Throwback Thursday?

Grand Tetons and West Yellowstone - July 1, 2015

It was 1969. I had completed my five years in the Air Force, flying back and forth to Viet Nam. I was 25 and Mrs. Phred was 24. I learned to make beer that year with an 18 percent alcohol content and put up 15 gallons. It struck me that a party might be fun and I issued an open invitation to anyone living in Tallahassee.

Three of my beers would stun you. Six would cause unconsciousness. I am told that over 100 strangers came to the party, including a prize winning poet. I was unconscious before the party began. In the morning, as the sun came up, there were 15-20 people passed out in the living room and in the bushes outside.

Mrs Phred helps with the driving on the trip from Alpine to West Yellowstone.

After Gunnison in Colorado, we drove up to Vernal, Utah for one night and then to Alpine, Wyoming just West of the Grand Teton. The Tetons are always photogenic.

The best part of our RV park is that it's four miles outside of Alpine so I got to do several eight mile hikes in the morning....I bought a cowboy hat in the local tack store.

A Dam in the Teton National Park.

This bird was on my morning walks.

After three days in Alpine, we moved up to West Yellowstone. We're staying in a place where Idaho, Montana and Wyoming converge.

These horses were on my walk in Alpine.

We went on a five mile hike at 8,000 feet today. We went up to Cascade Lake.

In the morning we will do some whitewater rafting in Montana on the Gallatin River.

A Selfie....

Hike to Death Canyon

Grand Tetons National Park

Yea, Though we walk though the Canyon of Death...we will fear no evil...for we are the meanest, nastiest hikers in the canyon... Well, almost no evil... A Twitter employee used the same user name and password at work as he used on numerous internet sites. All you need, like this poor snook, is one compromised site and a hacker is selling your employers secrets or raiding your bank accounts.

Note to self: clean up usernames and passwords and make each unique. It's going to be easier now that the laptop remembers them all and logs me in with a swipe of my index finger...then print them all out for Mrs. Phred and hide them in a boring paper file. Maybe my 2002 Income Tax file?

So how about that KGB? They shut down Twitter with a denial of service attack because they didn't like what one blogger was saying about the invasion of Georgia. If you're going to shut something down, that might be a mostly harmless target. KGB 1- Twitter 0.

The hike up to Death Canyon was about three miles round trip. It was a nice even upslope of about 1,000 foot gain from 6,200 to 7,200 feet. I dislike hikes where there is a lot of up and down in a climb. Even 100 feet of down adds 200 feet of up to the round trip. We had hail in the afternoon. It was bigger than green peas, but smaller than marbles.

We signed up for a fifth night here. We found the community tennis courts. This mornings scores were 6-0, 6-0 so the sets were short. Mrs. Phred broke out a new can of balls and I couldn't seem to do a thing with them. They all went sailing.

We're heading for the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park down in Colorado on Sunday morning. The last time we were there all the trails were closed because of the late April snow pack.

We'll try to time our arrival in Arkansas for Wednesday, August 26. The state park we want to stay in went to a first-come, first-serve basis after last year's ice storms. They had to refund all their reservations because they were unsure when they would reopen.

The Grand Tetons

Jackson Hole, Wyoming

It's one of those wonderful places that grow exponentially. Winter sports for half a year and rafting, fishing and horseback riding the other half. It's kind of like Key West that way... not what it was 30 years ago (sleepy and rustic). The traffic is bad and everything is way too expensive... Still...we love it.


Nine million years ago the continental plate split here along a 40 mile line running north and south. The western edge was uplifted and formed the newest and most jagged mountains in the US. They run to about 13,000 feet. The eastern plate sank and formed Jackson Hole, elevation about 6,000 feet. The Jackson Hole valley has a number of large lakes that abut the mountains. The Snake river flows along the valley and there are numerous moraines where glaciers piled up rucks like conveyor belts. Another feature of the valley is kettles or potholes where blocks of ice slowly melted forming ponds.

We did a hike here in the Spring 31 years ago. We walked about a mile and a half around the back side of Jenny Lake and then did a steep climb up a canyon into a lovely meadow filled with wildflowers. Part of the hike was along a ledge about three feet wide with a 300 foot drop to the rocks below. We held tight to our son while traversing that. Tomorrow, we'll do the same hike but cut out three miles of hiking by taking the jetboat across Jenny Lake to the trail head.

The park is heavy on recreation, as it should be. There are numerous campgrounds, lodges, marinas, restaurants and dude ranches as well as many great hiking trails. You can rent canoes, kayaks, and motorboats for reasonable cost. The fishing is good.

The lighting conditions have not been optimal for photography, with continuous overcast, and smog seems to be everywhere in the west these days, dimming far vistas. It would be very cool to come out in January, when the Tetons are coated with snow and ice. You could get up on a clear day at dawn with no wind and see the mountains painted bright orange at sunrise and reflected in the lake. I can see it...yeah...

Maybe we'll rent a canoe one day....Yellowstone is just up the road...we may be here awhile.