Sunday, June 22, 2008

Wyoming Trip - Jackson Hole

We just got back from an excellent Elenbaas trip to Wyoming. All 24 members of the Jack Elenbaas family spent a week in Jackson Hole and Yellowstone. It was a terrific time of bonding, seeing nature, and enjoying life.

We arrived in Jackson Hole on Saturday the 14th around suppertime. After checking into our condo at the Snow King ski resort we settled in and enjoyed the hot tub.

Sunday was my first Father's Day as a father. I was rewarded with a crying baby at 6:30 am :) Knowing that Erin can't sleep through a noisy baby I took Evie out of the room, but quickly realized there was no where for us to go. Every available space in our condo had someone sleeping in it. So I popped Evie in our front carrier and put on her hat and mittens (socks over her hands) and we went for a walk. Snow King has several hiking trails up their slopes so we just started walking along one of them. Up and up we went. I was working hard and Evie was sound asleep. Every 10 minutes I would consider turning around but kept thinking I was near the peak. Finally at 8:00 I reached peak with a beautiful view. It turns out the hike up was 2 miles with 1700 feet elevation gain. I thoroughly enjoyed my father-daughter time, even though Evie never realized we left. She slept soundly the entire time.


In the afternoon I convinced half of the Elenbaas group to join me back up the mountain. I again carried the little princess to the top and she again slept the entire time.
On Monday we packed up and headed for Yellowstone. We spent the day hiking in the Grand Tetons on the way. A group of 8 of us left early and drove to Jenny Lake. We took the ferry to the other side and hiked to Inspiration Point and Hidden Falls.

Jenny Lake:
Hidden Falls:
Inspiration Point:
We hiked through Cascade Canyon which was very scenic with rocky cliffs on both sides and a nice stream running through the middle. We intended to hike to Lake Solitude but the final 2.7 miles were all snow and the lake was under 8 feet of snow and ice. Apparently the Tetons had a very late spring, and it was snowing until just a week before we arrived.
Much of our hike into Cascade Canyon was snowy.

The 8 of us wanted to do 10+ miles so we hiked all the way around Jenny Lake after returning back to the ferry dock. It was a beautiful hike with great views of the lake, streams, and Tetons. In all we hiked 13-14 miles over about 7 hours.
The rest of the group met us at Jenny Lake. On the way up to Yellowstone we stopped for more scenic views of the Tetons.

1 Comments:

Blogger iloveredheads said...

i'm glad you liked my lake

11:11 PM  

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