Rising as Sunlight (Grand Teton, Part 2)

Dear friends and family,

Apologies for the delays in this update! The last two weeks have been very hectic quitting my old job and starting my new one at the Coast Guard. There’s a class-action lawsuit against my old employer. It’s a lot, text me if you want details. But! I am finally over the fence at the Coast Guard and gainfully employed once again 🙂

But in truth, that’s not the only reason why I’ve been holding off on this update. Part of it is that I’ve been struggling to figure out how to capture the essence of a mere seven-hour window of one hike that means more than the world to me. How do you summarize this? How do you distill an infinite experience into a finite number of paragraphs, sentences, letters and punctuations? No exclamation point is enough! I need you to know this experience, not just to read it, or even to merely feel it!

So I reckon it will take at least two blog posts. More to come on those philosophical waxings in a while. Anyways, allow us to begin our journey:

We began near dawn.

Grand Teton National Park is coterminous with the eponymous north-south mountain range in northwestern Wyoming. In between its high and steep escarpments are deeply entrenched canyons, among them the Granite, Garnet, Leigh, Paintbrush, Moran, Cascade, and many others. We are heading for Cascade Canyon today:

Cascade Canyon is large and wide, but its entrance is hidden rather deceptively in the forests across from Jenny Lake.

Only in the approach by boat do you finally get to see the enormous scale of the gulch you are about to climb into. And the boat ride is a fun one! You don’t have to take it, but it shaves the total hike length from around 15 miles to around 12 total:

It’s also a fun time to nab pictures with Purnima while she’s keeping a lookout for bears 🙂

And rightly so! Be bear aware!

Purnima and I got to the dock and split up for the day. The hike into Cascade Canyon starts with a steep climb over granite escarpments, and you discover pretty quickly the force of nature that hewed them from the mountains:

The hard part (elevation-wise, in no way distance-wise) is mostly over by the time you reach Inspiration Point:

So named, so moved.

I love when you can see the wakes of boats stretching for miles into still water.

And then the hike into Cascade Canyon really begins:

“Where we’re going, we don’t need horses.” – Back to the Future 3, probably, idk ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Oh Teton, you Odyssey. When I say I have ribboned my away across this continent, it is by the inspiration of your trails and your skies and your waters.

Hard to believe this is all one photo.

Some paths are stoney, some paths are riverine; some paths are verdant and piney and green.

I feel my soul rising with the sun; I know the turning of the Earth with my feet.

Here we are a bit more than halfway up the canyon, and it forks. It doesn’t question you; it doesn’t feel like an intrusion or an interruption into your ascent, pious, skyward. You are welcome and known. Your trail isn’t diverging, all your footfalls are converging to the home of all beauty and all peace.

From left to right: Teewinot Mountain, Mount Owen, and Grand Teton.

So much and so often, your soul is starlight on still waters. How often do you feel small? How often do you feel like a reflection? How often do you feel like a glimmer of something far away, and far greater?

Do you wish, now and again, that your soul would descend? That your essence would fall towards the horizon, and you would feel a new perspective as you slipped beneath the glow of dawn?

And your soul would rise; rise as sun into day, momentous and immense. You would feel it grow in strength and intensity as you climb over oceans and plains and peaks and precipices. Your soul is near and warm and bright and alive.