String Lake to Jenny Lake
Jun 16, 2012
Hello from the Tetons!
View on the park roads..a little overcast today, but still beautiful!
First, we pulled into the South Jenny Lake Junction. Apparently this is a hugely popular area for tourists, and there was barely any parking! We decided to keep driving and headed to String Lake, which is just a few miles up the road. From here, we hiked to Jenny Lake on a much less crowded path. The first part of this path suffered a forest fire a while ago... I think it was 1999. As you can see in the photos, it is very obvious that there was a fire.
At least there are some pretty mountains in the background!
Some new trees are growing
On the bright side, we started seeing wildlife almost immediately! Below is the first marmot we saw. Of course, we were both excited to see it, and someone passing by basically made fun of us for taking a picture. Later on we realized that there were tons of marmots along the trail. These are really funny animals. They were running along the trails and coming really close to people. They must have been fed by someone. Their tails wag in a cute, circular motion and they seem to have a lot of personality- they almost look like they are bouncing along the trail. After I looked online a little bit, I found out that a marmot is actually a type of (huge) squirrel. Sammie would have had a heart attack if she had seen all these marmots.
When we were in Zermatt, Switzerland, we saw marmots while hiking, too. They were a little different, though. The ones below are yellow-bellied marmots, and the ones in Switzerland were mostly gray (not sure of the name.) Also, the Swiss marmots were super shy, unlike these!
When we were in Zermatt, Switzerland, we saw marmots while hiking, too. They were a little different, though. The ones below are yellow-bellied marmots, and the ones in Switzerland were mostly gray (not sure of the name.) Also, the Swiss marmots were super shy, unlike these!
As you can see, we saw quite a few marmots! Anyways, the trail we took was very nice and quickly turned from a recovering forest fire to a lush, green forest. We hiked around part of the rim of Jenny Lake to two very popular spots: Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point. Right before you hike up to these areas, there is a boat shuttle that takes people back and forth on the lake so that they don't have to hike more than a mile or so to see the good stuff. This means that this part of the trail was packed with kids, older people, etc, which is fine, but made for some slower hiking. The first attraction to see is Hidden Falls. It was beautiful!
On the way to the falls
Hidden Falls! You have to step off the trail a few feet to see it... maybe that's why it's "hidden"?
About another half mile up is Inspiration Point. It is basically just an overlook onto Jenny Lake. The way up is a little scary, especially when it's crowded. It was really rocky. The view at the top was worth it, though! Of course, we managed to do all of this hiking on the one overcast day of the week, so the pictures didn't turn out quite like I hoped. Hopefully (and most likely) next time we go it will be sunnier.
View from Inspiration Point
Feeling pretty inspired!
This guy must have been feeling pretty inspired, too! This is a golden-mantled ground squirrel. Nope, no normal squirrels out here in Wyoming! Just kidding, we have seen a few regular tree squirrels, but there are mostly ground squirrels. The most common ones have a regular squirrel body, but a short, hairless tail and they (obviously) dwell on the ground and dig holes instead of living in trees. The squirrel above is a cuter, smaller version of the regular ground squirrel with stripes like a chipmunk, but no facial stripes like chipmunks have. They also all make very distinctive noises that Sammie now goes crazy over.
Most of the way back to the parking lot was pretty uneventful, until we rounded a bend and saw a couple just standing there, looking up the hill. The guy kept yelling "Hey!" and then told us that there was a bear climbing up the hill! Of course, William was prepared with his bear spray and took it out of its holster immediately. I got a couple pictures, but he was pretty far up there by the time we got to where we could see him. We all think he was pretty young, which means a mama bear could have been lurking around somewhere- thank goodness we didn't see her! I'm glad the guy knew bear protocol and was yelling for it to go away. It definitely worked! He climbed right up away from the trail.
After the hike was over, we took a scenic road through the park and took a new way home that we hadn't been on before. Almost right when we got in the car, we saw a deer right near the road! Ok, a deer isn't really that exciting, but unlike other deer that I've seen, this one stayed where she was and continued eating and didn't freak out and run away. That is the nice thing about seeing wildlife in the park- you realize that this is really their habitat, not ours, and people are respectful of this. It is so amazing to get to see wildlife be wild and free as opposed to in a zoo or scared to see humans. Well, I'll say that bears are the exception of this for me... It is definitely neat to see them from a safe distance, but I want the bears to be scared of humans, which most of them are. That is probably best for both species!
As you can see, the deer doesn't seem bothered at all! We stopped to look at her for a few seconds and moved on. A couple miles later, cars were slowing down. We were behind maybe 4-5 cars and could see cameras flashing but couldn't see what it was yet. Finally, it was our turn to see what was going on. (By the way, this is typically what happens during a good wildlife spotting... there is a line of cars and you wait and hope that whatever is so exciting hasn't moved by the time you get up there!)
It's a moose!!! This was our first close up moose spotting!
Edited to add: After living here longer and seeing real moose, I realize that this was not a moose. I think it's an elk. OOPS!
Edited to add: After living here longer and seeing real moose, I realize that this was not a moose. I think it's an elk. OOPS!
As you can see, he or she was pretty close to the road! Once again, he just went on snacking while we all stopped and took pictures.
So cute! I think his mouth looks funny from chewing. The antlers were really fuzzy, too, which I was not expecting.
That was the end of our exciting hike and drive filled with tons of wildlife. We did see a bunch of people pulled over to look at a bear, but he was too far gone by the time we got there. Oh well... one bear in a day is plenty for me!
In my last post, I mentioned that we got a treadmill. Well, our apartment is becoming a little bit crowded, especially because William brought this home while I was working the other day:
Sammie is happy with the purchase! Ok, not really... we made her get in and then she immediately leapt out. Then, we wrangled her into it again and she was scared to get out. Don't worry, there is a padded seat and seemed like it was plenty comfortable for her. She does look pretty cute in there, so I think it was worth it. You may not be able to tell in the picture, but this kayak is pretty huge! It goes up to the ceiling and luckily we have some beams going across the ceiling for it to be propped up against. It wouldn't fit in our outdoor storage closet, so now it's just part of the decor. Hopefully we will stop collecting exercise equipment soon or we might need to move!
That's it for now! Have a good weekend.
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