We're up early the next morning for a counterclockwise spin around the park, first heading east from Signal Mountain to Oxbow Bend, where the slow-rolling Snake River, flowing out of Jackson Lake, makes a horseshoe-shaped meander. There is a full contingent of photographers here, eager to catch the colors of sunrise on Mt. Moran directly to our west. We set up on the riverbank and watch the morning sky slowly becomes lighter, and the morning fog lifts over the valley floor. The day is shaping up to be brilliant and cloudless - not as great for landscapes, but excellent for hiking and exploring. Next, the highway follows the course of the Snake River. We drive southwest past elk flats and dude ranchers, the line of triangular peaks always hovering reliably to the west. At the Snake River Overlook, where Ansel Adams captured his famous portrait of the Grand Teton, we see an impressive series of fluvial terraces, created by a formerly larger river in days of ice and floor. The pine forest below our perch has grown up and over the river since Adams' day, and it is no longer easy to capture the iconic bend of the river in the foreground without an aerial drone - for the better, I suppose.
Our next stop takes us off the highway and down a short dirt road to Schwabacher's Landing, a sleepy little side-stream of the river lined by beaver dams and rocky shallows. The groves of cottonwood along the riverbank provide some shelter from the valley's winds, and a reflection of the Cathedral Group shimmers off of the calm, glassy water. Back on the highway, we take a detour along Antelope Flats Road to Mormon Row, where a group of old homesteads, long abandoned, sit on the plain beneath the mountains. We take some photos goofing off with the the gophers near the Moulton Barn, another iconic subject whose pointed tin roof imitates the peaks of the imperial range it stands under. After this, we return to the highway and turn down Teton Park Road to enter Grand Tetons National Park proper. It is too early on Saturday to catch brunch at Dornan's Chuckwagon, so we head to the main visitor center up the road, where we eat sandwiches and fruit from our dwindling supply in the parking lot. The visitor center is a surprising Japanese affair, with slanted awnings overlooking a Zen rock garden, and a wood-and-glass paneled back wall that opens onto the mountains in its backyard. From the park gift shop, I purchase a fridge magnet and Fritioff Fryxell's classic manuscript, The Tetons: Interpretations of a Mountain Landscape, to add to our book collection. Up the road, we stop at the Chapel of the Transfiguration, a quiet little log chapel whose altar window looks upon the slopes of the Grand Teton. We sit for a few minutes on the wooden pews, enjoying the solitude, before heading north to our two hikes for the day.
Our first hike, the Taggart Lake Trail, climbs 2 miles from the valley floor, through pine forest, to a glacial chain lake at the foot of the Cathedral Group. We begin on the banks of Cottonwood Creek, a burbling, trout-filled stream that runs parallel to the mountain range and, in spite of its dimunitive appearance, is the main artery that funnels the eastern half of the Tetons' watershed toward the Snake River. After passing through a grassy meadow, we enter a mixed forest of lodgepoles and spruce trees. The trail crosses a wooden footbridge over Taggart Creek before climbing parallel to the cascades; the sky opens up to the awe-inspiring sight of the Middle Teton and Grand Teton, looming over us to the west as we walk through boulder fields, groves of silvery, delicate aspen, and stands of new-growth conifers. Heading left at the junction with the Bradley Lake Trail, we scramble over fallen logs to bypass a flooded, muddy section of trail, coming after half a mile to the southeastern shore of Taggart Lake. The air in this pocket of forest is windless and calm, and the views toward Avalanche Canyon and the mountains above are reflected on the sub-alpine lake's glassy clear surface. We pose for photos atop a boulder on the water's edge before returning back down the trail to the road.
We continue north, stopping at the Jenny Lake Visitor Center to inquire after trail conditions in Cascade Canyon, which we had planned to hike tomorrow. At this point, we are unsurprised by the dismal news: the initial climb from the west shore of the lake into the canyon will require crampons, forcing us to arrange for something less icy and strenuous (i.e. sleeping in, among other things) on the last day of our honeymoon. A few miles up the road, we turn into the junction toward String Lake and park on the shoulder of the road for our second hike: an unmarked walk through brush to the Old Patriarch, a majestic, 1100-year-old limber pine that stands near the ruined bed of the old park road and has been long forgotten by most park visitors. Jane and I cross the park road, descend into a stand of pines, and emerge onto a flat plain of sagebrush that stretches as far as the eye can see. Using the compass and GPS headings on Jane's phone, we shoot for a distant grove of trees and set off, weaving and winding our way through the thigh-high brush. The road and the sound of traffic recede into the distance behind us, until we are left with just a roof of azure sky, a western wall of towering, snowy mountains, and big, open views in every other direction. Jane and I cut our own paths through the sage, slowly picking our way over half a mile. We descend two sloped benches on the valley floor (water lines in ancient times of glacial flooding) before we see, in the distance, the unmistakeably lopsided crown of the Old Patriarch, standing alone at its perch beneath the mountains. I walk up to the old tree to touch its bark and examine its distinctively patterned trunk, which was revealed when the northeastern half of the tree split off decades over. The result is a remarkably photogenic tree when shot from the east, with its crown of pines, its long limbs askew, the Cathedral Group as a backdrop, and a stand of nearby pines to balance the composition. Jane and I take portraits together with the tree before climbing back up the terrace and returning through the sagebrush to our waiting car.
