July 2017 - Visitors & Backpacking @ Mount Naomi wilderness & Grand Tetons

We started July beautifully! The 1st of July, we picked up Geert's oldest brother, Tom, and his family from the airport. They have 2 kids about the same age as ours, and we all get along very well, so we were all looking forward to a few days together, showing them around, and just enjoying each others company.

Showing them around also entailed dragging them up the mountain their first evening to do the Bonneville Shoreline hike/walk we do often after work, which gives beautiful views on the valley where we live.

The next day we took them to our winter ski resort, where during the summer months 'Blues, Brews & BBQs' are organised each Sunday. You can enjoy live music with a beer and some food in an awesome location.

In the evening we took them to Antelope Island (of course 😆) where we floated in the Salt Lake and where we did the Dooley Knob hike to catch a gorgeous sunset.

Full car, on our way to Antelope Island

Floating in the Salt Lake

Some typical views @ the island on our way top the trailhead

waiting to continue until a herd of bisons crossed the road

The brothers

The whole bunch together

The youth @ the top

The next day, a visit to Salt lake City and a NBA summer league game was on the agenda, and their last day before they started their road trip we enjoyed the 4th of July parade together.

The brothers in front of the Mormon Temple

At the Summer League NBA game

And in the evenings we just 'hang out' on our patio or porch.

the kids 'socialising' @ the porch 🙄

The day they left on their road trip, our boys left to Belgium for 6 weeks!!

Tom & co leaving for their road trip

Our boys leaving for Belgium

Picked up in Amsterdam by my parents

Although Geert had to work while our kids were in Belgium, there was still plenty of quality time left for just the 2 of us.

And in this hiking paradise, we count backpacking as quality time!
I've been camping since I was a kid, but camping in the wild and carrying all your material up a mountain to get to your camping spot, was new for both of us. It required a lot of new light weight material, which is costly, but we were convinced it would not be a 1-time thing, justifying this investment

Our first hike was a 1 night backpacking trip up Naomi Peak and High Creek Lake in the Mount Naomi wilderness area in Northern Utah, close to the border with Idaho.
After a drive of about 2 hours, we parked our car at the parking lot of Tony Grove lake and started our little adventure.

Tony Grove lake in the back

The hike starts at 2400m, and goes up to 3077m. So although it was mid July, we never got the feeling it was summer ... it felt like Spring with all the wild flowers at the first part of the hike, and more like Winter with all the snow we had once we were half way up.

Spring

Winter

Naomi peak wasn't our destination for that first day. We left the last climb up the peak for the next day and continued to High Creek lake where we wanted to spend the night.

Yellow: hike of the first day

Red: hike of the second day

It's a hike with many water sources along the way, so we could immediately try out our new water filter. Water is very heavy, so it's great if you don't need to carry that around and use the water from streams you pass ... it's the best water you'll ever taste!

filtering and tasting the best water ever!

So that first day we climbed up to 3000m (picture above is the last part of that climb), after which we had to descend again to 2747m to get to the lake.

Descending toward the lake

almost there!

We were just in time to get our tent up before we were hit by a hail storm. Our new tent sure passed the test!
The storm hit us right at the moment we went looking for a stream to get some fresh water. We didn't dare to take the water from the lake, as it looked like some animals used it as their toilet ... and our filter does not filter out viruses! Sadly we had to descend some more to get to that river, which meant we also had to get back up again to get to our tent. And after a day of hiking with a heavy backpack ànd with hail hitting on you, that was quite a challenge!

Luckily it stopped raining once we were back at the tent, so we were able to cook our first dinner in the wild.

The next morning, it was really cold as the sun was too low yet to reach us in that valley, but after a hot breakfast we felt warmed up to get to it again. Now...when I say hot breakfast, don't think we had eggs with bacon or something, but when you put hot water in a bag of dry food in the morning that means a hot breakfast... 😆.

heating up our breakfast

After brushing our teeth, and taking a selfie of us doing that (which has become a tradition now at every backpacking trip we do), we started our climb back towards Naomi Peak.

It was a pretty steep climb to start the day with, and when we were half way, Geert realised he forgot his phone at our camping spot! Man was I happy it wàsn't me this time 😅

First climb of the morning

We returned the same way we came, except that we included the short (but rather steep) hike to Naomi's peak this time.

On our way to the summit

The views at the summit were gorgeous!

From then on, it was only downhill back to the car. I experienced that in snowy conditions it is sometimes harder than going up! 😏

Trying to get grip on the snow ...

... unsuccessfully 😆

A few hours later we got safely back to the car. Our first backpacking trip was a fact and a success! When we got home, we had just enough time to clean up and get ready for a goodbye dinner party with all the Belgian families for Marieke& Philip & their 2 girls (Finne & Lotte), one of the Belgian families who would be returning home that summer.

A few days later we all went to the annual rodeo in Ogden, and when they left there, it was a real goodbye, as the next day they returned to Belgium.

See y'all back in Belgium!

The day they left to Belgium, we went to Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming for our second backpacking trip.

