Grand Teton National Park part II - Hiking Edition

In this second post in a 3 part series on our stay in Grand Teton National Park, I am going to tell you about some of the hikes we did.  There are literally hundreds of miles of hiking trails that a person could do in the park. And, luckily for us, there are hikes for all fitness types.  Here is a summary of the 4 main hikes that we chose:

Hike #1: Lakeshore Hike at Colter Bay

This is an easy and mostly flatish 2 mile hike that goes, unsurprisingly, around the lake shore of Jackson Lake. The hike starts at the Colter Bay Marina and then makes a sort of figure 8 following along the lake.

Mountain view at the Colter Bay Marina (as seen from the visitor's center deck)

This was the first hike that we did and I am so glad that we chose it as our introduction to the park. You get a little taste of the park in the short 2 miles. 

Our first sample of hiking through wildflowers

We saw the lake, mountains, wildflowers (which were going crazy this time of year), and forests.

Mountains teasing us through the trees

Of course, the show stopper was the unobstructed mountain views about halfway through. We were the only people on this little "beach" - except for a boat trolling a little ways away.  We stopped here and had a picnic lunch.  Simply magical!

BAM! Now that's a view!

Hike #2: Two Oceans Lake Hike

Pretty delicate purple flowers start our hike

For our second hike, we chose the 6.4 moderate Two Ocean Lake Hike, which is so named because it apparently has two streams that flow into different oceans (one flows to the Atlantic and one flows to the Pacific).  I still think it could be named because the north shore and the south shore are like being on two completely different hikes. 

I could not get enough of these large vibrant yellow flowers

The north shore was like walking through a postcard. Beautiful meadows FILLED with wildflowers of all colors. My camera does not do it justice at all. Amazing purples, pinks, and yellows are the main colors, but there was also some red and white mixed in there as well. 

This picture does not do the view justice - that field is FILLED with purple flowers - just use your imagination!

Then, there are of course, the mountain views from across the lake. Throw in a few aspens and pine trees interspersed throughout the flowers and you get the picture of what the entire first half of the hike was like this. I have never seen a more beautiful hike!

Flowers along the path

Then, you turn and head back on the south shore. This side of the lake is a dense forest with occasional glimpses of the lake. I personally love hiking in the forest - reminds me of Oregon. And, as it was getting hotter and sunnier, it was nice to be in the shade.  HOWEVER the last 2 miles of the hike we were covered with mosquitoes.  We were followed by thick black clouds of the little blood suckers, and no matter how much bug spray we applied, it didn't seem to matter.  It was very frustrating to end our hike being chased out by bugs.

Trail through the south shore - forested section of the hike. 

Edited to add:  at the end of our Two Ocean Hike, I found another piece of Roseburg!!  According to this plaque, the building (which was quite lovely for an outhouse) was made in Roseburg! How weird! 

Hike #3: Inspiration Point/Hidden Falls

Jason enjoying the short boat ride

According to the different literature we picked up, this short 2 mile or so hike was supposed to be the most beautiful and the most popular hike in the entire park.

View across the lake from the boat

Generally we try to avoid things that are labeled "most popular" because that also means "most crowded."  So, to try and avoid other tourists, we got up at the crack of dawn to make the one hour drive down to Jenny Lake.  It started to rain, so we opted to take the boat shuttle across the lake to the trail head instead of hiking the couple of miles around the lake.

On a little bridge over the roaring "creek"

The point of this hike is twofold - to make it up a thousand feet to "Inspiration Point" which has a view of Jenny Lake and the surrounding area -and to hike along a mountain stream originating from a huge waterfall called "Hidden Falls".

Jason is master of this mountain! lol

We decided to skip the waterfall view (which happens about 3/4 along the trail) on the way up because a tour company was down there, and instead continue up the side of the mountain. I am really glad that we did it in this order because the rocks were fairly slippery from the rain which made the sorta narrow path alongside the mountain treacherous (to me at least) and it was nice to tackle it before it got super crowded.

We made it "inspiration point"

Then, on the way back down, we pushed our way through (literally - so MANY people and tour buses had started making their way up the path by this point in the morning) to see the hidden falls. 

The Hidden Falls were beautiful

Even though it was raining and it got crowded at the very end, I really enjoyed this hike. I am so grateful that we got there as early as we did to avoid the crowds as much as we did. 

Hike #4: Swan Lake/Heron Pond

On our last full day in the park we headed back down to the Colter Bay area for our last hike. This one was a 3.4 mile hike that went alongside two large ponds/lakes.  Once again it was raining off and on, and we again headed out early on this hike to try and beat any crowds (since this was very close to the busy Colter Bay area). 

Starting our hike through the forest. 

The hike starts off by Jackson lake, but then quickly heads into the woods.  The trail was really nice and wide - but we soon learned why - this is a popular destination for guided horseback rides from Jackson Lake Lodge. There was a lot of, uh, evidence, to the horses on the trails.

Canada Geese on Heron Pond

The way we went, the first body of water came up was Heron Pond.  We didn't see any herons, but we did see a fair amount of Canada geese and some other ducks.  

Mountain view at Heron Pond

The clouds occasionally cooperated giving us nice views as well.

Hiking through a meadow

This hike was partially in the forest and partially in the mountain meadows. I noticed that the flowers were starting to look a little sad so we must have hit the flower season just right!

Time for a panorama at Swan Lake

However, at the second lake, Swan Lake, the majority of the surface was covered with water lilies which had not really started blooming. That must be a gorgeous view when they hit peak season!

Misty Mountain

On the way back we got some nice "misty mountain" views, which in its own way was very beautiful.

Our last view of the lake and mountains

Right before the end of our hike, we got this last view of the mountains across Jackson Lake.  It was a great way to end our last hike of our trip.

Delicious pizza and lake views

We celebrated our last hike by heading to the pizzeria at Leeks Marina.  We had some amazing pizza (I got a mini buffalo chicken pizza complete with blue cheese!!) and Jason got the "maintenance man" pizza.  We shared some local beer that we were told was specifically brewed just for this pizza place - you can't buy it any other place - they don't even bottle it! 

There were a ton of other hikes that we really wanted to tackle -but those will all have to wait until the next time we visit the park, which will hopefully be soon!