national park

Hiking Taggart Lake

Taggart Lake is an easy hike with options for adding mileage, doing an out/back, or a loop. My biggest tip: arrive early. This is an extremely popular trail head and the parking lot is usually full by mid-morning. If the lot is full there’s an additional lot about 1/4 mile away and plenty of parking on the side of the road.

 

Across the street from the Trailhead is a creek- either before, after, or both (!) cross the road and check it out. On three different occasions we saw moose here

Your hike starts at the far end of the lot with a wide packed gravel trail. You’ll stay on this until you reach a gate- to the right of the gate there’s a sign for the trail to Taggart Lake.

Once you turn off the wide gravel path the trail turns to packed dirt and narrows. A couple minutes after you get onto the trail you’ll hear the river before you see it. We completed this hike in the beginning of Summer, and with a late snow melt, the water was seriously flowing. As we crossed the river it was so loud we couldn’t hear each other talking!

The trail after the river winds through the woods and is narrow. You can’t tell what comes ahead in the trail making this a lot of fun. Just after the river is a horse pasture with the pens right next to the trail. When we first passed the pens were empty but on our hike back there were horses grazing- pretty cool.

After the horse pasture the trail climbs briefly as you continue to follow the river. After climbing for a bit you’re rewarding with some epic views of the Tetons.

The trail winds you through the field before entering dense woods. After entering the woods you’ll walk through one more field and then arrive at Taggart Lake.

Taggart Lake is incredible. The trail wraps around the south side of the lake giving you ton of different view points. The water is crystal clear, mostly mountain run off. We were brave enough to dip our toes in. The water is so cold our feet were numb withing minutes. There were braver people who hiked out paddle boards and were enjoying the lake.

The hike isn’t very long and doesn’t take much time. If your looking to add mileage you can hike out to another alpine lake: Bradley Lake.

Hiking Jenny Lake: Hidden Falls, Inspiration Point, & Cascade Canyon

Day 1: Grand Teton national park

We left camp early and headed south toward Jenny Lake.
The plan for the day was to do an out and back hike starting around Jenny Lake, stopping at Hidden Falls, Inspiration Point, and continuing on into the backcountry. After our Hike we headed to Mormon Row to see the park from a different perspective.

We left camp so early that when we started driving toward Jenny Lake it felt like we had the park to ourselves and we definitely took advantage of the empty roads.

Hiking Jenny Lake: Hidden Falls & Inspiration Point

Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point are some of the most popular things to do in the park. You definitely want to make sure you arrive early in order to get a parking spot. When we returned from our hike cars had poured out from the lots to the shoulder of the road.

When you start off your hike you have two options Leah and I coined these the: adventure route or relaxed route.

The Adventure Route means you’re going to hike from the parking lot/visitor center around the lake. The Relaxed Route means you’re going to pay to take a shuttle boat across the lake- it cuts down on a lot of time but you miss out on some great views.

After you pass the Jenny Lake Boathouse the paved path ends and you start walking along a packed dirt trail around the lake, you’ll stay on this trail for about two miles.

The views just kept getting better and better!

After walking for two miles you’ll come to a fork in the trail. To the left you’ll head toward Hidden Falls and to the right you'll walk a short way down the trail to the boat shuttle. We took the detour to check out what the shuttle stop looked like- big plus there was a bridge with a raging river going underneath and a great photo-op.

Once you leave the boat launch and head back up the trail it isn’t much further toward Hidden Falls. There’s a clearing that offers great views of the falls but keep in mind it gets quite crowded!

From Hidden Falls the trail steeply climbs to Inspiration Point. The views of Jenny Lake from the top are incredible.

After the long climb up to Inspiration Point there’s plenty of room to take in the views. It’s incredible just how much you can see. The majority of hikers and families will turn around here. If you’re up for more adventure, continue past Inspiration Point and follow the trail as it winds through the backcountry and into Cascade Canyon. There’s no set turn around point, it’s actually hard to want to turn around because the views just get better and better.

As you venture into Cascade Canyon the scenery constantly changes. The beginning is dense woods with steep mountains on either side. Keep your eyes peeled for wildlife, we saw two moose by the river. We did this hike in early June and there was still snow on the trail.

If you want to hike further into Cascade Canyon I would recommend taking the shuttle back instead of walking the two miles around the lake. We opted to hike back around the lake and about halfway we were absolutely exhausted and definitely jealous of those who chose to shuttle back!

This is a great hike with options to be family-friendly or to hike a DIY adventure. You can also turn this into a backpacking trip by hiking into cascade canyon then hiking out Paintbrush Canyon.

Petrified Forest

National Park 3/59

Petrified Forest  | 3.15.17 | Arizona | Coordinates 34.9100° N, -109.8068° W

 

Petrified Forest National Park transports you onto another planet. The trees literally transformed into rocks. The only thing familiar about the park is NPS entry sign.

After you pay the entrance fee and start driving you'll feel like you're on Mars. Make sure you stop at the visitors center and get a map. Immediately behind the visitors center is a small loop that holds the largest piece of petrified wood in the entire park! (woah.) Some of the logs are 218 million years old- absolutely insane. The loop only takes about 10-15 minutes.

There is only one road that in the park and it will take you from the entrance back to the highway. Everything to see in the park is off of this road. There are many small trail loops that are off the trail- some take 5 minutes to do and others 25 minutes. All these paths are paved its an extremely accessible park which is awesome. If you want to get off the main paths there are a couple places that use gps and are a couple miles long. 

It's a 2 mile hike from the visitors center to the Agate house (seen above). The Agate house is an 8 room pueblo made entirely from Petrified Wood. The NPS estimates that it was used in  1050-1300!

On your way back from the Agate house take the long logs trail- there's amazing views and it's a pleasant walk. You can see the pictures from the trail below. 

Overall Petrified is a funky park with amazing views. It's easy to tackle the park in one day- Even half a day if you're pressed for time. Make sure you stop in at the Visitors center they'll tell you everything you need to see in the park.