Our trip to Teton National Park was our first trip out west. We stayed just outside Jackson Hole, Wyoming making that our base camp for a week of hiking and photography. We took two extreme hikes into the Tetons, the first to Amphitheater and Surprise lakes, overlooking Delta Lake. The total elevation was 9698 ft in 4.8 miles.
We saw the bear family on the way down. There was a second cub high up in one of the pine trees. I took a picture but no bear is visible.
The day after the first hike, we went for a half day horseback ride over one of the buttes. There were groves of aspen trees and hb even spotted a coyote!
The second hike was to Hanging Canyon. The elevation was 9565ft in 6.4 miles one way. We were the only humans on the entire trail on the way up.
The weather was awesome, 60F and sunny so I took the opportunity to take a quick swim in the small glacier fed lake at the top of our hike. The water temp took my breath away, an amazing life experience.
These six pictures are the paths we walked on during the hikes up theTeton Mountains. The terrain was steep, rocky and at times difficult to follow. Reaching the hike's destination with the spectacular views, glacier lakes and untouched nature made every step memorable and a victory.
Belize
An oceanside cabana with warm breezes and hot sunshine . . . aahhh . . . We only spent 3 full days in Belize, but the experience was amazing.
The food was incredible, fresh red snapper, jerk chicken, papaya, pineapple and rum punches.
The jungle hike was both exciting and frightening. On the drive to the jungle, we stopped for lunch and snapped the pictures of the local turkeys. The leaf ants were part of the jungle scenery, as were a tarantula and lip flowers.
Snorkeling around the small Silk Kaye isle, 2 hrs off shore, was too beautiful for words.
The pelican kept us company during lunch on the island. We were visited by the lizard our last morning in Belize. He was not very shy, letting us take several pictures.
The picture of the grass hut is a cafe named Blessings, which was within walking distance of our cabana. They served the best breakfast of eggs, beans and tortillas and we ate there every day.
Montana
Montana was our second western trip. We started at a fishing lodge in the Little Bighorn river, traveled west to Custer's Last stand, then to RedLodge and finally into western Yellowstone.
There, we stayed outside of nothern Yellowstone, in Gardner.
The most impressive memory of this trip was the variety of animals that we saw. These included bighorn sheep, mountain goats, elk, buffalo, black and grizzly bears, a bald eagle and blacktail deer.
The fly fishing was spectacular. We hiked 5 miles into the wilds of Slough creek, fishing as we went. Along the trail, we met the first bull buffalo, walking up the path towards us. We quickly jumped off the path, and snaped pictures. Funny, but the buffalo stopped walking exactly next to where we were standing.
He seemed curious but was large enough that we only relaxed when he cotinued on his way. Later, as we searched for a sunny place to stop for lunch, a second buffalo appeared, standing next to a bush eating his own lunch. Both animals were quiet, astounding giants that took my breath away.
None of the bear pictures we took turned out very well on this trip. Twice as we drove through the park, we saw mama black bears with cubs. But we were in the car and the bears were moving. The grizzly was very far away, the cameras needed stronger lenses.
The weather was fantastic, perfect for fly fishing. hb and I both caught a number of trout in both the Little Bighorn and in Yellowstone.
In Red Lodge, we hiked up to Triangle Lake. The hike was fairly vertical and very windy, but the views spectacular. We saw a small herd of mountain goats on the drive over Bear Tooth pass. Three adults and a kidd. We snapped several great pictures, even though they blended into the rocks and were difficult to see. Also along Bear Tooth pass, we stopped at an overlook and actually saw Triangle Lake where we had hiked the day before, very cool!
During our stay at a bed and breakfast in Gardner, the was a restaurant in the town that we fell in love with, eating there 2 out of our three dinners in Gardner. The Black Raven restaurant was an open air place, where you had to go into the adjacent bar in order to buy a beer. There were free standing gas heaters to take the chill out of the air, since the Raven was a screened in porch , year round! The reasonably priced menu was a choice of steak or chicken, grilled to perfection on an open grill with sides of beans, corn and texas toast. After a day hiking and fishing, the meals and atmosphere were perfect.
