Teton Crest part 1

I will never catch up on summer if I don't get this over with before fall starts falling.  Dan and I had a trip planned to Boise at the end of August. We were talking about our plans when Dan realized he was scheduled for a shift on one of our days we were supposed to be in Boise. Panic!

We also knew we really wanted to go backpacking along the Teton Crest Trail so we got a wild idea to go in September. We called the park ranger and he told us we were crazy unless we like hiking in snow.

We cancelled our Boise trip and decided to adjust a few things with our schedule and make plans for a backpacking trip in the Tetons and hit Boise up in September.

I've been dreaming of the Teton Crest Trail for 3 years. The last time I did the crest trail was in 2009. I've been telling Dan that the Crest Trail is just something you can't put into words. We tried to take as many pictures as we could be even pictures don't capture the trail.

Our trip will be broken up over a few posts because there's really no other way!

To preface our trip, I would like to tell you briefly about the time that Dan accidentally fired the bear spray in our 965 sq ft. apartment. This was quite the situation. I was in the bathroom and I heard coughing and gagging and knew immediately what happened.

To make a long story short, I opened the bathroom door and was met with a wall of pepper spray and had to shut the door again and get a towel to breathe in. I saw Dan on his hands and knees with the door open gagging and coughing. Suddenly this wasn't so funny anymore!

We had to evacuate ourselves and all the people on our side of our apartment buildings. It was awful. We had to much snot coming out of our noses and Dan even barfed on the lawn.

There was some residual bear spray on our packs but we didn't realize that until we started hiking and our backs and necks were on fire until it rained on day 2.

At the last minute I grabbed a hat from my dad's collection and am kind of sad that the dang camo hat makes me look like a redneck for the whole trip! It was a great hat so I guess that's all that matters. 

We started at Teton Village and took the tram to the top of Rendezvous mountain. From there we descended into the valley and had a wonderful view of wildflowers.

Amazing views

The start of our 36 mile journey.

It's always so great to get to the next sign! We were SO hot that day. All the usual creeks had dried up and we were so glad to find some water about a mile past this sign.

We were so tired at this point. We had just stopped to eat lunch and then had to climb back out of the valley. Much harder than it looked for sure.

Looking back you can get a glimpse of the valley we climbed up. I knew what was still to come...it definitely wasn't easy!

From Here Marion Lake isn't too much further. BUT. There is one beast of a descent and then climb to get to the lake at the base of the rocks face straight ahead.

So sad! We had to go all the way down the valley and then back up to the other side.

At least there were pretty flowers to hike through, right?

Only .6 more miles!

Finally reaching Marion Lake for the evening.

Dan was extra happy because we had just been offered to share a campsite with some people we met from Oregon. We would have had to climb out of the Marion Lake valley and get to Fox Creek Pass and make our own camp. We were SO grateful that our friends took pity on us and let us camp with them.

Our joy could not be contained that we got to camp at Marion Lake!

I bathed in Marion Lake on this morning and it was amazing. My first time here was pretty memorable. I sang at the top of my lungs and the echo was unforgettable. I was too shy to sing again because there were other people at the lake that day.

Goodbye Marion Lake! I hope we meet again.