Memories can be painful and happy. As I drove through the darkness past the national park boundary near Moran Junction, I reflected a bit on my last trip to the Tetons. In June 2001, my Boy Scout troop took a trip to Grand Teton and Yellowstone, and during that trip we backpacked one night up Granite Canyon. I know it was my first backpacking trip outside of Colorado and maybe my second or third backpacking trip ever. Two distinct memories pop out from that trip. I remember how beautiful the mountains were, and how much my feet hurt afterward because they had outgrown my old boots. I ended up losing a toenail, but the experience stuck with me, and the Tetons have always been a special place to me.

In the past I had looked into backpacking the Tetons, however my goal was the John Muir Trail prior to my Tetons trip. Life got in the way with a job change and some medical bills, so flying to California and taking two weeks off wasn’t going to work. I needed another plan for the Labor Day weekend and the Teton Crest Trail came to mind. The Crest Trail was too short for a 4 day weekend and I wanted something a little bit longer and remote. After studying the maps a bit, I figured that continuing on from Hurricane Pass north and linking up with the trails just west of the park might be a good way to traverse the entire park. Some research led me to Petzoldt’s Teton Trails, an old guidebook from the 70’s, where Paul Petzoldt described a route he called the High Adventure Trail.

The High Adventure Trail begins with the Crest Trail from Teton Pass to Hurricane Pass, following the trail through the southern end of the Tetons. At Hurricane Pass, an off trail shot straight to Table Mountain begins a whole new adventure in the Jedediah Smith Wilderness, eventually following a different Teton Crest Trail #008 through the east side of the Tetons. Eventually after Jackass Pass, the High Adventure Trail starts to bushwhack north to Lake of the Woods and Grassy Lake Road, ending at the road. I liked the idea, but it needed some refinement for someone that doesn’t live in the area and doesn’t want to end up in the middle of nowhere on a narrow dirt road. I noticed another trail that led from Jackass Pass to Berry Creek, eventually leading to the Glade Creek Trailhead near Flagg Ranch. Flagg Ranch is just off the main road that passes through Grand Teton to the south entrance of Yellowstone, making it easily accessible. Even better, a shuttle runs every day from Flagg Ranch to Jackson Hole, making a thru-hike of the park a real possibility. From Jackson Hole I could easily hitchhike or take a taxi to Teton Pass to start the trip.

Permits were my next concern. I almost dismissed the trip thinking that getting a backcountry permit late in the summer would be too much of a hassle. However, with much of the trail through National Forest, which does not require overnight permits and has plenty of campsites, planning and logistics became much easier. Next I made myself a datasheet for the trip with mileage splits, elevations, a few waypoints, and figured out the approximate mileage and expected campsites. Everything seemed to fall in place, making the planning part pretty easy. Unlike most of my past trips, I decided to go solo this time, so my gear list was minimized even more than normal. I was packing a summer alpine backpacking kit and brought my ACR satellite beacon as my only lifeline and just in case, along with a can of bear spray, and I made sure that all of my food and smellables during the trip would fit within my Ursack food bag.

A Grand Tetons Hike Begins

After passing Moran Junction, I drove through the darkness to Flagg Ranch and Grassy Lake Road. Since Glade Creek was a few miles down the road from Flagg Ranch, I brought my bike to help with the shuttle, a 4.5 mile ride. After locking up the bike at the trailhead, the plan was to camp along Grassy Lake Road at the primitive designated sites along the road. However the sites had been closed off with no trespassing signs and dirt mounds blocking them. Eventually however, I found a spot with permission to sleep for the night.

Seven A.M. came early, and as I boarded the shuttle to Jackson, I was too excited to let the lack of sleep affect me. As we drove south, my heart sank. A thick haze covered the horizon where the Tetons should have been, blowing in from an Idaho fire. I was afraid that the haze was not only going to ruin the views for the trip, but possibly aggravate my dormant asthma as I completed the trek. Soon enough, I made it to Jackson, thanking my driver Joe for the shuttle ride and having Tim from Flying T Taxi pick me up at the Home Ranch parking lot to head to Teton Pass. Both drivers were excellent and professional, and I recommend both services highly.

