and returning down Paintbrush Canyon to Jenny Lake. As we sat there, we discussed our plan of action. The ranger had told me "no one has gone over the divide, meaning the trail may be hard to find" the day before, which certainly made that trek more daunting knowing the snow pack would do nothing but get deeper with 1500 feet of elevation gain.
We thought about doing a day hike to the South Fork of Cascade, and keeping our campsite in the North Fork. Trudging through the snow to the South side didn't seem like a great idea either, as frozen shoes weren't much fun. So we made the executive decision to just retrace our 5.5 mile path back down. It was hard to argue with the logic of having a bed and a shower, two things that had eluded us for the last 3 or 4 days.
The sun was out, the skies were blue and the temps were rising rapidly. We neared the fork that would send us back to Jenny Lake, when we ran into another young couple decked out with overnight packs. We talked with them briefly and they told us how they too had their plans changed by the weather, and they were thinking about going over the Paintbrush Divide today if possible. We gave them an update on what to expect, wished them luck and continued on taking in more and more views at every corner.
We passed lots of people, many who were impressed/bewildered that we had taken on the overnight challenge. I quickly realized that people really weren't stopping to talk with me, as the guys we passed were pretty much only interested in talking with Jill. One commented on how good she looked especially considering we had been in the backcountry, while another told her how much she looked like his niece who is a lawyer in Houston. I received no complements strangely enough.
The views on the way down, even though we had seen them on the way up, did not disappoint. The Tetons are really a magnificent range, and the blue skies, changing colors and rushing water only added to the beauty of this setting.
As we continued our rapid descent, the people become more numerous which always signifies you are nearing the trail head. At higher elevations especially, most people don't make it more than 1 mile from the trail head, so we were sure we were getting close to the boat which would take us back to our car. We just missed a boat as we walked up, but thankfully another was shortly behind and before we knew it we were back in the parking lot and done. One last quick pic of us sporing our heavy packs then we were off to see the rest of the park.
Blue skies and 60 degrees greeted us in the parking lot. While it would have been ideal to have these conditions the entire trip, we were just overjoyed to get good weather at all. We drove around in the park stopping many times to take in views and snap a couple pics. We were close to peak on the leaves changing, but maybe 3-4 days too early.
We set sail from Grand Teton, stopping briefly in Jackson to grab some dinner before knocking out a couple hours of driving and grabbing a hotel in Rock Springs, WY. The next day would be a pretty easy drive into Cheyenne, arriving there around lunch time. We grabbed some food in Cheyenne, checked out the Sierra Trading Post store and then blazed the remaining hour back to our home where two anxious puppies awaited our return.
We unloaded the rental car, which in turn made our entry way in our front room like a tornado had just destroyed an REI store. Thankfully we had taken the next day off from work as a potential extra day of vacations or a recovery day. It was clear when we got up the previous morning in the icy, cold conditions that it would be a recovery day. A great trip, albeit with mostly crappy weather, that we will definitely be doing again. We're already planning our assault on the Cascade Canyon/Paintbrush Divide loop for next summer under hopefully better weather.
1 comment:
...really beautiful pictures! I've been living in Boulder for a couple of months this summer. I had to return back to Munich, Germany in late September, but at least I could see some leaves change color. I already miss the Frontrage - I guess it's been the most scenic area I've been to so far!
Sebastian
Post a Comment