Tumbleweed

Last week Ginny and I went backpacking in Grand Tetons National Park and it certainly lived up to the hype. I had to go wait in line at the Ranger Station the day before our trip to get a backcountry camping permit and I was fortunate to get the campsites that we wanted. The NPS also loans out bear cannisters for food storage which was nice as we didn't have one otherwise. We saw a bear (most likely a grizzly but it was too far away to be certain) on our second night so we were really careful with our food storage, made lots of noise on the trail and always kept our bear spray handy!  Our itinerary was the Paintbrush Canyon to Cascade Canyon loop with a day hike to Hurricane Pass. The trip included a good portion of the Teton Crest Trail which is probably the most popular backpack trip in the park. I tried to plan the trip to have reasonably short hiking days but we still ended up with a 15 mile day hike with more than 3,000 feet of elevation gain. Suffice to say that Ginny was not...