Snow King

A few days ago my sister, mom, and I hiked up Snow King, the town hill of Jackson. To start we went up the requisite front face with me leading as I always like to. After looking out from the Panorama House at the top of the King, we walked to the northeast, down into a saddle, and up the next ridge. It was a steep climb on a very, very faint trail; even though the trail is marked on the map of the mountain and it's visible from the opposite ridge, it was much more difficult to follow from the ground.

When we got to a good lunch spot, a few rocks at the top of the ridge, we got an amazing view of the Tetons. Or at least, it would have been if there hadn't been so much smoke from the fires in Idaho and to the north of the park. Still, it was pretty up there. We could see all the way into the bowl behind the circle of ridges as well as the little trail snaking down into it. It was a nice day, too.

The third part of the hike was back down to the base. Instead of taking the chairlift as we do on occasion, we walked back to the saddle between the two ridges and down the front in the woods. It's really a bike path and has a lot of switchbacks which go down the hill. It's a surprisingly long way down but all very pretty because it's in the deep but sunny part of the pine forest. In all, we think the hike was about 6 miles or so. It was a great day hike and I do recommend it.

Holly Lake

On Thursday, the day after we arrived in Wyoming, we went for our first hike in the Tetons. It was a pretty ambitious hike for a first one: 6.4 miles from String Lake, up Paintbrush Canyon to Holly Lake, and then 6.4 back. The wildflowers were absolutely incredible.

Apart from going for that hike, my sister, mom, and I ran a 5k from the Wildlife Art Museum on the new bike path while Ruth walked the course. I ran with Isabel who wanted to go a little slower than my pace so my time ended up being around 30.30. Our mom ran it in 23.something and came in second place without even being totally acclimated. We also saw the ducks in the Elk Refuge and a bison and her calf on the bike path on the way back.

trying something a little bit new 

The Horse Show

Last weekend I rode at the only horse show I've done all year. I'll say preemptively that we didn't bring home any ribbons. Jones kept refusing fences because I was either inadvertently holding onto his mouth or I looked down for the stride instead of riding it properly, or some other combination of little mistakes that made a difference. We actually did pretty well-- the lines and single fences that he didn't refuse were really good!

Even though we didn't win anything I still had a great time. I took a lot of photos, too.

All the photos I shot as stock are posted on my deviantART stock account, Ophelia-Stock. Feel free to take a look!