So small & humble.

Lizard Creek was our first stop in Grand Teton NP , a lovely little campsite in the north of the park with tantalising views of the main mountains to the south.
We had a rainy day (not used to that!) but we drove a few miles south and managed to get into Coulter Bay Campground so were closer to the action. The next day, as we drove down to the trail head, the Teton range reared up aggressively and looked stunning in the morning sunshine. Shakira was correct - no confusing these mountains. I think Phil summed it up with his insightful comment 'wow wow wow!'

We started our hike in the most surreal way by seeing HARRISON FORD at the trailhead. Quite a rare sight although Phil has seen him before in Hollywood! We had to Google him to make sure it was him hiding behind his scraggy beard, and we found out he is a Jackson resident (admittedly part time).

We were more excited (& I have to admit a little scared) to find a mummy bear & 2 little cubs right on our trail going to Amphitheater Lake. After waiting for others to catch us up we all hiked through together & we were all relieved that they were black not grizzly bears. We reached the lake & had lunch surrounded by the magnificent towering Teton peaks. On our way down we encountered the bears again & watched for a long while as they were right by the path - incredible. There was one more bear sighting when we were literally 100 meters from the van at the trail head, and he meandered across the road only a few metres away.

The next day I was promised a nice easy walk along the canyons... but we kept going a little bit further & higher until Phil argued it would be silly to go back the way we came. So we ended up going over a 10,700 pass to make it a round trip of 20 miles with 5,000 ft elevation - I was v v knackered, although it was an absolutely EPIC trek, and one of the best so far. We were good samaritans & gave a couple of lads who were the only other ones stupid enough to do the same trek (they didn't know how long it was!) a lift back to their car 4 miles away as they were more unorganised than us & had even run out of water.

Phil made up for tricking me into a ridiculous long hike the next day with cinnamon rolls cooked on the fire for breakfast, a trip to the National Wildlife Art museum & beers in the sun in Jackson Hole :)Read more