Bird's Eye Views

Well another weekend in Jackson Hole - another hike! Today we awoke to not so favorable looking skies, so we relaxed &  made a nice breakfast. By the time we were finished - the weather had changed to beautiful. They say here that if you don't like the weather, just wait 5 minutes! It is so true - the weather changes rapidly - and lucky for us it was for the better today.

We decided to try out a hike Barry read about in his new book. The trailhead was actually only about 4 miles from our house and the hike would take us to the top of Snow King Mountain (the ski mountain that is in downtown JH - not the large ski resort). The trail was called Josie's Ridge and it was rated a steep terrain (not recommended for bikes). One of the things that we learned in Barry's new book was that you can add "effort miles" for your hikes. Every 500 feet you climb in elevation, you can add an "effort mile" to your total hike length - sweet! Oh yeah, what I wasn't thinking was about the amount of effort/exertion that this hike was going to take - the combination of the instant uphill climb, the narrow path and the steep drop off the side of the trail - I think that I was suffering from intense vertigo - ugh (or it was the late night happy hour that we stuck around for at the Cadillac Bar after the movie last night - not sure). Poor Barry had to stop and wait for me, as we had hiked up the steepest terrain and there was no way we were going to go back down that way - to the top was the only solution....after I rested!

Barry ready to go on Josie's Ridge Hike

When we got to the top of the ridge, on the back side of the ski mountain, we realized that we had a beautiful bird's eye view of Jackson Hole. Check out the pictures below to get a good idea of the area that we live in - this is a great way to see everything!
 

This is south Jackson - about 1 mile south of Town Square

 

Overlooking Jackson Hole High School - nice views from the
football stadium/track!

 

Bird's eye view of Melody Ranch (our neighborhood). It is
located just south of town (about 4 miles from town square).

 

This view shows the road that heads away from town (west) towards
the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort (you can see ski trails
on mountainside in far back right of picture)

Once we reached the summit (YEAH! We have now climbed to the summit of both ski mountains in Jackson Hole) we came across a bit of a "roadblock" on the trail:

Hello Red tail fox! He just stood there and stared at Barry...he won,
we took an alternate route! Cute, but not willing to get any closer.

Once we crested the mountain we had an amazing view of the Tetons! Summit elevation 7,760 feet. Elevation gain 1.640 ft. (over 3 additional effort miles - yahoo, more banana cream pie tonight!)

 Once we started descending the front side of the mountain we had a picture perfect view of downtown Jackson Hole with the National Elk Refuge in clear view beyond town.

Downtown Jackson Hole - view from the top of Snow King Mountain



Downtown with the National Elk Refuge stretching beyond the town to the north.
The road leading out of town heads to the airport and on to Grand Teton National Park.

So our 6.5 mile hike (excluding effort miles!) gave us (and you) the opportunity to get a bird's eye view of Jackson Hole. After hiking down the front side of the ski mountain (I think that skiing downhill will be more rewarding than hiking downhill) we took a 3 mile trail to get back to the south side of town, and it had a very familiar name:

We took the KC Trail, but it did not lead us back to Kansas!

 Another glorious day - I would still swear that we are on vacation...and that is good!

Movie Recommendations - we saw The Social Network when the kids were in town - excellent! Last night we went to see Secretariat - another winner!