Cascade Canyon and Lake Solitude

My latest Teton adventure was hiking the 14.5 miles round-trip up Cascade Canyon to Lake Solitude. It was a GORGEOUS day, but HOT.

On Saturday morning Ross and I set out for Jenny Lake and took the boat across the lake to the trailhead. (Best $10 spent because you sure are not about to hike around the lake on the way out.) Once you leave the boat it is fairly packed on the trail as everyone heads to Hidden Falls. Past the falls the people slowly start to thin out as you climb up to Inspiration Point, shown below.
After the point, the trail starts to even out as you gradually climb back the canyon. At one point I finally looked behind me and realized we were actually climbing the canyon to the backside of the Grand. Words just can't explain how gorgeous it was. Words can explain how hot it was though. Yuck! Luckily there were several little streams coming out of the hillside that Ross dipped his shirt off and patted himself down with. I just dipped my hat in and let that cool me off.

Eventually the trail started climbing steeply up the mountain. The back on the canyon was in site and we knew what waited at the top; Lake Solitude! Lake Solitude sits at 9035' and is just gorgeous. After lunch I dipped my toes in the water to cool off. It was COLD, but felt great. We played around the lake a little, sat and enjoyed the silence and then started the hike down.

The hike down went quickly, could have been that we were tired, hot sick of the flies and trying to make sure we made the last boat across the lake. We did make the boat and it started raining just as we reached our car. Another great hike in the Tetons and another canyon crossed off our list.