Red rocks hills in Utah.
Grassy knolls split apart by home-like agricultural fields in Idaho.
The landscape had changed over and over again in the 10-hour trek from where our flight landed in Las Vegas to the small town of Victor, ID, where our tiny house that was our home for a few days sat.
Then it was to be our first day hiking in the Grand Teton Mountains.
We were up early, had a breakfast of Raisin Bran Crunch and coffee created in a tea press because the French press at the tiny house was broken and were in the 2018 Chevy Camaro convertible up the mountain pass.
Up and up we went, and then, around a corner, the scenery dropped off sharply. Below us sat the town of Jackson, WY, otherwise known as Jackson Hole. If you haven't been there, it gets its nickname from that fact that it's literally situated in a hole between mountains. Everything around it rises from a flat plain, not gradually as one would expect but sharply. It's like the land couldn't take being flat one moment longer and just had to shoot upward toward the heavens.
We purchased our park pass in the visitor's center and saw two important notes behind the park ranger at the desk. The white board said, "Snow pack 9,800 feet" and "Bugs are out!"
We had wondered coming up the trip whether our plans would be impacted by snow. Nate had shocked me when about two weeks prior he showed me a blog post that said the mountains still had 4-7 FEET of snow.
The park ranger suggested hitting up Cascade Canyon first, to avoid the places where the snow pack would impede our hiking. Since it was early, there weren't too many people in the Jenny Lake parking lot inside Grand Teton National Park.
It was supposed to rain, so we put on rain gear, strapped on our packs and headed on the trail that began winding around serene Jenny Lake.
I kept fidgeting with my pants, because my upper layer of bright pink waterproof pants were getting bunched with my underlayer of Patagonia hiking pants, both new for this trip as I'm just getting into hiking and have never had appropriate outdoor clothing before.
"Are you OK?"
"Fine," I answered, knowing that if I kept fidgeting that I would just annoy him since we were only 100 yards from the car.
"Is that a woman's 'fine' that doesn't actually mean fine?" he asked.
"Yes. I'm not fine, but I'll deal."
Another couple hundred yards in, we were both starting to sweat, even in 50-degree weather, so we unloaded our layers and figured we would pack them away until it actually started to rain.
The scenery was beautiful. The mountains seemed to rise up from the calm lakes, and the higher you went, the better the view. On this side, the mountain seemed a giant up close, and across the lake, on the other side of the park, the range seemed calm and silent in the hazy morning.
Past a waterfall, over wooden bridges, up a path --- a barricade blocked our way.
CLOSED.
What!?
How were we supposed to go further if the path to the canyon was closed?
On the sign, the map showed that the shortest route was closed, but a horse path that wound around the other direction would still allow us to access the canyon. So we climbed back down, around and made our way back up.
Through lush greenery, I stopped every so often to just oggle as we made our way through the forest.
"You've got to keep going. I'm getting eaten alive."
I turned around to see Nate swatting mosquitoes from his face. The bugs were indeed out, but like usual, they weren't affecting me. I had felt one mosquito bite me near the temple on the right side of my head and hadn't thought much about it. However, Nate's sweet blood was once again drawing in the blood-suckers, and every time I stopped to admire the scenery, they descended on him en masse.
So we kept climbing and climbing and climbing.
At one point the canyon opened up to a beautiful river, rocky protrusions and the mountains silently roared like giants above us, daring people to take them on or to just sit and enjoy the massive beauty.
As we were walking, we heard this shrieking chirp.
We stopped and looked around, expecting to find some kind of bird watching us. But we didn't see any birds around.
Finally, Nate quietly pointed ahead of him. There, on a rock about 20 yards away, was a little creature. He pointed his head ahead of him and shriek/chirped again.
The little thing looked like a cross between a rabbit, a rat and a little stuffed bear. It was absolutely adorable. However, it was apparently not happy that we were invading its territory and it was bound and determined to let the others nearby know that all was not well.
We found out later the little creature is a pika. It lives in alpine areas, and it's adorable.
We stopped for lunch and then checked the radar, and a thunderstorm was on its way.
Although we had only gone in six miles, and wanted to explore further, we were worried about being so high up with lightning in the area. So, we made the disappointing but safe decision to head back.
Rains came and went, but no thunder reared its ugly head. However, during one downpour, we were shocked as the giant raindrops turned white and became little, hard pieces of sleet pelting us. We laughed at the irony of sleet on our June vacation, and I put up my hands like a child to feel it come down on us through the canopy of trees.
Finally, nearing the Jenny Lake overlook once again, we began to encounter more and more crowds. We were amazed that with severe weather coming in so many people would venture out into dangerous territory.
Families. People who were definitely out-of-shape --- who I had respect for, attempting this terrain --- and senior citizens. We passed by group after group, making our way back to the car.
"Don't you hate it when people come up fast behind you and blow past you?" Nate overheard one man say.
As he passed the old man on the left.
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