Back on the road, we continue north and then east to complete the Teton Park loop, winding up back at Signal Mountain. We return to our cabin for a mid-afternoon nap before waking up to forage for food; feeling quite sore of sandwiches, we wind up sharing a platter of fish and chips with vegetable soup at the Trappers Grill. As we eat dinner, a dark hammerhead appears over the peaks to our west before rushing down the mountainside; it is quite terrifying to see the sky-high summits covered by this even taller, larger cloud. We walk out to the marina to see the storm blow in: furious winds whip across Jackson Lake as the curtain descends over the mountains, and the fishing cruisers and pontoons bounce up and down the waves. Hail begins to fall. Needless to say, our plans for kayaking around the lake at sunset are scuttled. We retreat to the cabin and enjoy a quiet evening indoors as we wait out the storm.
The next day, our last day in the Tetons, the skies are blue and featureless, and the morning is calm and clear. I am feeling under the weather and Jane is all hiked out, so we resolve to take things easy. We eat a mid-morning breakfast at the Trappers Grill (a Southwestern omelette for me and a platter of pancakes for Jane) before renting a two-person kayak at the marina and heading out onto the lake. For about an hour, we paddle around Jackson Lake, struggling to maintain a straight course (the problem, we discover, is me). Zigging and zagging, we cross the water to Donoho Point, with its sandy beaches and tree-lined slopes. The chain of mountains, with their snow-capped peaks, serve as an impressive backdrop to our morning on the lake.
In the afternoon, I settle down to organize photos and pack, while Jane takes the car for a spin; she winds up heading back to the Jackson Lake Lodge and reading from Fryxell's book under in its massive glass lobby. After dinner, we return to the western park road to catch our final sunset of the trip, at a roadside turnoff looking into Cascade Canyon. Jane walks around framing shots with the backup camera while I set up my tripod for a timelapse of the canyon. We watch as the sun dips over the mountain wall to our west; across the east, the triangular shadows of the peaks lengthen and expand over the valley floor. The sun rays gradually diminish until there is only light coming through the canyon itself, painting the northern flank of Teewinot with gold, then purple, then deep red light. The jagged, icy ridges of the mountain are the last to be lit in the fading alpenglow - then all is dark. We drive back to the cabin, our high beams cutting through the dark sage plain.
Early the next morning, we drop off our keys at the main lodge before taking the same road south, past the mountains and their glaciers still glowing, transluminescent in the dark. The airport in Jackson Lodge, Wyoming, is just few minutes south of the park, sprawled across the valley floor behind the hillock of Blacktail Butte. In the dawn light, we unload the car and return our keys in the little airport terminal. While waiting for our flight, I browse a free book deposit in the airport while Jane peruses a gallery of wildlife photography on its walls. From there, we are bound for Utah and then back home to Baltimore, where we finish our trip in the late afternoon.
Yellowstone and the Tetons, with their magnificent western landscapes and their geologic and ecologic wonders, were truly an unforgettable place to spend our first week of married life. They were also a place unlike any other that we've been - not like Iceland with its primeval vastness, or Scotland with its storied hillsides of swept heather. The Greater Yellowstone, with its millions of acres of protected ecosystem, represents for me a vision of the West - as something raw, limitless, and untamed. Yet how much of the West is truly untamed? For most park visitors who, like Jane and I, rarely strayed off the beaten path, was it wilderness we were seeking, or just a series of attractions in the name of wilderness? For the ranchers offering horseback tours into the backcountry, are these mountain slopes a way of life, an obstacle to be surmounted, or a resource to be exploited? Is nature a place to be photographed, a sanctuary to be preserved, or something bigger entirely? Again, there are no answers - only a ongoing dialogue between us, and the place where we live.