Tim dropped me off at the Phillips Trailhead, which is a 4wd road for the first quarter mile. The trailhead was very busy, but the crowds disappeared immediately as I headed up the road. As I worked my way up Phillips Pass, my worries about the haze dissipated. The valleys below me were hidden under the thick cloud of haze that had settled there, but the mountains were clear, without a cloud in the sky. The weather was perfect, and was predicted to stay that way through Monday, with some rain on the last day. After Phillips Pass, I headed towards the next high point, Moose Creek Divide, and I passed into the National Park. At this point, I anticipated a busier trail than the previous morning, since an alternate route to the Teton Crest intersected there, coming from Teton Village, where one could ride the aerial tram to avoid most of the elevation gain. From there the trail headed north to the first named lake of the trip, Marion Lake, a beautiful alpine lake against a steep rock face. Past Marion, the trail dipped out of the park, and then back in at Fox Creek Pass, the start of the Death Canyon Shelf. The shelf is a very beautiful area, with perfect views to the east and the Grand Teton consuming the skyline to the north.

As I headed north, the Grand kept getting bigger and bigger, with the best view just before dropping over Mount Meek Pass into the Alaska Basin. Here, the Grand disappears behind a ridgeline, and Buck Mountain to the east becomes the focal point. As I passed the lowest point in the basin, the last rays of sunlight lit up Buck Mountain with a pinkish orange alpenglow before disappearing below the horizon. I had a little more light left in the day, so I hoofed it in the last bit of twilight to Sunset Lake, a beautiful little lake with great tasting water on the north side of the Alaska Basin. I set up camp at an obvious spot just below the lake, enjoying some dinner before falling asleep under the stars in my bivy sack. Almost 20 miles down, and over 6000 feet of gain had worn me out.

The Second Day

Day 2 started off late, and set me back for the rest of the trip. The lack of sleep from driving so much the night before had caught up, and I shut off my alarm, waking up much later and hitting the trail at 9:45, feeling well rested. I headed up the last stretch of the Teton Crest Trail to Hurricane Pass, where the massive block which is the Grand came back into view, seeming almost so close you could just jump across the valley to it. Here the new route began with a social trail that ran just to the west side of the ridge toward Table Mountain, the obvious high point just north of Hurricane Pass. The social trail disappears after a short bit, but it’s fairly easy to navigate through this trail-less area. The south slope of Table Mountain is a terrible scree field from the saddle till 10,600 when the grade eases. I found sticking next to a thin line of shrubs more to the east kept me away from the loosest rock, but there was still unstable rock in this area. I found the last couple hundred feet of Table Mountain to be better, and as I made it to the top, I was surprised to find a small crowd at the summit.

Along the trail the prior day and a half, I had only seen about 20 people, most of them in camps along the Death Canyon Shelf and Alaska Basin. There were close to 20 people at the summit as I stopped to enjoy the view of the Grand, directly to the east of Table Mountain. A strange swarm of lady bugs covered the summit. The hike down Table Mountain is fairly steep and long, losing over 3000 feet before the turn off to Fred’s Mountain. I ended up having an enjoyable conversation with a local named Blair and a group on horseback. After the turn off, another 1500 feet of gain brought me to Fred’s Mountain Pass, where I enjoyed my last view of the Grand, still massive against the eastern sky, and then went north over the ridge towards South Leigh Creek.

From here on, the characteristic of the trail seemed to change. The trail was below tree line more, with thicker trees, a narrower trail, and more of a wilderness feel. As I made it down to Leigh Creek, my heart sank. I was nearly out of water, and the wide stream bed which I assumed would be flowing was completely dry. I decided to take a quick break, slipping off my shoes to fix a hotspot. While I was working on my feet, a couple on horseback came by, and told me the stream was just underground at that point, and there were plenty of springs and streams just ahead. Sure enough, I quickly found some water, and I headed up towards the Granite Creek Basin. As the sun set, I found a nice spot to camp near 8700 feet. Again the sky was clear, and I setup the bivy after having some supper, enjoying the stars above.

At three A.M. I woke up, feeling something wet on my face. The stars had disappeared, blacked out by thick clouds, and I felt a few more rain drops. I didn’t have the motivation to fully wake up and set up my tarp. Instead I lazily draped it over me and my backpack, tying it off to my bivy in case the wind picked up and tried to blow it away, falling back to sleep.

