What an incredible day today! We took it kind of slow when we woke up this morning and headed out for the day around 9:30. The plan was to hike Hidden Falls/Cascade Canyon.
We drove down to Jenny Lake to catch the ferry boat across the lake to cut off 4 miles of hiking. We were not prepared for the crowds there. There were people everywhere! We had to park on the highway because the parking lots and the road down to the parking lots were full. So, we hiked a little further than we intended after all. The line to the ferry boat wasn’t too bad, and we had to wait about 15 minutes. The ride across the lake is always fun, and the views are beautiful.
The trail was very busy today, but still really nice. It is a beautiful mountain trail with pines and a river and lovely wooden bridges. We even had a mule deer cross the trail in front of us. The falls were flowing nicely, and we stopped there to eat our lunch. The boys are really into bouldering and spent a while climbing the rocks below the falls. Zack climbed over halfway up on the rocks and scared us a bit when he tried to cross the falls. After playing there a little longer, we headed on up the mountain to Inspiration Point. It is an overlook almost 8,000 feet in elevation and was quite a climb to get there. I had heard it was a moderate hike, but I think it might be rated a bit higher than that as you are climbing switchbacks all the way to the top. Part way up the kids were whining and a couple coming down said to them, “But don’t you want to see the moose?” They told us that on into Cascade Canyon was a bull moose by the trail! We had no idea one would be this high! That gave the kids the energy they needed to keep going, and we hurriedly went on past the Point to look for the moose. We were quite thankful that he was still there when we got there just hiding out in the woods right off the trail. We were able to get some good photos, and the kids really enjoyed seeing him. While we were looking at the moose, some other people told us that they had seen black bear on up the trail, so we took off again at a fast rate as we have yet to see any bears on this trip.
We never saw any bears but the views of Cascade Canyon cannot be topped! It was breathtaking! I would hike up the side of that mountain over and over just to see it. It literally took your breath away. The air is very smoky because of wildfires, so the views are not what they could be, and still it was truly amazing! The aspens are starting to turn yellow, and backdropped with the green pines and the mountains on both sides of the canyon cannot even be described! I wanted to keep hiking forever, but unfortunately our children did not. We finally turned around and headed down to catch the ferry boat. Apparently, this was the time everyone else also headed down to catch the boat because we had to wait in line almost an hour to get back across.
We told the kids we would just spend the evening at the campground and rest, but much to our delight, an old friend of mine happened to be in the area and looked us up at the campground. After meeting each other’s families, we enjoyed a wonderful evening of laughter and catching up on the last 20 years. My kids especially enjoyed having other kids to talk to after not seeing their friends for awhile. After our friends left, we drove around a bit looking for animals, but only spotted one elk.
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