Cascade Canyon

WE DID IT!!!!!! Oh my goodness, that was by far the BEST backpacking trip that I have ever been on and I am so happy to put pictures of it on my blog that I TOOK and not ones that other people took! This place was so much more than I expected! So here is how our trip went:

We arrived to Jenny Lake, Wyoming at about 5:30 pm Friday night and we went and got our back country camping permit from the ranger. The ranger thought that we were somewhat crazy for starting the hike so late in the day but we were so pumped that we didn't even care! They made us take this big plastic bear container to put our food in and told us that it was mandatory because there have been so many bears out this year! COOL!!! So we flew over to the parking lot, threw our packs on, and without any further adieu we were off hiking at about 6:15pm! What an amazing hike it was. It started off with a hike around the lake to the trail head and that was gorgeous in itself. Once we started up the canyon, I realized that the stuff that we thought was beautiful before was nothing compared to what was in the canyon.

The first amazing thing that we passed about 1 mile up the canyon was a 120 foot waterfall called Hidden Falls. Man was that amazing! Then it just got better from there. We came out to this point called Inspiration Point and it overlooked the lake and the valley and it was amazing. Then once we started getting deeper into the canyon, it was beautiful rapids, waterfalls down both sides of the canyon walls all over the place, luscious green forests, moose, porky pines, marmots, and other cool little animals. We were surrounded by the Tetons on both sides of us which made the most awesome scenery. Once we got to our destination 6.6 miles up the canyon, we made camp. We were up at the snow level and it was about a foot deep in some places but we found an awesome little spot on dry ground and we busted out our little stoves and made our Top Ramen. Its amazing how good that tastes when you are really hungry!! The night was cold. I didn't bring a pad so it was my sleeping bag on the frozen ground. Yeah, not too comfortable!!! But we did hear the roar of the waterfall that we camped next to all night and that was quite soothing!

We woke up at about 7:30, got some water from from the stream and made some hot chocolate and oatmeal. Our plan was to hike 2.4 more miles up the north fork of the canyon but the trail was covered with 4 feet of snow which made it too difficult with a heavy pack and no snow shoes. So that idea went out the window! But thats ok. I am 110% satisfied with where we went and what we saw. It was by far the most beautiful place that I have ever been to and I am so going back in a few months after the snow melts to get up to Lake Solitude. The trip was awesome, nothing went wrong, and it was a BLAST!!!! I wish that you all could have been up there with us. I for sure have my Dad's Wyoming blood in me! I could live there forever!


Here are a few of the 114 pictures that I took:

This is what the walls of the canyon looked like.

This is the first little bridge that we went over on the trail on our way to Hidden Falls

About 3 miles up into the canyon. Luckily it doesn't get dark until about 9:30 so we had plenty of light.

This is the waterfall right next to our campsite. It was so beautiful!

That is me washing my face with the water running off the hill side.

Yeah...it was really cold!

This was part of our hike around Jenny Lake

We were about 1 mile or less into the canyon

Just some water! There was so much of it up there!

This was pretty early on in the hike. Notice the little marmot in the background on the rock. I didn't even realize it was there!

Hidden Falls. Man did that thing roar! It felt so nice to stand there in the mist.

This was the ascent up to Inspiration Point. We felt so inspired. Ha ha!


We had about 2 miles left to go at this point.


I took this from inside the canyon.


Our little campsite



Just another cool picture I took from Jenny Lake



Filtering some water



Another picture of the waterfall next to where we camped. It looks identical to the one someone else took in my last post, but its not! Mine has snow in it!


A cool little bird I saw by the car. I took that with an SLR...thats why it turned out so cool!



This peak is called Coyote Peak (or something like that) because it looks like a howling coyote.



Another scenery picture! Sorry if you are getting sick of these!

Part of the trail was the stream


Um...self explanatory. The river in the canyon.