The Six Travelers Go West - Day 8

Today was the day I had planned to stay at the cabin for the morning. I was hoping everyone would sleep in, but we are sleeping in the loft and the kids were awakened early by the activity downstairs. Since we were up so early, we had time for a good breakfast and a walk to the creek in the backyard. Pacific Creek is beautiful! You have an amazing view of the Tetons in the distance as you walk up the creek. It twists and turns and has the most amazing mountain rocks! The rock are all different colors and are smooth and round. They look like the rocks you buy in Arkansas! We know there are a lot of wildlife in the area because there are animal prints everywhere! We saw moose, elk, and various other prints today. We have yet to see animals down there though. Kade wanted to build a dam, and Dan helped him build one with driftwood, rocks, bark and dirt. They made quite a little pool! Dan, Kate, and I decided that we would kayak down the creek while the kids stayed iwth the grandparents.

We made our way back to the house and got everything ready for kayaking. We told dad we would call him to come pick us up when we were finished, or just to come in about an hour if we didn't have service. We hauled the boats down to the creek and launched them. These aren't the type of kayaks that we are used to, and they were a bit tippy! It took a little while to get used to them. I fell out once, and Dan tipped in the rapids. I didn't laugh when he flipped in the rapids, but when he flipped trying to get back in the water, I couldn't help it.  The float was beautiful! There were so many twists and turns and changes in the water levels. Sometimes we were floating fine and sometimes we were walking our kayaks, then the next minute we were shooting the rapids. I was hoping we would see some wildlife, since we were floating a couple miles of river, but we only saw ducks. Katie was sure we were going to come around a bend and have a grizzly bear in the river, but that didn't happen either. Dad ended up beating us to the take out point which was good becuase we were a little nervous about missing it because we had never floated the creek before. We learned later from a neighbor that we were floating in the Grand Teton National Park and it is actually illegal. Good to know.

We had a nice lunch at the cabin we are staying at, and then headed down to Jenny Lake for a boat ride and a hike. The road down to Teton National Park was so pretty. The mountains just got bigger and bigger the closer you got. When you finally get there, you are right at the base of the mountains. There is a shuttle boat that you can take across Jenny Lake to save four miles off of a beautiful hike. We decided after our hike yesterday, to go that route. The boat ride was really nice with the mountains in view the whole time, and the weather was perfect. My one regret was that we weren't there earlier in the day. The last shuttle is at 4:00 and if you don't want to hike two miles around the lake, you have to be back in time for that. I had wanted to hike up to Inspiration Point, but we opted for the shorter hike to Hidden Falls because of time. It really worked out great because it was a fantastic hike up into the Tetons. The Pine forests are beautiful and the mountain creek we followed was breathtaking. Not only that, but the snowy, rugged mountains are in sight the whole time. The kids wanted to hike up to the snow, but we told them that they really had no idea how high up that was! The snow was above treeline in the rocky part of the mountains. The hike is only about a half mile, and totally worth every uphill step! Hidden Falls are AMAZING! They're over 100 feet tall and just cascade down the side of the mountain. The kids had fun jumping from boulder to boulder while we hiked. Dan says he thinks Kade and Elijah are part mountain goat! So many people were sitting up there just watching the falls, and I can see why. It was hard to pull yourself away, but the idea of missing the last boat across the lake made us hike down back down quicker than we would have liked. The trip back across the lake was pleasant.

We spent the evening down in Jackson going to the visitor's center, having dinner at a nice little place called, "Bubba's" and then picked up groceries for the rest of the week.