Purple Mountains Majesty

There are no more impressive mountains than the Grand Tetons. They rise mightily above the Snake River valley floor to the east and the Idaho potato plains to the west. You do not cross them, you go around them. Cherry and I escaped the heat, humidity, and the depressing news of the BP oil spill and fallout thereof to spend a long weekend in Jackson Hole.

Although we have not been to the Tetons together for a while, these peaks are woven into our family history. In 1969 Cherry and her mom's dad, Daddy Clain aka Charlie McClain, sat and watched television reports of men landing on the moon in a motel on Broadway Street. It was July 20, 1969 when Neil Armstrong as commander of Apollo 11 spoke the first words from the moon: "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.".

Later Cherry returned with me in 1977 on a trip with her family. We camped at Colter Bay in Grand Teton National Park while Cherry's parents, Janey and H, and her sister, Stacey, travelled in their RV, the Jimmy Mini. We also had our Cairn Terriers, Kilty and Loche, and Jodi the poodle accompanying us. That was the year of the great dehydration hike as Cherry, Stacey, and I ascended a trail to an igneous dike outcrop which required scrambling across numerous talus slopes. We did not carry nearly enough water and by the time we descended it was every man for himself as we hurried down the trail to quench our thirst.

We stopped in Jackson on other trips to Glacier National Park and beyond. When we made an overnight stop in Jackson, we liked to stay at the Trapper Motel near the town square. It was reasonable and clean and close to the daily shootout and other activities. One trip to Yellowstone circa 1990 was when Charlie was a toddler. Yellowstone has great short hikes and interesting sights but the camping is not that memorable. Before the Yellowstone Fires of 1988 that burned nearly 800,000 acres the park consisted of dense Lodgepole Pine forests that blocked the breezes that cool off campers. In many ways the fires improved things with more open areas, wild flowers, and breezes. This is the trip where the battle of Fire Hose vs. Dog House occurred and that I recounted in an earlier blog. I digress but on the return trip we decided to spend the Fourth of July in Jackson. We ate dinner on the deck of Louie's restaurant with a view of Snow King mountain. All six of us enjoyed the cool night air as we watched the town fireworks display and ate some of the best BBQ ribs in the land. We talked of returning to Jackson Hole for Independence Day on many squalid July 4th backyard barbecues in Houston and this year Cherry and I decided to do just that. It has been a great trip and we have enjoyed stoking the memories of previous visits.

One such visit has become legend in our family and has been dubbed the Hike from Hell. Circa 1993 we arrived in Jackson and checked into the Trapper Motel. Our objective was to tent camp at the Jenny Lake Campground. Jenny Lake is a beautiful area with a luxurious lodge catering to high end trail riders. It was definitely out of our budget but Jenny Lake Campground put us in the same place but requires a dawn arrival to secure a first come first served camp sight. We drove to Jenny Lake the night before and scouted sights and found several campers preparing to leave the next morning. In the pre dawn hours Kelly, Kacie, and I left the Trapper Motel and arrived at Jenny Lake and soon found one of our scouted sights vacated. We placed some of our camping gear on the table and lit our lantern until first light. Kelly and Kacie stayed behind to hold the sight until we could register with the ranger. I drove back to Jackson and retrieved Cherry, Chelsea, and Charlie (the three Cs). We had a great spot in Jenny Lake but had some adversity when the water pumps failed and no water available or toilets. We made do retrieving water from nearby.

The Hike from Hell started with a ski lift ride to the summit of Mount Rendezvous at 10,450 foot elevation. The idea was to take a nice long day hike descending rather than ascending the steep mountains. Cherry and I were in good shape since we were regular runners and running 10k races. Charlie was five years old and I had no interest in carrying him four miles as I did the year before in Glacier. We parked at Teton Village and rode the lift. It was fairly smoky from forest fires in Idaho and I had an altitude headache. We decided to start our descent to get to a lower elevation but the weather quickly turned against us. There was a danger of lightning and we knew we needed to get to lower elevation and off the bare alpine slopes. Kacie could not go any further without a trip to the outhouse. With the threat of lightning we decided Cherry would help Kacie and I would take the other three kids down the trail a quarter mile to some scrub and wait for them to catch up. Before we turned to look for Cherry and Kacie they witnessed a bolt of lightning hit the trail about half way between us. At that point the rain started. The safest thing to do was to go down the trail to a lower elevation which we did and the rain let up and the lightning no longer threatened.

