S to the A to the N to the D, Y

DAY 1 

Angie and I are visiting the Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone National Parks. 

This morning we went hiking near the lodge before lunch. It’s amazing how close we are to some of God’s most magnificent creation - we hiked to the top of this breathtaking hill in about 10-15 minutes.

http://www.sandyhassomethingtosay.com/day1lunchtreehill.mpg

After the hike and lunch, we went fishing and caught a few fish. We had two keepers - a Lake and Cutthroat trout, which our 3 1/2 star restaurant will be frying up for our 8:30 dinner reservations tomorrow. Angie caught the lake trout, which was larger. I caught the cutthroat, which was far more interesting and will be far more tasty.

 

I’m going to try to update my blog daily with pics and maybe some video. There’s a wireless spot in the lobby of the lodge we’re at and I forgot to bring the camera up here tonight, so it will probably be tomorrow when I post some actual pics and video from our first day here.

Buh bye (and Happy Birthday Donny!)

DAY 2

We got up a little earlier this morning. We went down to the corral, hopped on our horses and said giddyup! After the two hour ride, I could barely walk. It was worth it - Angie and I both had a great time and saw some cool scenery. Here’s a couple of good pics from the ride:

(Yes, the resort “wrangler” bringing up the rear is sleeping her way down the trail!)

(This is the fork in snake river. We’re thinking about cayaking down here tomorrow. It’s really cool. Moose hang out here too.)

Day 3 

Completed an awesome 4 or so mile hike today. It was really great. Saw what we think was a bear track and scat. Had two different chipmunks nibble my finger, watched a beaver mess around in the mountain and saw some amazing scenery. We also found a giant rock that was shaped like a chair. It was perfect timing because we were ready for a break. The rock chair faced the Teton mountains, so it was cool.

Here’s Angie acting like a dork about 2 miles into the hike:

http://www.sandyhassomethingtosay.com/thehillsarealive.mpg

We hiked up to an awesome (but touristy) waterfall about 1 mile later. We went off the beaten trail from there and caught a glimpse of this mountain view. You can’t see it in this pic, but there’s a beaver up there in the rocks (weird huh). We watched it through binoculars for about 10 minutes.

 Here’s one of the chipmunks that nibbled my finger. I named him Alvin:

Oh, and here’s a view of Jenny lake from up on the mountain, which is what we hiked around all day today:

Tomorrow we’re doing a walk in a less touristy area to try and catch a glimpse of more wildlife. Later!

Day 4

Today was definitely my favorite day yet. We saw some wildlife, hiked about 10-12 miles around “Emma Matilda Lake” which yielded the best scenery yet. The funny thing is we were hoping to see a bear on our hike but instead saw one on the drive to the trail:

http://www.sandyhassomethingtosay.com/bearattack!.mpg

On the trail the landscape changed so often it was amazing. We went from dense pine forest to light aspen grove to arid sagebrush desertlike fields to lush meadows. It was really neat. The best of the pictures will have to be edited before they can be presented (one panorama took like 8 frames). We’ll do that at home. I also took some video of the various landscape which also needs to be edited down from 10 minutes to about 2. The pic of the lake below doesn’t do the scene justice - it was after a leg killing hike up a hill for 15 minutes, but it was so worth it. The panoramic view was breathtaking. Here’s a glimpse:

Here’s a cool pic of a family of pines. I guess one got tired of standing up:

 Tomorrow promises to be interesting. We’re moving to our next lodging destination, hiking to and swimming at a little known hot springs (got the tip from our waitress tonight - not often you get the waitress gives YOU the tip - har har). We also have to do a load of laudry - we packed 5 days of clothes so we could leave a suitcase behind. Yay!

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 2nd, 2007 at 10:57 pm and is filed under Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.