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| | | Grand Teton Super Loop, WY | | | |
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Grand Teton Super Loop, WY
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| Backpack | 44.19 Miles |
12,682 AEG |
| | Backpack | 44.19 Miles | 4 Days 23 Hrs 22 Mns | | |
| 12,682 ft AEG | | 45 LBS Pack | | |
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| no partners | | For our vacation this year, we did a trip to Grand Teton National Park, six awesome days of backpacking in a giant loop around the peaks. The itinerary was as follows:
- Day 1: Up Cascade Canyon to South Fork
- Day 2: Up and over Hurricane Pass to the Alaska Basin
- Day 3: Up and over Static Peak Divide, climb Static Peak, and down into Death Canyon
- Day 4: Down to Phelps Lake
- Day 5: Across to Bradley Lake
- Day 6: Hike out to Lupine Meadows Trailhead
Intro: I've been wanting to do this backpacking trip ever since we first backpacked in the Tetons in 2013. Up until this summer, we've been busy going other places like Alaska and traveling abroad. However, this year, in early January, I signed up on recreation.gov for a permit for this itinerary and I got it! Only 1/3 of the permits are reservable in advance, so if I hadn't gotten a permit, we would have still driven up there and tried to get a walkup permit.
The hike: August is a good month to go to the Tetons. Not only were there lots of wildflowers (50+ individual species!), but the weather was relatively good. The daytime temperatures were in the 80's, so a little warm in the afternoon, but being from Arizona, it didn't feel too bad. Nighttime temperatures were around 50 at the lower elevations, and as cold as 32 the night in the Alaska Basin (frost on tent).
Day 1: The hike up Cascade Canyon begins with a boat ride across Jenny Lake (saves 2.5 miles of hiking  ). Then the next milestone is Inspiration Point, which sits at about 800 feet above Jenny Lake. It is a great view indeed! After Inspiration Point, the trail becomes much more gradual and goes all the way to the junction of north and south forks. We were going to the south and continued for another couple hours until we got to about the midpoint of the south fork. Our campsite was off on the left side of the trail, near Cascade Creek, with a great view looking to the north towards Paintbrush divide. For further altitude acclimation, after arriving at camp, we hiked another 500 feet vertical, stayed there a little while, then went back down. Supposedly it helps with the acclimation. Maybe it worked, because none of us had any problems with altitude, even up to 11,308 feet on Static Peak later in the trip.
Day 2: Today, we had to go up and over Hurricane Pass to get into the Alaska Basin on the other side. When I initially reserved the trip itinerary, there was of course some doubt as to whether the snow would all be melted out, or whether we would encounter large snowbanks. With plenty of hot weather this summer, all the snow was melted out and we had a nice trail to hike on the entire way. My mom was pretty worried about this day because she is scared of heights, but it turned out to not be scary at all, even in her opinion. Perhaps she read too many scary stories online about 50+ mph winds, and deep snowbanks that you need an ice axe to traverse. Along the way up to the pass, we stopped by "Schoolroom Lake", my unofficial name for the lake at the base of Schoolroom glacier. Due to the silt in the water, the color was very different than normal lakes, yet similar to many alpine and glacial lakes. The water was very cold. When we noticed a marmot on the other side of the lake heading toward our backpacks, we figured it was time to go. At the top of the next switchback, there is a spur trail that leads you right up to the glacier itself. Definitely take the time to visit the glacier! It is a very unique experience getting to walk right up to it, eat some snow from it, and look around. I was even able to traverse across a small rock ledge (right alongside a 30-40 foot deep crevasse!  ) and climb inside the glacier into a large "ice cave". The ceiling was approximately 30 feet high, and the cave went back about 100 feet. Due to the potential danger being inside a glacier, and not wanting to fall into a crevasse, I only went back 10 or 20 feet. At that point, it got a little steeper, with about a 10 foot drop immediately to my right. Not the best of places to get stuck... I'm assuming this was only possible due to the extra hot weather this summer, such that in normal years, going inside the glacier is not possible, so keep this in mind if you ever visit it and don't try to do something dangerous just because "some guy on HikeArizona went inside the glacier in 2021." You're responsible for your own safety and glaciers are certainly nothing to mess around with. Even with it being pretty melted out, it was still pretty sketchy, and the rest of my family was too scared to go inside the ice cave. The rest of the hike was fairly uneventful. At Hurricane Pass, you actually exit the national park and enter the wilderness area, so we met a lot of hikers doing the Teton crest trail, but only camping outside the park, hence a camping permit was not necessary. Smart thinking if you ask me! After descending down on the other side, the first lake we arrived at is called Sunset Lake. Many people camp at this lake. In fact, we decided it was too crowded so we moved on. We estimate there were about 12 groups camping there on whatever random Monday evening it was in August. Instead, we camped at the Basin Lakes, and chose one where no one else was so we had the whole lake to ourselves! It was absolutely gorgeous, as you'll see when I post my photoset soon. My mom even said it's probably her favorite place she's ever camped. And that's saying a lot because we've gone a lot of places. In my opinion, it was second only to the Wind Rivers, which still hold a special place in my heart due to spending my 17th birthday there.
