Saturday, August 27, 2016

Teton Trip

Me and Erika went down to the Tetons for a weekend. We started our trip having breakfast in front of the Tetons on the Wyoming side

As we had breakfast the clouds cleared and the sun hit the Tetons

We then did a 7+ mile hike around Phelps Lake - this is a shot of the lake

Saw this woodpecker on the trail

We also saw this family of Merganzer ducks

We were able to stay at the Barn during our stay (thanks Fran and Bob). I found a sunflower on my property (sorry Herb, no sunflowers on your lot) - I picked it for this shot at the Barn

Yellowstone Backpack

Jolie and I did a 5 day backpack trip in Yellowstone from Golden Gate to Fawn Pass trailhead. We also took a day long side trip to Electric Peak shown above - we made it close to the top but it was so windy (and my fear of climbing) that we didn't quite make it. This picture was taken on the first day just before we made a wrong turn and had to hike an extra 6 miles to our first camp (made a short day a loooooong day!)

Our second camp was at Sportsman Lake meadow. This is the lake at sunrise with fog.

This was the view from our camp at Sportsman Lake - Jolie for scale

On our hike out from Sportsmans Lake we found a ton of strawberries - we could have picked them all day. They are small but so sweet and tasty

On the fourth day we saw some recent bear prints in the dirt, and then we came across this!! Looks like grizzly marks, but the sap was dry so we knew he hadn't been sharpening his claws to recently.

Axolotl Lakes

Jolie and I rented Axolotl (means a walking fish)cabin near Ennis for July 4th weekend. we hiked the nearby Sphinx Mtn. Flowers and the Helmet mtn on the trail to the summit

Here we are at the summit of Sphinx

At the summit we saw these deep deep blue forget me nots growing at 10,000 ft

A view of the cabin porch

The view of the Madison Mtn Range from the Porch - the Sphinx Mtn is on the far right of the picture