Indian Creek Camping/Teton Park/Paradise Loop

We camped up Indian Creek over the weekend. It was a new camping spot for us, and we loved it!

This is the creek we camped next to. So pretty! We love hearing the water, so we always try to camp close to a creek.

We loved our spot!

 Grand Teton Park:

On Friday we decided to drive over to Grand Teton Park and do some more hiking. I've been obsessed with the park this summer! So many amazing places to explore. I planned a couple easy hikes since I knew we had a long run on Saturday. The first one we did was Moose Ponds. It's just a 3.5 mile loop from Jenny Lake, around a couple ponds where moose like to hang out. We got a little more than we bargained for on this hike! Right when we got to the ponds, there was a group of four moose together. one HUGE bull, a smaller bull, and two cows. One of the cows was running around the field all crazy like. She reminded me of Reeses (our dog) when we let her off her leash somewhere new. Something was getting her all worked up. We watched them for awhile, and they all eventually walked into the trees by the pond. We proceeded on to the next pond and saw a mama and baby moose in that one. We couldn't believe our luck! Most people just walk out to the ponds, and go back the way they came because it's shorter. We decided to make it a loop, so we could see more, and get away from all the people. We walked around to the other side of the ponds and watched the mama and baby for a while longer before continuing on. We noticed that the trail went right into the trees where the group of four moose that we saw earlier went into. I was a little nervous about that, but Mark figured it had been awhile, and they would probably stay closer to the water. We proceeded with caution, and I kept my eyes out for them just in case. Mark was in the front, and we rounded a corner, and all of a sudden I looked to the right of the trail and I was face to face with the biggest bull moose I have ever seen. When I say face to face, I'm not even exaggerating! He was about 15 feet off the trail and we were looking each other in the eyes. Scariest thing ever! Mark didn't even see him! I stopped dead in my tracks and let Mark know he was there. Mark said to stay calm, not to turn our backs on him, and walk slowly up the trail. We got about 5 more feet up the trail and heard a grunt. We looked up and realized the other four moose were standing in the trail right in front of us. Holy crap, now we were right between them! The grunt must have been the female alerting the huge male that she didn't like us being so close. The big guy that we had just passed started walking toward us. We had no where to go, so we just went crashing through the brush off the trail. I was heading for the nearest tree I could find. We got our bear spray out and then just stood still for a minute to see what was going to happen. The bull just walked past us on the trail and went to the rest of the group. That's when I started filming. My video is hilarious! It's mostly just me filming the ground, because I was trying to get out of the brush, back to the trail, and I was scared to death. Once we got back to the trail, we backed off from them, and ended up doing an out and back hike instead of a loop. There were four of them and only two of us, and they were a lot bigger. They had no intention of leaving the trail. It took my heart a long time to calm down, but I was giddy for the rest of the day. On the way back, I kept saying, "I don't know why people need to take drugs, I'm all pumped up and my body is tingly just from that!" What an adventure!

To start the hike, you go around the south end of Jenny Lake. So pretty!

This is the group of the four moose we got up close and personal with!

This picture was taken from all the way across the pond, and you can still tell how huge he is. His rack was ginormous!

The mama and her cute little baby.

Here's me overlooking Moose Ponds. There is a moose behind me in the picture, across the lake.

We took this picture about one minute before we got the scare of our lives.

You can see three of the four of the moose in this one.  At this point we had made it safely back to the trail. He looked back at us, just to make sure we were going away.

I tried to edit out a lot of the walking through the brush parts. I left my favorite part:

"He is looking at us, would you PLEASE go!" Hahahahaha!

Next, we headed up to Bear Paw and Trapper Lakes. This hike was a lot less eventful, but the lakes were beautiful, and we heard elk bugling. We had never heard it in person before. It sounds really eerie. Super cool though! This one was 10 miles.

The hikes goes along the whole east side of Leigh Lake at the start.

Leigh Lake

Bear Paw Lake was fantastic! It was my favorite.

Trapper Lake

Trapper Lake was pretty, but not nearly as good as Bear Paw. 

After our hikes, we decided to go check out Menor's Ferry Historic District, and the Chapel of the Transfiguration. It's an old cabin, and store built by William D. Menor. There is also a replica of the ferry he ran across the snake river in the 1890s. The church is super cool! They still have services there on Sunday mornings for locals and visitors. The front window of the church frames the three big peaks of the Tetons. Super cool!

A replica of the ferry they used to get the early settlers across the snake river.

Menor's cabin and general store. We bought some huckleberry muffin mix in there.

Another cabin built by a lady that bought property from Menor.

The Chapel of the Transfiguration.

Looking out the front window of the chapel.

We hung out at our campsite the rest of the day relaxing and reading. We had a fire and roasted marshmallows that night.

Saturday was our long training run. We met Steph Jones at the trail head, and set out on our 20 mile adventure. We did the Paradise Loop (north and south Indian Creek trails). We have seen so many beautiful pictures of this loop, so I've wanted to do it for awhile. We missed the wild flower season, and the many waterfalls were mostly dried up, but it was totally still paradise! I can't wait to do it again next year, earlier in the season so I get the full experience. It's an awesome trail!

Our starting picture.

We climbed over 4000 feet. The higher we got, the more spectacular the views got.

This picture is looking back down the canyon we had just come up.

We were so excited for the sun to peek over the mountain so we could warm up!

Mark and Steph.

So pretty!

This was looking back behind us. It seemed like every corner we rounded just kept getting better!

We kept seeing these tiny little cat tracks in the mud. We just assumed they were from a small bobcat. Then I jokingly said, "It's probably a baby mountain lion, and his mom was walking right next to him off the trail." Next thing you know, we see this! Looks like I was right after all. That kept us a little more alert through that section of the trail.

The rock chair!

We passed the prettiest little pond!

We had our last big climb! This is looking back down at the pond from a little ways up the last climb.

We made it to the top! It was all down hill from this point! The views were spectacular from way up here though. 

Making our way down the other side.

Great views from both sides, but this side was turning fallish a lot sooner.

This section of switchbacks was really fun!

The switchbacks had these bright berry bushes. From far away they looked like giant roses.

Super fun weekend! Our runs will start tapering down now for the next couple of weeks. We are about 3 weeks out from our 50K. We've trained hard, so we should be able to finish it. We'll just go slow and steady.