Grand Teton N.P. & Cascade Canyon hike

Over Labor Day weekend we visited Grand Teton National Park. The Tetons are not a particularly large range, but they do jut up from the surrounding landscape and make for magnificent views. This was Tonya's first time visiting the Park. I have been through the Park a couple of time and did a backpacking trip into the Teton's with my sister many years ago.

The first full day we had there we decided to hike the Cascade Canyon trail from Jenny Lake to Lake Solitude. It's a little over 14 miles, but the trail is relatively gentle. We read the trail is also the most popular trail in the park. In the photo below, Cascade Canyon is the distant background.

We got a late start since it was Tonya's turn to be a slug getting out of bed (I usually take that role). We decided to take the boat shuttle across Jenny Lake to avoid adding 2 miles each way to our hike. However, the last shuttle of the day left at 6:00 and by the time we started hiking it was almost 11:00. We ended up talking all day whether we were going to be able to catch the return shuttle and how far up the canyon we were going to go, kicking ourselves for not getting an earlier start. The photo below is from the boat shuttle looking up Cascade Canyon.

The first part of the trail climbs ~600 feet relatively quickly past Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point. Then the canyon bottom flattens out as seen with the photo of Tonya.

Lake Solitude is a pretty lake below a ridge. The photo with Tonya at the lake is looking back down the canyon we hiked up. Grand Teton (highest mountain) is in the distance.

We didn't stay long to enjoy the view because we wanted to catch the boat shuttle and it became overcast. Just as we were leaving it started to rain and then it rained hard for about 10 minutes or so and then lightened up. When the rain stopped after 1/2 hour or so the view in the photo below opened up. The tallest mountain is again Grand Teton and the photo is taken looking down the trail.

As I mentioned earlier we were trying to catch the boat shuttle before they stopped running for the day to avoid an extra 2 mile hike. We made the shuttle with time to spare. Once we got to our car and started driving back to our campsite another storm front came through. The last photo shows the Teton Range and the dark clouds over the valley.

Holland Lakes

Near the end of August we did a day hike up from Holland Lake to Upper Holland Lake and back via the old Holland (fire) Lookout in the Seeley/Swan valley. It is a hike we have talked about doing ever since we came here and now we've done it. It was a pretty hike and we enjoyed the day.

It was supposed to be about 12.5 miles of hiking. But we took a wrong turn near the end of our day and added another ~1.5 miles to our day. We were tired, walking on a path we were somewhat familiar with and our feet ended up taking the wrong fork in the trail.

From Holland Lake on can see the most spectacular portion of the Mission Mountains to the west.

The hike up the canyon began eventfully. We can upon a pack train wreck! Two horses had slipped off the trail on the other side of the canyon and had rolled several hundred feet down to Holland Creek (with their packs). When we came upon them, the horses where standing in the rocky creek with their handlers who where trying to figure out how to get the horses back up to a trail. We felt very bad for the horses and wondered how they had managed the fall without breaking a leg or worse. We don't know how the handlers managed to get the horses out (we assume they did!).

Further along the trail we came upon a small falls where I took a photo of Tonya. Along the hike we also came upon some pretty purple flowers.

Upper Holland Lake is a pleasant lake. Many fish were jumping at bugs along the shoreline so it seemed like it would be a good fishing lake.

We stopped to pick huckleberries along its shoreline and the northern slopes as we hiked up to . We came prepared with 2 Nalgene bottles to store the huckleberries. We spent about 3 hours picking huckleberries. Huckleberries are in the blueberry family. Bears like them and we do too. We came across the best berry patches at the end. We would have been quicker filling up our 2 bottles if we had come across those patches earlier. At the end our hands were stained purple from picking berries.

After filling our bottles we continued hiking and climbed up to a old fire lookout station (since abandoned). From the old lookout it is approximately 4000 ft down to Holland Lake and the trailhead we started from.