The trail was poorly marked and was used by horses as well. At one point we were a mile from pavement and I suggested going down and letting me hitch a ride to the parking lot and I would return to pick everyone up. Cherry thought we should stay together and so we used the gondola towers to orient and stayed on the most traveled trail. We met a man named Tim from Idaho hiking in sandals and using a walking stick. We made our journey together. When we came to a horse pasture with a gate and fence we decided we were past the point of no return and with Tim's help climbed the fence and passed children over the top. Horse pastures not surprisingly have horses in them and the stallion in charge of this particular pasture challenged our presence with a great deal of foot stomping and whinnying. We kept moving and ignored the grass snakes crossing the horse trail.

Charlie was five years old and as such his poncho was too long and was dragging through horse manure. He became quite the sight much to the girls amusement. We made everyone keep quiet about that as Charlie was very particular about things like getting covered in horse manure in those days. Eventually we made it to Teton Village and found a hose and hosed everyone down. I found some ice cream sandwiches aka Fat Boys in the store and everyone had one. That was the Hike from Hell!

It has been years since the family has been together at Jackson Hole. I returned in 2008 to host investors in Anadarko's Drill Funds for a golf and fly fishing outing. We stayed at the Snake River Lodge in Teton Village, fished on the Snake River with Jack Dennis outfitters, and goofed at Teton Pines and Jackson Golf & Tennis Club. We also had dinner at the Amangani Hotel up Spring Gulch Road which is one of the nicest hotels I have visited. I checked into staying there for this trip and decided $1000 per night is a little rich for me. A souvenir from that trip is the G Harvey oil painting hanging in my study. I put my name in a drawing and was able to purchase it below auction price.

We have three days in Jackson on this trip. The first day was driving north to the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone. We stopped at Jackson Lake Dam and took pictures of the mountains in the morning light. We stopped and took pictures of the bison as we drove through the Tetons. We stopped at the grocery store at Lake Yellowstone where mosquitos swarmed us in 1990. We visited Old Faithful and were surprised to not meet anyone we knew as we had run into Cecelia Troegel and the Parkers on earlier trips. They are building an Old Faithful Discovery Center scheduled to open in August although it looks behind schedule. The G&W Discovery Center was interesting but a little sad since the habitat is fairly small for animals that range miles each day. Orphaned and rogue bears and wolves have no other choice other than being destroyed. I think the center makes a good effort to simulate their natural environment. We drove back to Teton Village via Idaho and saw towns like Driggs and passed nearby Rexburg. I recognized these towns from Five Guys potato of the day signs and there are miles of potato fields here. It looks nothing like Ireland which is curious as Ireland is also spud crazy and home to the best French fry ever at Darwin's restaurant. It should be noted that Teton Pass between Driggs and Wilson Wyoming has 10% road grades so take that into account if you ever think of staying in Driggs and driving to Jackson.

Cherry and I played golf at Jackson Hole Golf and Tennis Club on our second day. The scenery is outstanding. When I played here a couple of years ago we had a visit from a fox. This year we saw marmots on one hole critiquing our drives. We did not see the local moose on hole 11 but we talked to an artist in town later who lives on hole four who had a moose calve in her backyard. We spent the rest of the day in Jackson touring the art galleries and ran into an Astoria Galleries exhibit by a sculptor named Brent Lawrence whose work we had seen in Sedona. Brent does multiple three by two patina steel plates with herd animals stampeding across. We also saw a great Longhorn sculpture by an artist named Joshua Tobey. He also has a smooth patina finish to his sculptures. The bronze longhorn and other sculptures are infused with human characteristics. We returned to Hotel Terra and had dinner at the Gamefish restaurant in Teton Village and watched a great fireworks display.

Today is the fourth of July and we are going on a long walk and then plan to spend the day in Jackson at the music festival, rodeo, and fireworks. It has been revitalizing to be here in Wyoming where Americans still believe in our country and are fiercely independent and have faith in their own resourcefulness. The people here do not look for handouts or believe in them for others.

There is a book titled "Yellowstone - Rebirth by Fire". I have not looked inside the cover but I see the forests full of ten to twelve foot trees replacing the old forests. The trees are young and healthy and not as susceptible to pine bark beetle as the old trees. When you see the restorative powers of nature it gives one optimism that we can overcome bad things that happen whether it be spilled oil or bad government.

Signing off from Jackson Hole. Happy Fourth of July!

The world's worst professional golfer.