Teton Crest Trail Fall Backpacking

Hello friends! In this post I type about hiking and snowshoeing most of the Teton Crest trail in Grand Teton National Park with my buddies Sam, Mitchell, and Jared from school. Sam snagged a permit for this trip in March. After some quick research we realize that in mid October, the trail would not exactly be in its prime condition. Because we didn’t know what snow conditions would be like until a week or two before, the most important planning had to wait until that time frame. combining this planning effort with my full-time job was stressful but paid off in the end.

Logistics

• Location Grand Teton National Park
• Trail: Teton Crest
  • Start: Teton Pass Hwy & Forest Rd 30972
  • End: String Lake
• Distance: about 33 mi
• Up: 6000 ft
• Down: 7000 ft
• Date: October 12-14, 2019
• Rack:
  • Snowshoes
  • Boots + gaiters
  • Snow shovel
  • Backpacking Gear additions:
    • Warm stuff: 0 F Sleeping bag, layers, mittens
    • Extra insulating foam sleeping pad
  • Hummus and pepper jack, refrigerated by cold temps
  • Hot cocoa mix + milk powder
• Shuttle: Outlaw Taxi/Cowboy Cab: (307) 413-1200
• Rentals: OG, Denver

Pretrip: Colorado to GTNP

The book ends of this trip were pretty goofy. I woke up Friday morning in Denver to a sufficiently warm sleeping bag but to a phone that had died from the cold. I had been sleeping in my van in a parking lot in Denver that will remain nameless. Sam and Mitchell had been calling me to wake me up and pick them up from the airport. Smooth. Soon we were on our way from DIA to Jackson Wyoming, 8 or so hours away.

When we arrived in Jackson, we ate a filling dinner and headed to the airport to pick up Jerett. There a girl waiting in the car behind us mistook Mitchell for a relative and almost gave him a bear hug. He and he and Sam discovered chocolate milk in their bags. Jerett appeared and after a lap around the terminal blasting Soulja we were off to Signal Mountain where we camped for the night.

Day 1

We packed up camp in the morning and immediately drove to the String Lake Trailhead, where we had plans to meet Sean, our shuttle driver. While repacking my bag I too discovered chocolate milk. Odd how that happens. We shuttled to a forest road near Phillips Pass West of Jackson, ate our breakfast, and started hiking.

There was not much snow on the ground before Phillips pass. This made the first few miles quite easy. After hiking for a mile or two I had gotten warm and taken off the calves of my zip-convertible pants. I shortly got some snow in my boots. Fearing this would melt and soak my feet for the remainder of the day, I took off my boots to clean out the snow and put on my trusty rental gaiters. I have never looked back and I never will. Those gaiters deflected snow reliably the entire trip.

On the other side of Phillips pass the snow was deep enough for us to put on our snow shoes for the first time. After about a mile more of trekking we encountered a trail again and took the snowshoes off, only to trek many of the next miles through deeper snow in our boots while getting slightly off trail at times. After a while we climbed up some switchbacks and entered the National Park, crossed a couple small basins to Game Peak Pass, and descended into the valley before our final climb up to Marion Lake, our campsite for the night. On this descent we were edging left across some steep snow slopes when I spotted a trail further down to the right and took it. The rest of the group stayed left over some snow covered boulders and Jerett disappeared for a while. We took the snow shoes off for the final climb but again postholed when searching for a flat tent spot. After clearing snow and pitching the tent we had dinner and talked about the following day. Day 1 was tough. The consensus was that finishing the trail was unlikely and that we would hike out Death Canyon. After dinner I stayed up and enjoyed the full moon with Mitchell and Jerett. We saw some people down in the valley hiking by headlamp. It looked cold.

Day 2

Spirits rose with the sun as we ate breakfast with a campfire the next morning.

Another gorgeous day full of snow lay ahead, and we shoed from camp across a stunning pass and basin to Death Canyon Shelf, committing to getting to at least Cascade Canyon on Day 3.

To the left of the shelf loomed a wall of a few hundred feet; I wondered if it had been climbed. We then entered Alaska Basin where we encountered deep snow going down the Sheep Steps.

Mitchell decided to remove his shoes here and promptly postholed to his knees. At the bottom of the basin we reached the north slope, mostly melted off, and pushed up to camp at Sunset Lake. At some point near the bottom of the basin Sam walked across a frozen body of water by accident. Fortunately rule #2 was observed. On the last hill down to the lake Jerett and I threw our shoes back on and ran down, Jerett at a full sprint. Camp was comfortable that night and we hung out pretty late listening to each other’s stories until we went to bed.

Day 3

Let’s gooo time to hike over and out! Hurricane pass, aptly named, was first and it gave us a full on view of the Grand, Middle, and South Tetons. Raw cold wind swept unabated across the ice and rock. This and the beauty of the Tetons rearing to the east brought a few tears to my eyes.

Coming down the backside into the South Fork of Cascade Canyon we encountered some steep snowy traversing where I used a pole as an axe and booted without the snow shoes. At this point our crew had agreed to hike out Cascade Canyon, a feasible end to our three days. At lower elevation, this was clear from heavy snow and gave us gorgeous views of the vaulting canyon walls and Jenny Lake as we hiked to the van. We made it!

Post Trip

We celebrated at Dornans with za and then headed to Moo’s where we ate too much ice cream (Jerett actually had to yak). In two hours we successfully indulged ourselves more than we had in three days. At that point we were tired and just wanted sleep, so we found some (legal) national forest camping east of the park. We loaded our bags into the front of the van for enough room for Sam, Jerett, and I to sleep. Mitchell pitched a tent and we passed out.

Morning came, we dropped Jerett back off at the JH airport, and split to Colorado. All my pals flew home fine and I pulled into Colorado Springs before 9 pm. It’s a wrap.

Finishing Thoughts

This has been one of my favorite backpacking trips. I love these guys, the trail, and how we’ve handled it.