05/23/08:
It got too hot at Canyonlands National Park, Utah so I moved north to Arches National Park. Fooled around there 1 day and decided it was to hot there as well. Hung around another day in Moab. With the temperature approaching 100 I got out of there and headed north.
Drove all the way up to Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area on the Utah/Wyoming border. Camped at 8500 feet and got snowed on. Temperatures in the 40's with a big time wind blowing. Headed south to Price, Utah, 150 miles south. Same thing. Started to return to Moab but turned around and went back to Flaming Gorge.
More snow when I woke up. It looked to be less than 1 inch... unless it was still snowing. It was. Then it occured to me, The Grand Tetons are pretty covered with snow so off I went. Intermittent snow and rain most of the way. And the Tetons had a covering of snow.
Cloud cover over most of the sky. Signed up for 5 days at the Signal Mountain Campground. While I was walking back to pay the fee I found a female moose in one of the campsites trying to get out of her winter coat. I watched for 5 minutes as she scratched away against a branch. When that didn't work she'd eat the budding leaves on the branch and try again. I was 15 feet from her and she never saw me. The wind would shift and she'd got a whiff of me and knew I was there. I was insulted and went back to the campsite to bathe.
05/24/08:
Today was a total waste. It rained part of last night and most of the day. I drove around in the rain for a while and then went into Jackson to do some food shopping.
Stopped off at the National Wildlife Museum in Jackson Hole across from the National Elk Refuge Area. Lots of great wildlife paintings and sculptures and some not so great.
Went back to the Tetons in the rain and drove around for a while more and then called it quits.
I felt bad for all the campers who drove hundreds of miles to get to the Tetons for this Memorial Day weekend. All that time and effort and it rains most of the time. The Tetons have been mostly covered with clouds so they can't even get a decent picture. It dosen't matter for me because I can just wait out the rain. The sun will shine someday.
05/25/08 Hiking Jenny Lake Trail:
It was much warmer (but not warm) than I expected this morning. More rain last night but some blue patches of sky now. When it rains at 6000 feet you can count on snow at 9000 feet.
Took off about 7:30am for Oxbow Bend on the Snake River. This is one of the favorite spots for photographers and sure enough there were 10 cars parked here and there.
The attraction ia a stretch of the Snake River with huge towering peaks in the distance. If you catch it just right and there's no wind you can get a nice reflection of the peaks in the water. Today there was no wind but lots of low lieing clouds around the peaks with patches of blue sky. I got a couple of pretty good shots alothough the tops of the peaks were chopped off by clouds.
I wanted to hike from String Lake up through Leigh Lake, an absolutely gorgeous walk. I figured it would be even gorgeouser with snow on the peaks. I met a guy from Indiana who was a little nervous hiking bear country. He asked if he could tag along and I said yes.
We started up the String Lake trail but it soon became obvious there was too much snow still on the ground so we went the other way towards Jenny Lake. We were on the mountain side of the lake so the views along the way weren't so hot. The wildlife made up for it.
We spotted a moose on the slope above us and a female elk above the moose. A little farther on I spotted a good sized cinnamon colored bear ahead. We got several shots as he was coming from above down to the lake. We watched it down there for a while until it climbed back up to the trail... and started down the trail towards us. Some great shots of that. As it got closer I said "well, that's enough for me" and started to turn back. It turned off the trail at the same time and continued upwards. So I could have maintained my macho image in front of the guy who was nervous about bears.
Lots of marmots too.
We got down to the ferry landing and turned back. A fair amount of snow along the way but negotiatable. I wanted to climb up some rocks to see if there was a good view up there without the pine trees in the way. Half way up I started slipping in the mud. Then I hit some rocks with muddy boots and lost it. I slid and rolled a ways and found myself clutching a large rock to my chest. That didn't seem like such a good idea and I got rid of it. I finally stopped after 10 feet with muddy pants, muddy camera and muddy GPS. None of us were hurt and I decided I really didn't care what was up above those rocks.
On the way back damn if we didn't spot the same bear but I didn't get any decent shots. Met a woman hiking by herself. She was nervous about bears too and asked if she could come back with us.