A Hike up the Grand Teton - July 19, 2014

Went for a short hike, about 4 hours, to the 8000 foot level of one of the Teton peaks.  The trailhead was about 6800 feet, so we managed to climb a little over 1000 feet during the hike.  It may not seem like a lot but with the hot sun and being out of shape, I had to stop for a breather and a drink of water just about every 15 minutes.  Adrian went through two quarts of water and I drank about one and one half quarts.

The big hype and warnings everywhere you go about bear attacks got me to buy some bear repellent, a spray can of super concentrated pepper spray that one uses of last resort to avoid being attacked by bears.  I was pretty sure that there were no bears were we were going, but I bought one anyway.  The reason I was pretty sure was the number of hikers in the trail, and the fact that no self respecting bear is going to be caught on the rocky cliff with no shade and no water.  Heck, if we did find a bear he would probably be begging us for some water.

I planned for an easy hike and tomorrow we will try a more difficult one.  But this "easy" hike turned out to be more strenuous than I thought.  Since we got a late start, we cut it down from 7 hours to 4 hours.  My thought was to make it to the 10,000 foot level, but we only got to the 8000 foot level.  It would have been almost dark by the time we got back and you don't want to be walking around at dusk in the forest at lower elevations since at these levels people are not at the top of the food chain and I did not want to be a treat for a Grizzly or Mountain Lion.

I spoke with a couple who were on their way down during a rest stop.  They indicated that a couple of days earlier, during a guided hike up the mountain, one of the ladies in the group had slipped and fallen down a 600 foot cliff.  They came and got her out by helicopter - but she died of blunt force injuries.  No Shit!  You fall down a 600 foot ravine bouncing off sharp rocks all the way down, slowing down your fall with your head, your back, breaking arms and legs and every other part of the body, yeah I would say you might die of trauma!  I hope for her sake she was dead on the first bounce.  After that story, we kept closer to the cliff wall on our way up and down.