Built To Roam: Cascade Canyon

The only thought that was running through my head on our 15 minute boat ride across Jenny Lake to the trail-head for Cascade Canyon was, "I shoulda bought that god damn bear spray." As we cruised across the 55C water our chipper boat guide informed us that someone had just been attacked by a bear the day before and that there was currently a missing hiker in the area. Luckily for the hiker, he had his bear spray to fend off the oversized clawed eating machine, unfortunately for us I had forgot to buy it. But I did have enough cliff bars and man flesh to feed any bear strait though hibernation. So with a bit of hesitation in our step, we headed out on the 12+ mile hike into bear country. Cascade Canyon was the destination for our first full day in the Tetons and after a mile of dodging Blimps and kids with Asthma we had the trail to ourselves for the most part. We followed Cascade Canyon trail as it ran along Cascade Creek for 4.5 miles past open meadows and rocky slopes until we reached the intersection for Lake Solitude. This is when the views went from "Awesome" to "Holy Shit", with a 360 view of snowy mountain peaks we hiked slightly uphill crossing Cascade Creek on its decent from Lake Solitude. We saw quite a few Marmots messing around on the trail, and as we stopped a little over a mile from the trail junction we watched a bunch of them running around on the loose rock. It was getting late and all the hikers who passed us on their way back had said they had to turn around due to high snow levels before they could reach the lake, so we decided to head back to the boat in order to make the last shuttle across the lake. No bear sightings this time around, luckily. All in all this was an awesome hike and I was getting more and more excited to see what the rest of the trip had in store.

Mileage: 12.5 Miles