Are Those Mountains Really Real??

As we left Yellowstone and entered Grand Teton National Park, the mountains seemed to jump out at us just on the other side of Jackson Lake. They seemed closer to us than any that we had seen so far, maybe because we were such a high elevation. The campground we stayed at had some amazing views of the lake and mountains (of course our site did not) but we were lucky to get a spot there.



Look closely for the herd of elk.

We visited Jackson and had a real meal (not the same old hotdogs or chicken strips cold and a bit dusty). Collin ate his first buffalo/elk/wild boar meatball (a disgusting combo if you ask me) which he liked. Josh tried a piece and said it tasted like chicken. Jackson is a cute western town and we watched a shootout in the middle of the street. The boys didn’t know what a shootout was but they loved it.

Alex asked all through Yellowstone when we would see a herd of buffalo. We never did see a herd there but on the way back from Jackson we saw a large herd up on a ridge. Now he asks when we’ll see a herd cross the street-highly unlikely.

We decided to take a long hike around part of Jenny Lake and up into Cascade Canyon. We did not know that this was one of the highlighted areas to hike. We just picked it as a cool looking canyon as we drove by on the highway. There is a ferry shuttle that goes from the south end of the lake to the beginning of the trailhead where there is a waterfall. We did not take the ferry and instead started close to 2 miles away at the north parking area.

We followed the trail along a river until in emptied into the lake and then around the lake until we came to what we thought was our junction. The first junction we came to was the canyon horse trail. I wondered if this was correct but Josh said of course it was. So up the horse trail we went. It was quite a climb to get up away from the lake but really nice because we were shaded and by ourselves most of the time.

We then came to a junction where we met a lot of people. At this point we realized we weren’t on the trail we thought we were. We continued into the canyon until the valley opened up and gave us a great view of the mountains and creek. We had a snack and then headed down the actual canyon trail. The trail gave us some great views of the lake and then the waterfall. It was really rocky and lots of people. Will cried most of the way down because Josh made him walk.


While we were resting in the valley of Cascade Canyon and Will and Matthew were playing on rocks, a guy walking by said “You’ve got a couple of young mountain men there don’t you”. I wanted to ask him, “You mean the one that cries when you take the Nuk out of his mouth and the one that cries when you make him walk more than 20 feet?” Mountain men… maybe someday but not yet.

By the time we got back, Josh and I were really tired from hiking the elevation with a little boy on each of our backs but we had promised the boys swimming. So we went to a different campground area where Josh took the boys swimming (their only bath in 4 days). I went to do laundry and some woman commented on the amount of laundry I was folding. I told her I had 4 boys and hadn’t done laundry in over a week (we were also out of clothes). I paid $3.50 for an unlimited shower but they didn’t advertise the fact that it wasn’t hot. That didn’t matter to me; it was wonderful to feel clean even for just a few hours.