We already passed there with the car when coming back from Yellowstone in October 2016 (Yellowstone-October 2016), but it's a park that needs more of your attention than just passing by!

Origin of the name 'Grand Teton'

Grand Teton may come from early French Canadian explorers, who, upon seeing the three peaks of the range, called them "Les Trois Tetons," or "The Three Nipples."

Many historians believe, however, that the name Teton comes from the Teton Sioux Native Americans who inhabited the plains west of Missouri.

Any overnight hike in a national park requires a permit as they only allow a certain amount of people camping there for preservation reasons.
We wanted to do a 3 day hike by combining the Cascade Canyon trail, Lake Solitude Trail and the Paintbrush trail, a loop of 30km.

However, we didn't get a permit for the first night, so we ended up doing a day hike the first day. As we got a permit to camp on the Paintbrush trail the next day, we did the Cascade Canyon Trail and part of Lake Solitude Trail that first day. It would have been great if we could have made it all the way to Lake Solitude, but as we started pretty late in the day, that was just not possible.

Day 1: yellow line

Day 2: blue line

Day 3: green line

We started at Jenny Lake and took the ferry to the trailhead on the west side of the lake.

views from the ferry

Besides the switchbacks in the beginning, the Cascade Canyon trail is not that steep and gives breathtaking sights.

Apart from the amazing views, the Grand Tetons is also a great place for wildlife viewing. Geert was really hoping for an encounter with a bear ... I mean, we were in the middle of bear country! But I have to admit I didn't share his feeling 😑

When you're walking around in bear land, you have to make sure that they hear you coming, so when we were in areas with no other hikers but us, we were like clapping in our hands and yelling 'hey bear' every 5 minutes 😏 ... which kind of creates a special atmosphere ... that's why at some point when I saw something in my peripheral eye sight, I was convinced it was a bear! I know now that I don't have the best natural reaction when I think I see a bear ... I (quietly) yell 'bear, bear, bear' and I run ... exactly what you shouldn't do!🙄

Anyway, it wasn't a bear, but the behind of a moose 😂

And that wasn't the only moose we saw. There was one @ 5 meters from the trail at some point. Maybe not as impressive as a bear, but it still got my heart rate up! They are really huge, and they can be aggressive. It is important not to look into their eyes, which makes it very difficult to take a picture, but I did my best & I'm very happy with the result:

By the time we got back to Jenny Lake, the last ferry was already gone. So, we added an additional 4km to our hike by hiking around the lake to our car, which brought our total to 24km for that day. But thanks to that, we also got to enjoy the 'Hidden falls', and some beautiful late night views on the lake.

By the time we got to our car, it was dark, ànd we didn't have a place to sleep yet. They have a few camp grounds in the valley, which were all full and since camping in the wild is not allowed in National Parks, we left the park, took the first dirt road we could find and put up our tent in the pitch dark.

When we woke up, this was the view we had:

On our way back to the park, we saw a big herd of bisons, maybe 200m away from our camp site. I'm so happy we didn't wake up with that company around our little tent! 😳

Anyway, we drove to the Paintbrush trailhead at String Lake to start our 2 day hike.

View @ String Lake

The first 4 miles there's a lot of shadow on the trail, which is great during the summer , but it also means the views are limited.

But once you've passed this shaded part, the views are gorgeous.

After about 10km we got to our dedicated camping spot (in national parks, there are just a few area's where you're allowed to camp for preservation reasons). We put up our tent and continued further into the canyon with a smaller backpack.

Geert checking out the view from our camping spot

We just loved the views behind us on the lakes (Jenny Lake and String Lake) that we got while hiking up.

But the views into the canyon were just as beautiful!

Not far from our camping spot, we hit the first patches of snow.

By the time we got to Holly Lake, the trail was completely covered with snow ... and it was the end of July!

little pond before Holly lake

Holly lake

perfect lunch place @ Holly lake

We did continue further, and would have loved to reach Lake Solitude this way, but there was just too much snow, and we were not equipped for these conditions to get there safely.

So we turned back to our tent, made ourselves a meal (which was safely stocked away in a bear canister, we were in bear country, remember!) and enjoyed the sunset.

Enjoying the last ray of sunshine from the tent

And the sunrise was just as beautiful!

When you backpack, you wake-up together with nature, especially on a sunny day when the sun lights up your tent.

After a 'hot' breakfast and a refreshing quick (because the water is sooo cold!) wash in a stream and our traditional tooth-brush selfie, we headed back to our car.

censored pic 😏 while washing myself at the stream

On our way to the car

On the way up we took the trail going East around the lake. Going back, we took the West side ... giving us other, but just as beautiful views.

The Grand Tetons did not disappoint! We'll definitely be back to explore some more!

4 Days later we had again some visitors from Belgium. This time some friends from Meulsté. Pierre already visited us in January (January 2017) that year to come skiing while he was in Vegas for his work, but this time he came with his wife Anneke and his daughter Maud. They only stayed for 2 nights as they had a road trip planned to Yellowstone.

We took them to ... Antelope Island 😆, and hiked up Adam's canyon to the waterfall.