Day 3: Today was the day I was most excited about of the whole trip. If the weather was good, we were planning to climb Static Peak! Obviously, you wouldn't want to climb it in a thunderstorm, if the name is any indication. We woke up to some frost on the tent, indicating that the temperatures were around 32 degrees, though it didn't feel that cold. After exploring most of the other basin lakes, we headed up the trail, which climbed steadily to Buck Mountain Pass. The views were incredible, especially looking behind us towards Idaho. Upon reaching Buck Mountain Pass, we were greeted by large boulder fields, which spanned most of the distance from us to Static Peak Divide. There was also a small lake down below at the base of the boulder field. After reaching Static Peak Divide, it got substantially windier, so we prepared for a windy ascent up to the summit, putting on rain pants and jackets simply for comfort. Wind speeds were probably around 20 mph sustained, with gusts much stronger than that. The actual climb to the summit was quite easy, just 800 or so vertical feet on a well-defined use path. Even if the path wasn't there, it's very straightforward where you need to go--to the highest point! At the top, we enjoyed some time alone, and then another hiker joined us, a young lady who lives in the area and teaches at the ski school in the winter. It was quite fun to hear her stories of skiing the slopes of the Tetons, climbing the Grand, and many other adventures! When it was finally time to leave (there was much more smoke rolling in around this time, making the view less enjoyable), we began the loooong descent into Death Canyon. Those 5 miles are definitely the longest 5 miles of my life. Each switchback is about 0.5 miles long. It feels like you're just going down and down and down forever. But eventually we made it. Once at the junction in Death Canyon, we had to hike upstream till we got to the camping zone, which was further than we realized it was. We took the first campsite (thankfully it was available!) and quickly prepared dinner before nightfall. Needless to say, we enjoyed a good long sleep that night.
Day 4: After filtering water from a spring just up the trail from camp, my mom and I enjoyed a hike up to the Group campsite along the Death Canyon trail, all while my sister was still sleeping. Eventually, we worked our way back to camp, amazed at all the downed trees in upper Death Canyon, and thankful for the dozens of trail crew that were out working on the situation. From what we could gather, there was a big storm around Labor Day, 2020, which knocked down hundreds of trees in 100+ mph winds. Last summer still they had cleared the logs that fell across the trail, but there was still tons of work to do this season, including clearing out the approximately half of the campsites that were not usable because of all the trees that fell in them. Since it's a national park, they said they're not permitted to harvest the wood for logging purposes, but can use some of it for reinforcing trails and building structures as needed (tent pads, stairs, etc.) Enough about that, eventually around lunch time we headed out and did the short few miles down to Phelps Lake, where my dad joined us. He hadn't done the rest of the hike up to this point due to not handling high altitudes as well and still recovering from being sick. We enjoyed the rest of the afternoon in the Phelps Lake area, where it was reported that there was a mother black bear and her 2 cubs (or 3 cubs, depending on which sources you trust  ) but we never saw them in our 12+ hours hanging out around the lake. We were one of three groups camped at Phelps Lake, and it was especially beautiful at sunrise the next morning.
Day 5: After breakfast, we headed out from Phelps Lake and began the ~8 mile trek to Bradley Lake. It was not a terribly difficult day, although we all noticed how hot it was now that we were down in the valley. Also, despite being "flat", there was a lot of up and down, such that the accumulated elevation plot showed more like 1,000 ft for the day. Overall, there was nothing terribly exciting this day, except adding about 30 species to our wildflower count. Taggart Lake was nice, as was Bradley Lake. It was cool seeing the peaks from the front side, rather than the back side on days 1 and 2. Bradley Lake is nice because there is only one campsite, reserved only for those that are doing loop trips. I got some cool pictures on the shores of the lake with the milky way and the mountains and the lake.
Day 6: A short hike out to Lupine Meadows Trailhead, where my dad had already staged our car. This ended up working out perfectly, because it allowed us to get up to Yellowstone and see a bunch of good geysers still the same day. Met some folks going on an overnight trip to go climb Middle Teton. Middle and South Tetons are both on my radar screen for great future hikes!
Overall, this was a great trip, one of my favorite backpacking trips of all time! The Tetons are such a beautiful place--if you're never been there, you need to go ASAP!  |
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Wildflowers Observation Substantial
50+ species observed over the course of the trip, mostly on the valley trail between Phelps Lake and Lupine Meadows Trailhead. |
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Route Editor
Route Scout
Route 
Of course, it started with a 1000 foot climb to Hurricane Pass, but with fresh morning legs it went fairly quickly. Hurricane Pass brings you up close and personal with the majestic peaks of the Tetons, and drops to the base of Schoolroom Glacier. From here, the trail descends through the very scenic South Fork Cascade Canyon. It seemed a little strange here because we suddenly encountered a moderate number of touristy day hikers, which is unusual for the middle of a backpacking trip. But this canyon is a popular day hike from the valley below and at just 6 miles from the canyon forks to the trailhead, day hikers willing to put 12-15+ miles on a hike can get pretty far up here.
(not sure we told him that, but it didn't matter since that never happened 
). And we all supported each other through the new challenge of descending a snowy pass. 