A few hours later I woke up, with the rain clouds still looming over me. Apparently the weather decided to move in a day early, and the sky opened up within a half hour of getting on the trail. The first pass was between Granite Lakes and Green Lakes. The area between the two basins was beautiful, making me wish I would have hiked a little faster the day before to make camp there. After Green Lakes, I encountered my first stretch of missing trail just before descending to Badger Creek. At the creek I took a short break to dry out, running into a pair of locals doing the same trek as me, south bound. From the creek, I headed up to Dead Horse Pass, with the rain breaking just before I crested the pass.

I took a moment, and started the long descent into South Bitch Creek. As I descended into the creek, the rain came back as I passed several beaver dams in the lower section of the creek, spotting a beaver momentarily just before the trail junction. At the junction, I headed uphill, through the rain again, towards Camp Lake and Nord Pass. As I headed uphill, I noticed something I thought was unusual on the trail; snails. Hundreds of them had appeared on the uphill stretch, and soon I passed through the clouds at tree line, above the rain just in time for the soft light of the evening to illuminate the valley. I found the area around Nord Pass striking, and as I crested, the sun disappeared over the horizon. Immediately on the north side I ran into thick fog moving up valley, making navigation in the dark nearly impossible. As I descended, the trail disappeared, forcing me to make camp as the fog started to become disorienting.

On this day in the Tetons, the fog increased to such a level that visibility became limited.

A Last Day in the Tetons

The last day began with a beautiful sunrise. The fog and rain passed during the night, and I had 26 miles to finish ahead before driving back to home. I was still off trail, but I could see down valley where the trail should intersect North Bitch Creek, where I filled up on water for the dry stretch ahead. After bushwhacking down the valley, I found the trail coming in from the east and the trail intersection. The next high point was just around Red Mountain near Young’s Point, and the faint trail headed up around the side of the mountain. After finding the trail intersection on the side of Red Mountain, the trail disappeared completely. Cross country travel from here is pretty straightforward, heading towards Grizzly Creek and my last uphill climb to Conant Pass. I made it to Conant Pass just after noon, and with 16 miles left, I knew that I needed to dig deep for some speed. The rest of the trek was downhill on good trails, turning at Jackass Pass to head down into Berry Creek. Berry Creek ended up being one of the highlights of the trip. While being a very pretty hike, I ended up running into a black bear and a full size black wolf, a first for me. Ultimately I made it to the Snake River Corridor and made it to my bike at six, with a few hours of light left. The ride from the trailhead to Flagg Ranch was fast and enjoyable, and was a great finale to the trip.

Thoughts on Backpacking Through the Tetons

As I drove back to Moran Junction, the sun dipped below the Tetons, no longer shrouded in haze, and I enjoyed the views of the eastern face of the range I just traversed. The light disappeared as I exited the park, and a long drive took me back to Denver. In retrospect, a few ideas jumped out at me. From my experience, the Tetons were fairly dry during the late summer. Maybe it was just from the low snowpack, but there were several extended dry sections that made water planning harder than other alpine backpacking trips. Late summer means almost no wildflowers. Blair, the local I met on the trail, said that if I wanted to hike during wildflower season and get the most of the seasonal water runoff, early July may have been a better time to visit. Insects were nonexistent for most of the trip (except the swarming ladybugs at the top of Table Mountain), and the only part of the trail that felt crowded was actually the Table Mountain Trail.

Otherwise I only ran into a fellow hiker occasionally, and I did not see anyone on my last day until I started biking along Grassy Lakes Road. The most memorable pieces of the trip was Alaska Basin, Hurricane Pass, the Green Lakes area just north of the Granite Basin Lakes, and the area between Nord Pass and Camp Lake. Berry Creek was very exciting with abundant wildlife. While I was hiking, I noticed on the map an interesting alternate route. Hiking east from Nord Pass will drop you into Moose Basin, which will give you a few different routes in the remote areas of Owl and Webb Canyons. I think using either canyon as an alternate ending would be fun, and I look forward to exploring the Teton Range again in the years to come.

Information

Best Time to Go

Mid June - September

Getting There

Jackson, WY is the closest major town and has a regional airport and rental car services for travelers needing to fly in. Flagg Ranch is 55 miles north of Jackson, just south of the entrance to Yellowstone.

Maps and Books

National Geographic Trails Illustrated #202 covers the entire trail. Petzoldt's Teton Trails offers a historic perspective and information on the area. A modern-day guidebook can be found in Hiking Grand Teton National Park.

Editor's Note: This article by Ted "tmountainnut" Ehrlich originally appeared in Issue 12 of TrailGroove Magazine. You can read the original article here for additional photos and content.