February Snowshoe Adventures

Little Kelly Canyon:

Our first February snowshoe was up Little Kelly Canyon. It was a relaxing 5 miles. I've never seen a moose up in Kelly Canyon before, and we saw one!

I love this trail!

The cutest moose was laying down in the snow on our way up the canyon. There were two more up there that a runner told us about. We had been following their tracks the whole way. We didn't see those two, but this one was so cute.  She was nice and relaxed, and was still there on our way back down as well.

Jenn-Tricia-Mark

She got up when we went by on our way back down.

Love the view down the canyon.

Phelps Lake:

We did the Phelps Lake Loop in Teton Park. This was one of my favorite hikes in the park, so we decided to snowshoe a similar route. We started at the Death Canyon Trailhead and climbed to the Phelps Lake Overlook. We thought it would have to be an out and back hike, and then we planned to get to the actual lake from the other direction. When we got to the overlook, we saw that enough people had kept hiking down to the lake, that we decided to go down to it. Then we noticed that people had skied right across the frozen lake, and other people were out ice fishing on it. I was a little nervous, but we crossed over a mile long frozen lake! That's a first for me! So we ended up with an awesome 7 mile loop instead, and we loved it!

Phelps Lake from the overlook.

Mark at the Phelps Lake overlook.

Down by the lake, at the mouth of Death Canyon.

Just walking across a frozen lake, no big deal!

So cool! I was standing in the middle of a frozen lake with the beautiful Death Canyon behind me! Life is grand!

Mark on the lake.

There's our path!

Heron Pond Loop:

We figured this would be our last chance to snowshoe this season, so we wanted to go back to Grand Teton Park, and do the Swan Lake & Hermitage point trail. It's up by Jackson Lake, and we have never explored this part of the park before. It wasn't long before we realized that we weren't on the trail we had intended to do. We weren't sure where we were, and we were just following some random ski tracks. We ended up making a cool loop that we didn't realize would be open to snow shoers. It ended up being awesome, with great views of the Teton Range. I think I'm getting sick, and my body was worn out from the week, so I was tired and sluggish. We just took it slow and enjoyed the view and the sunshine that kept peeking through the clouds. It was a great trail to end the season on.

You know it's gonna be a great day with this is your first view from the trail. We were at Colter Bay.

Jenn-Mark-Tricia

The trail through the trees was awesome, especially when the sun would peek through.

The clouds looked awesome!

Shadow people!

Just acting like we knew where we were going! :)

Standing on my second frozen lake in a week! We thought this was Heron Pond, but when we got home and looked at our Strava maps, we realized it was just an inlet of Jackson Lake.

What a backdrop!

We finished our hike right before the clouds started to cover the mountain range. Perfect timing!

We saw a mama and baby moose off the side of the road on our drive into the park. They were still there on our way out, so we stopped to take a picture. The baby is hidden behind a tree. So cute!

We've had a great season of snowshoeing! It's what keeps me sane through winter. I love to get outside and see our usual trails covered in snow, and find new places to go. We've already got a lot in mind for next winter, but right now I have some serious spring fever, so I'm fine with the snow melting. I know we have a while until that happens, but we have some fun weekends planned where were heading south to hit the trails in some warmer areas. I can't wait!