This post could also be titled "The One With Too Many Pictures." Luckily, they are beautiful scenery pictures that we took on our most recent hike to Amphitheater Lake in Grand Teton National Park.

The hike to Amphitheater Lake was about 5 miles each way and had an elevation gain of almost 3,000 feet. The hike is labeled as "strenuous" by the park service. I would agree with the label, only because there really is no break from going uphill for the first 5 miles to the lake. That being said, it is not super steep or slippery, and was really easy going down. It seemed like there were varying levels of hikers on the trail because it is easy to take breaks and make your way to the top slowly if needed. There were also a good amount of kids and families. It was a great day hike!

View of the mountains towering above where we parked

Great view of Bradley and Taggart Lakes. The color was really pretty (hard to tell in pictures) but I think Switzerland has us beat on the color of their alpine lakes.

It started getting a lot rockier towards the top. Must be why they call it the Rocky Mountains...

Surprise! This little lake is 0.2 miles before Amphitheater Lake. It wasn't really a surprise since they had it listed on the trail map.

Surprise Lake

Finally there!

Amphitheater Lake

View of Surprise Lake looking down from Amphitheater Lake

A marmot posing for us!

Awesome view of the valley below

One of the peaks... I should probably know which one. It's actually a lot harder  to tell when you are  so close to them than from far away!

More views of the valley

Reflection photo of Surprise Lake on the way back down

An alpine meadow

This is probably hard to see, but there were a bunch of these birds around the trail. They walked around like turkeys, but were smaller than turkeys. William thought they might have been grouse (or grouses?)

Bradley and Taggart Lakes again

On the way down...

Lots of  golden-mantled squirrels on the trail (aka chipmunks without face stripes)

I rounded a corner and saw this guy standing SO close to me! It definitely scared me for a second. (Glad it wasn't a bear!!) He was just munching away on some grass and leaves. His antlers were so furry, unlike any deer I have seen in the south.

On the way back, we stopped at Dornan's to get some gatorade (underestimated how thirsty we would be) and saw this guy hanging out on the Snake River! He is hiding in this picture, but he did end up going further out in the water and almost running around. He was big!

Moose on the Snake River

Now since you've seen pretty much the whole trail you don't even have to do it yourself! Really, though, it is hard to refrain from taking tons of pictures in such a beautiful area. 


Other than this hike, there hasn't been too much going on. We did go to the county fair... It was really small, but had some of the typical fair rides and food. There was a mechanical bull set up, which was definitely not something I've seen at a fair before. I feel like the summer is flying by- it seems like just yesterday I was saying "I can't believe it's already July" and now it's almost August! It won't be long until I need to start researching how to ski...

Just a forewarning- this post is not about how beautiful the scenery is or some hike we did. Actually, we did go on a hard hike the other evening, but both of us forgot to bring cameras or our phones. It's a shame because I don't know if either of us will make it back up there again! It is called Crystal Butte and like the name implies, the trail pretty much goes straight up the butte! It is about the same elevation as Snow King, but shorter, meaning it's much steeper. It's a little over 3 miles total and took us over an hour and a half to do! (Part of this time was definitely spent calling/yelling at Sammie to stop going the wrong way or to get out of a bush that she thought had an animal in it.) The view from the top was pretty amazing, and we got there right at sunset. You can see over to the Tetons or over to the Bridger-Teton National Forest, which was pretty amazing. You would think going down would be easier...and you would be wrong. Going down is very hard, especially in the dry and rocky conditions- it's very easy to slip!

Anyways, today I was walking to a friend's house and brought Sammie along. It was sunny, but only about 70, maybe 75 degrees. Sammie just couldn't believe I disrupted her 8 hour daily nap to take her on a walk. She kept just stopping randomly and I would have to pull her to keep walking. The stopping turned into sitting:

Hi! It has been a while since my last post... Honestly, there hasn't been too much going on here. I have a feeling there will be a lot more going on from now on- I want to make sure I get all the hikes and summer activities done that I want to do before summer is over! 
This weekend (well, Sunday and Monday) William and I took a trip to Salt Lake City. It is the closest "big" city to Jackson, so we wanted to see what it was all about. When we first arrived, we went to the Blue Plate Diner, which was featured on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. It was a great brunch/lunch place and also dog friendly! Sammie made lots of friends and as we were leaving a girl who had come to pet her actually leaned over the deck railing and said, "Bye, Sammie." It was pretty funny. We also walked around the Sugar House neighborhood, which was full of cute bungalows. 



Here are some pictures of the drive there:


After lunch, we drove into downtown. I have to say, Salt Lake City was different than I was expecting. It really wasn't as big as I thought it would be! After looking it up, the population isn't that much different than Columbia. The metropolitan area as a whole is bigger, though, and Salt Lake definitely had a "sprawl" feel to it. After driving around for a few minutes, we checked into our hotel and went on a walk around downtown. 




We also went to Ikea on Sunday. It was awesome, as usual. On Sunday night, we ate at the Red Iguana, which is a Mexican restaurant that Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives also went to. It was pretty good! Then, we went to a place called The Bayou. It is a bar and restaurant that has Louisiana-style food and serves over 200 beers. This was definitely the most variety of beers we've seen since Charleston. The funny part is that they are almost all bottled because of the alcohol laws. None of the draft beers can be over 4.0%! All of the major breweries (Budweiser, etc.) make their beer special for Utah. Pretty crazy!


On Monday, we made a few stops in the morning and then went to Temple Square. Temple Square pretty much dominates downtown completely. I think I read that it is 40 acres total. The LDS church also owns a huge shopping complex right across the street from Temple Square. They paid for and developed the whole thing.










This is the conference center across from the square. It's huge, I just couldn't fit it all in the picture. I think the auditorium is one of the largest in the world, if not the largest.

Luckily, the Bear Cub Fire has not stopped any activities in the Parks. We had a great time boating across the lake. Most of the fun was just looking around. Let me tell you, I thought Lake Lure was cool with it's mountainous surroundings. Wow... I don't even know if I can go to Lake Lure anymore! I am spoiled by this: