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| Hiking Death Canyon |
I headed out with the hiking group to play in the Grand Teton National Park. The hike on the agenda this day was the Death Canyon hike which includes the Phelps Lake Overlook. When the group first decided that we would venture out on this hike, I silently thought "Death Canyon", not sure I need to do a hike that begins with "Death". I kept my thoughts to myself and headed for the trail head with the group.
I am taking words to describe this hike directly from my Jackson Hole hiking book. Since my blog is not a graded piece of work, I have no fear of the fact that I am plagiarizing. I am simply trying to provide you with interesting information to go along with the pictures. Don't be mislead, the funny commentary about myself (the city kid in the wild west) comes straight from my twisted brain.
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| At Phelps Lake Overlook |
"With its broad upper expanse and nine mile length from valley floor to the crest of the Teton Range, Death Canyon is second in size only to Webb Canyon at the northern end of the range. Hikers are drawn by lush wildflowers, the possibility of spying wildlife, superb and varied alpine scenery, and a notable display of the geological forces that mold our planet."
The hike from the trail head to the Phelps Lake Overlook is just about a mile long and has an elevation gain of 420 feet. As you can tell from the picture, the water is very beautiful. To cold for this southern girl to skinny dip in, but beautiful none the less. The elevation at the overlook is 7200 feet. Phelps Lake was formed by the retreating Death Canyon Glacier 9000 years ago. The lake is a mile and a half long and 525 acres in size. The lake is the 4th largest lake in Grand Teton National Park. The deepest park of the lake measures 161 feet. The lake is named after a trapper who reported the lakes existence to members of the 1872 Hayden Expedition.
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| View in Death Canyon |
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| View in Death Canyon |
One of the best parts of being out on the trail is seeing the wildlife that might come across our path. Armed with bear spray, we are always ready for the different critters that we might encounter.
Craig, Carol and I had stopped on the trail to take a picture. The rest of the hiking group had continued up the trail without us. After taking a few pictures, Craig, Carol and I turned to continue up the trail and a marmot was just waiting there to say hello. He got very close to us and allowed us to take a few photos. I know nothing about marmots and had no idea if he would bite or not. I was happy to allow Carol to be first to continue on the trail but she was happy for me to take the first steps towards the marmot. Turns out that he wanted as little of us as we wanted of him. As soon as we took steps up the trail, the marmot scurried into the vegetation next to the trail.
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| The marmot checking us out |
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| Continuing up the trail to the Patrol Cabin |
Our destination was the Patrol Cabin. From the trail head, the Death Canyon Patrol Cabin is 3.7 miles away. The cabin sits at an elevation of 7841 feet. The hike to the Patrol Cabin has an elevation gain of 1061 feet. The small log structure was built in the 1930's by the Civilian Conservation Corp to provide shelter for the young men constructing the park trails. Today it is used by crews maintaining and patrolling the trails. After reaching the Patrol Cabin, the hiking group took a break for lunch.
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| Lunch Break |
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| Lunch View |
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| Lunch View |
After our lunch, we headed back down Death Canyon about 4 miles to the start of our hike. As we hiked back down, we ran across a hiker who was heading up the trail to spend 3 or 4 days camping in the back country. As we approached the hiker, he politely stepped off the trail to let us pass. As I got closer to this hiker, I saw that he was wearing Pingry Lacrosse shorts! When I was in front of him, I pointed at his shorts and said "I bet I ordered those." He looked at me with a befuddled expression. I said "you are either a recent Pingry grad or you are a teacher who started in 2006." I really had him going with that statement. He then asked me how I knew that and told me he was a teacher/coach at Pingry who did start in 2006. I told him I was the previous Athletic Director and he said "oh my god, you are Jo Ann, Sara and Lil's friend." I replied by saying "yes, I am Jo Ann" and he introduced himself as John Crowley Delman. It really is a crazy small world!
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