We’re off to Lake Solitude today. It’s about a 14 mile roundtrip from the boat
dock on the west side of Jenny Lake to the high altitude lake. We need to make time up and back so we don’t
miss the shuttle back across the lake when we return or we’ll be hiking another
two miles around the lake. We’ve started
early and I’ve been put “on restriction”.
That means I can’t carry my Nikon because I’ll take too many photos and
that will slow us down. Shannon knows me
well. So I’m carrying the little point
and shoot to sneak a photo or two.
She’ll never know!
There’s a moose down by the creek. A quick, silent click of the camera and there
he is. Can you find him? We almost always see moose here and this
morning is no exception.
4.5 miles from the boat dock there is a dining out, our
style rock. Actually, today it’s a
resting rock. We’re near the spot where
North Cascade Canyon splits to the right off Cascade Canyon where we’ve been
hiking so far this morning. I can’t sit
or my old bones start to creak and the muscles start to tighten so I’ve headed
up into North Cascade Canyon while Shannon and Ally take a break. Shannon says I just want to get ahead to snap
a few photos. Could she be right?
The forest here is really beautiful. It’s green and lush as I climb higher.
The creek is barreling down the mountain.
As I look back behind me I can see storm clouds building
over the Grand Teton. It always amazes
me how the mountains seem to change position as our position changes on the
trail.
As I look ahead there’s the glacial carved North Cascade Canyon. It’s magnificent. I wish those storm clouds would vanish. We have about another 2.5 miles of climbing before
we reach Lake Solitude.
This peak reminds me of the Chief Mountain in Glacier
NP. I’ll have to check a topo map to
find its name.
I think this is the eighth marmot we’ve seen
today. This was a family of
marmots. It looks like Mom is holding
her ground as the others scurry to find shelter.
Okay, I’m sneaking just a few more photos now that Shannon
and Ally have caught up and passed me.
Can’t you just picture yourself standing on the bridge in
this magnificent canyon? It’s really
special to be here.
We’ve taken cover in a stand of trees rather than go forward
into the boulder fields. There’s some
lightning and thunder...makes the camera shake so the photo is a little fuzzy
or rather I should say the camera person shakes with all the rattling above.
We’ve waited about an hour and the lightning has stopped but
the drizzle continues. We’re almost 1.5 miles from Solitude but the trail
gets pretty steep from here to the lake so we’re not sure if we’ll have time to
go up and get back down before the last shuttle across Jenny Lake. After much indecision we’ve decided to play
it safe and head back down.
Bummer! We’ll be back another day.
The Indian Paintbrush is blooming along the side of the
trail. It’s trying to cheer us up! We’re just a bit disappointed to not have
seen the lake.
Look...a moose. Can
you see this one? Good luck with
that. This has been a two moose, eight
marmot day, so far. It turned out that the storms had a silver lining. On our way back through Cascade Canyon a
gentleman and his family came running towards us on the trail yelling, “There’s
a bear behind us on the trail!” Ally
observed, after the bear had turned to go up the hill around us, that the man
had bear spray and was leading his family in a run away from the bear. His
family was fully exposed to the bear and was running...that’s a big no,
no. I bet his wife had a thing or two to
say to him after they recovered from the shock.
I think the bear was shocked too!
He just wanted out of there. If
I’d had my Nikon I could have gotten a photo.
See, I shouldn’t have been put “on restriction”! We were excited to see our first bear in the
wild on a hike! We think it might have been one of
the young grizzlies that are traveling in this area but we’re not sure. If the storm hadn’t made us turn around we
would have missed it! Always look on the
bright side!
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