Completing an Old Hike

The day started out like Thursday but by noon the sun came out. That was enough for us to get ready and go out to enjoy the rest of the day. The goal for yesterday was to complete the hike that we started a couple weeks ago when I got sick and we had to cut it short. We wanted to make it to the Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point which was the goal all along for that hike. We left at around 1 PM and saw some wildlife along the way. Starting with a pronghorn that we didn't get a picture of because we were past him when Josie discovered him not far off the road. Once we arrived at the turnoff to Jenny Lake, we saw a lot of stopped vehicles and people on the bridge over the Snake River. There were 2 moose, both bulls, browsing by the river. Here are a couple shots that we were able to get when we pulled off the road and walked back onto the bridge:

We finally saw some bulls and they were in good position for us.

It was close to 2 PM by the time we arrived at our starting point at Jenny Lake. We decided to save a couple hours and 2 miles of hiking by taking the shuttle boat over to the west dock. This is the same boat that we took on our return from the last hike here:

The hike from where the boat docked on the west side of the lake to Hidden Falls was all uphill and about 3/4 miles. It was worth the climb as the 200 foot falls are beautiful:

That was only half of our climb though. Another half mile was required to hike up to Inspiration Point, at a 7200 ft elevation. The trail was difficult in places and gave both of us some uneasy moments. Here are some examples of the trail:

as you can see, the views were spectacular all along the way.



We finally made it to the top at Inspiration Point:

and the view was even more spectacular of Jenny Lake and the Park to the east:

While taking in the views, we were surrounded by a few chipmunks that were looking for handouts:

Here is one more view of the mountains from Inspiration Point:

There was a more level trail that went from Inspiration Point into the Cascade Canyon which we started to take. We turned around at 4 PM as we didn't want to take a chance on missing the last boat out at 6 PM. We hiked a total of 3.4 miles and half of that was uphill, so we had a real good workout. We were happy to have completed the hike and we saw some beautiful scenery to boot.

On the way home, we saw a coyote cross the road in front of us and we turned around and got this shot:

As we approached the bridge once again, we saw that the crowds were still there and we stopped once again to get these shots of one of the moose that had crossed under the bridge and was still browsing along the bank of the river:

What a great day. We took a total of 142 pictures in just a half day. This is what it is all about and makes it much easier going into work after days like this. We work early shift for the next 3 days so it's rise and shine early on those days...