A Willing Subject

By August, my various doctor's appointments and other obligations were complete, and my feet had healed enough to do more than cursory hiking. There was a large part of me, an inner voice seeded by a lifetime of encounters with authorial figures, that said I should and must find employment again. This voice would continue to make me feel guilty for the rest of the year; but being without my ability to walk for so much of the winter and spring had made me realize how much of a gift the ability to walk was, and how easily it could be lost again. So I decided I would set out for a few months to see many of the things I wanted to see before I died—guilt or no.

The main destination of August was to be Olympic National Park. This was because I'd recently read two different articles that ranked Olympic as one of the country's best parks, judging on such metrics as scenery, crowds, and accessibility. I'd never been to Olympic. Plus, I could check out Mount Rainier and North Cascades national parks while I was up there. Plus, I'd heard that if you wanted good weather in the Pacific Northwest, August was the time to go.

Since it was a long way to Washington, I planned to spend a night each at Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks to add some interest to the drive. My first night would be dispersed camping at a wildlife area in Wyoming, a couple hours from Grand Teton. And I would be there near the peak of the Perseid meteor shower.

I pulled into the wildlife area after dark and found a spot along the lakeshore. The mosquitoes had gone to bed, and I made tomato and cheese wraps in the warm darkness. I seemed to be the only one there. Slowly, the stars came out.

I've seen meteor showers before, including the Perseids, but have never had an experience like that night. The meteorites were so big, so bright, they made midgets of the stars as they streamed over the lake in front of me. Just before I went to bed, a giant one streaked directly overhead for a full two seconds. Just as it vanished, I heard a couple seconds' worth of distant roar, somewhat like an airplane. I'd heard the meteorite. I didn't even know that was possible.

The next morning, I opened my eyes just as the sun was rising outside my car window—see photo above. Then I drove to my intended campground outside Grand Teton (I had planned my trip too late to get reservations in the park), grabbed a site, and went to explore.

The photo above looks like something I ripped out of a calendar called "America the Beautiful 2006," but it's real. And all I had to do to get it was drive into the park and stop at the first overlook.

Then I went for a hike, which turned out to be the longest since I'd injured my foot, something like six miles. Incredible—feeling recovered, that is, though the scenery was incredible too.

I did discover that my feet still couldn't handle steep inclines well, and they were pretty sore by the time I got down. Also, while on the hike I crossed paths with another hiker who said there was a grizzly bear that could be seen from the area of the next junction. I went to see (carefully, with bear spray) but it was gone. I have never seen a grizzly bear.

This sign reports how many animals had been hit by cars in the previous week. Sadly, it didn't seem to keep people from driving too fast on the park roads.

That evening I had dinner at a picnic area, where a path turned out to lead to a beach. There were a couple guys floating in tubes. They seemed to be enjoying themselves. I stooped to feel the water; it was surprisingly warm. So I decided to go back up and get my suit.

What a beautiful experience. The water was so refreshing, a cool contrast to the 80 degree sun on my shoulders, and it was crystal clear. I could see all the way down to the multicolored pebbles on the bottom.

I walked and swam about exhilarating in the feel of it, enjoying the mountain views and the deep sense of peace. It was one of the best things I've ever done in a national park.

I only got out once I was nearly shivering. It turned out that the guys in tubes belonged to a group that was up from a music conference in Jackson. Some of them had only met that day. They had a picnic laid out, and approached me to take a photo of the group. Then they invited me to partake. I was full from my dinner but I had to take a homemade pop tart someone had made. Who would have thought of making pop tarts at home?

I'd just had one of the most beautiful, peaceful evenings of my life. Now I wanted to spend more time in Grand Teton, but I was all too aware that I had a reservation outside the far end of Yellowstone the next night. Oh, well, I told myself. Some moments are just meant to be enjoyed while they last, and then set free. If we try to manipulate events to preserve them indefinitely, we are likely to be disappointed.

Somewhere around 10pm, I decided this was silly and struggled through 1 bar of cell service to log in and modify my Yellowstone reservation, delaying it for two days. The decision was made easier by something I'd recently discovered: North Cascades National Park, in Washington, was now closed due to a forest fire. Unless they put out the fire soon—and they weren't projected to until October—I wouldn't be able to visit the park at all, and either way it messed up my planned itinerary enough that I was okay messing it up further. 

Now I had more time to explore the Tetons. I launched into a routine that would see me rising in the dark so I could do some sunrise photography, then hiking until it got too hot, having lunch and a nap, then swimming, having dinner in the park, and driving in the evening darkness back to my campsite outside it.

The camping and napping was made more pleasant by a new piece of gear: "window socks," mesh covers that slipped over the car doors.

The days were 80 degrees, brilliantly clear at first and then partly cloudy, increasingly hazy from wildfires to the west. And unlike Black Canyon, the last national park I'd visited—a park known for being difficult to photograph—Grand Teton was a willing subject. There were dozens of easy-to-get-to places from which amazing photographs could be taken. After two more days of great hikes and great beauty, I decided I needed even more, so I bumped my Yellowstone reservation out yet another two days. It was the right choice, and I have the pictures to prove it.

On previous trips within the past couple years, I'd done a mix of writing and exploring each day, but the results had been frustrating. I didn't feel fully invested in either; when I was writing, being surrounded by all that beauty just made me want to go hiking. When I was hiking, I kept thinking how I needed to hurry up so I could get back to the campsite with time to write. I felt adrift, purposeless. So I decided that for the next few months, I was only going to travel and explore; no writing. I hoped that would cure the sense of purposelessness.

It did. I felt present, fully engaged, and able to enjoy what I was doing without always feeling like I needed to be somewhere else. Well, mostly. I did still apply for jobs one day a week, and I dealt constantly with my nagging inner Puritan telling me I didn't deserve to have fun if I wasn't working.

But let's not focus on such things. Here's an extended shoot with some very fat ground squirrels that were used to being fed by people. I would lower my phone down and they would come investigate, thinking I was going to feed them. (Note: do not feed animals. It turns them into pests who will steal anything you turn your back on, chew their way into packs, sneak into cars and destroy your snacks, bite fingers, etc.)

Moving on...

This mother bear and her two cubs crossed a trail not far in front of me, and were foraging for berries in the woods. (I, too, had been pulling berries off and eating them as I hiked: thimbleberries, huckleberries, raspberries, black currants, until my fingers were stained red.) Soon a whole group of hikers was gathered to watch the bears. It was nice to be able to see these animals doing their animal things; usually you just get a glimpse before they run away. The baby bears had a cute call.

I stayed watching the bears so long, I made myself late for Yellowstone. Yes, it was time to move on; I'd been at Grand Teton almost a week, and while the weather had been near-perfect, cold and rain was moving in. Still, it was hard to go. I'd fallen in love with the Tetons: not just the photography opportunities, but the general lack of crowds (at least, compared to many parks I've visited), the number of flat trails for my healing feet, the swimming, the fact that I could get internet within the park and keep up with applying for jobs and paying bills. It was a wonderful, welcoming place. I would definitely be back.

I took a final shower at Colter Bay, washing some choice clothing items in the spray as I did so, and headed toward Yellowstone, where clouds were already rolling in...

Tune in next time!