Bull Frog Toes - Adventures and Stories: The Teton Crest Trail - Wyoming - Part 11 - Day 3

Click here for prior post.

NOTE: Click any picture to enlarge.

I really enjoyed the Alaska Basin - seems like a well protected area from the winter winds and storms. If we had more time I would have wanted to camp here. There were perfect campsites all set up that were lying dormant. Plenty of places to hole up with a book and your thoughts. Again - perhaps some other time.

Up and out of the Alaska Basin

On to the next challenge - Hurricane Pass

Trail around Sunset Lake - 9,600 ft.

Lunch break lay ahead at Sunset Lake - just a short jaunt over the edge of the basin onto a windswept field. There is a nice stand of trees to the left of the lake that gave us a little shelter from the sun. It was a pretty warm day on this western slope of the Teton Range. I can imagine the wind howling up here in the winter as storms slam into the side of the mountains. Nothing to stop the wind from here to Idaho.

Above the lake, I saw this wall of stone with the small gap at the top above the lake - I thought that this was Hurricane Pass. It is not thankfully. This looks very formidable. It is appropriately called "The Wall." I think of Pink Floyd - "Mother did it need to be so high?"

The Wall - Tetons behind!

The flower shop returned once again. The moist fertile soil around the lake fed a huge field of wildflowers on the south shore. We also encountered our second Park Ranger of the trip around here - the first was back on Death Canyon. It has to be the best job in the world to have. I bet there is not too much discontent when the boss says, "Ranger Pat, I want you to climb up over Hurricane Pass, dance in the flower meadows by Sunset Lake, and then climb down into the Alaska Basin." He was a nice guy - checked our Wilderness Permit - and we went our separate ways. I thought about how cool that job - not really a job - would be.

Off to Hurricane Pass - see it looks like we are heading to the gap in The Wall! Shit!!!

Last look at Mt. Meek - Alaska Basin is the big canyon at the tree line.

Anyone who has ever seen the classic 1965 movie, The Sound of Music, knows of the iconic opening scene where Julie Andrews sings The Hills are Alive. She is surrounded by flowers as she dances about the Austrian Alps. I could not help but feel like she did during that scene when we started to push up toward Hurricane Pass. The flower show became an even greater show. Of course I could only hum the first verse of the song - good thing actually - a whistle pig might attack me.

The Hills are Alive!!!

So from one musical reference to another, or in this case another album by Pink Floyd, we were about to enter the Dark Side of the Moon. The windswept plain of Hurricane Pass is so very raw. Devoid of fertile life and moisture. The backside of the Tetons here are also dry and raw looking - not the sexy supermodels found when viewed from the Jackson Hole valley. Still impressive though. They seemed so close that we could almost climb up to them from here.