A Warm Up Hike

Looking through the list of hikes our ranger friend discussed with me yesterday, it seemed as though hiking to Surprise Lake and Amphitheater Lake (separated by a mere .3 mi.) seemed like the way to go.  I missed the word STRENUOUS in the pamphlet describing a multitude of hikes including words like EASY, MODERATE and even MODERATE- STRENUOUS.  I missed STRENUOUS.  The good news is that there was one hike labeled VERY STREUOUS.

Get your protractor out and figure the angle of this bad boy.
The photo has not been altered in any way.
Rocks have a hard time staying put.
Oxygen slides right off the face of the mountain.

Located just south of Jenny Lake, Lupine Meadows Trailhead was the jumping off point at 6390 ft above sea level.  An assumption I made that was correct, is that we would be hiking up hill (mountain).  To be more specific, that up would be about 3,150 feet up.  In my mind, since we have hiked the Grand Canyon a number of times, we would be challenged, but could handle it and it would serve as a warm up hike for another longer day to come.

The parking lot was very crowded for the little traffic we had experienced so far, so we thought we had picked a really good trail.  Off we went with daypacks on our backs and the thought of catching some Surprise and Amphitheater Lake fish in a few hours.  There is a little disagreement amongst trail information as to whether it is 4.9 or 5.05 miles to our destination…details, details.  The first mile or so was pretty typical of a mountain trail.  Meandering through a pine forest, maybe cross a stream or two.  Then we started going up.  The up didn’t stop for 3 hours.  This wasn’t up with meandering through meadows interspersed in the up…UP!  It was so up, that the switchbacks we are accustomed to with our experience would seem inconsequential compared to these from the fiery underworld.  They were steep, long, and just went on forEVER.  I thought the Grand Canyon had switchbacks…not like these badboys.  I think it was that they were not interrupted with semi-flat stretches or even gentle incline stretches.  They just went up.

Going UP!

Jackson Lake way back and jenny lake in the foreground and a cute hiker I picked up!

We did start our adventure a little late in the day.  1:15 PM to be specific.  About two-thirds of the way into our up-ness we started meeting other hikers coming down.  Their only comments were, “It is really worth it.”  No one volunteered how much further it was, asked why we started so late in the day, or said “You all should just turn around now.”  The next hiker that came down said we were a few more series of switchbacks away.  What does that mean?  The next one promised we were about 10 minutes away.  By then we were pretty much stretched to our limit of mental fitness, having contemplated turning around at least twice.  Our bodies were coping, so “we proceeded on” to use a phrase from Lewis and Clark’s expedition…since our journey’s were so similar.  But there were definitely times I wished I would have found a Star Trek transporter laying along the trail to beam us back to the truck.

Sometime after 4:00 in the afternoon (when most people were off the mountain), we summited or should I say made it to Surprise Lake.  It was a bit of a surprise in the fact it was really small and had no signs of trout frolicking about at the water’s surface.  We did relish in the fact we had made it, had a snack, and relaxed without suffering from hypoxia.  We labored .3 of a mile further to see Amphitheater Lake before heading back down the Devil’s Trail.  It was quite a bit bigger and very pretty too.

Surprise Lake...surprise, there's no fish!

Amphitheater Lake...pretty, our word of the day.

Not to be stranded in the dark on the mountain, we actually looked forward to going down. In fact, to entertain ourselves we jogged in places that gravity seemed to take over.  In a sense it was like a controlled fall, just making sure your feet were planted in safe places as you fell.  We mostly walked at a pretty fast clip, which was so refreshing.  We did make acquaintances with two more deer friends.  Aside from an occasional jog, we counted the switchbacks for kicks.  There were approximately 20 of the sons of guns, some of which seemed a mile long as it traversed the mountainside (maybe more like ¼ to ½ a mile in length in places). 

Almost down, but still very UP!  Overlooking what would have been a
better choice of hike and probably had fish.

We descended in good time (about an hour faster) and in good spirits until I heard Miki starting to sing how she wished she could be an Oscar Meyer Weiner.  At that point I felt the lack of oxygen to her brain had caught up with her, but we were almost back to the parking lot and I had no hyperbaric chamber handy.

We had made it despite the odds all the hikers we had passed going up as they went down were probably betting against our survival.  We poured our tired bodies into the truck and headed for the road back to Colter Bay.  One last show of “What were you thinking today?” was pronounced upon us by a rather large and stately elk, just off the gravel road leading away from the trailhead.  We stopped for a photo op and he would not show us any pose other than for his big furry rump…as if to know we were out of our league today. 

It was a good hike, a doable hike, and the scenery was pretty spectacular (even though I don’t have many photos of it).  Maybe a few other warm up hikes should have preceded this one…just thinking out loud here.

My Zen from the Road:  As we were coming down the mountain, we noticed someone on one of the dreaded switchbacks heading up our way below us.  We were thinking what all the others had most likely thought of us as we were heading up.  What are they thinking?  It was a ranger that was called upon to check out a climber that had been injured somewhere way above where we had been.  He was hoofing it, covered in sweat, and still said hi to us.  His day had just begun.  Today we challenged ourselves without really knowing where we were going and it all worked out.  As much as our challenges are sometimes to us, you can bet there are others out there that are being challenged far greater.