Upper Paintbrush Canyon is also one of the most spectacular alpine environments one can find. There was measurable satisfaction in seeing Mount Moran from a vantage point so different from that in all the calendars and guides one finds. The views west on the way up to the divide were, in my opinion, even better than those from the wind-blasted apex above. This 23-mile trek through unbelievably gorgeous high country was one of the best hikes and decisions I have ever made. At the lake, where I did, surprisingly, find solitude for about fifteen minutes, I still felt great, and the touted Paintbrush Divide was just two miles and 1600’ (up) away. I chose to go the extra 2.7 miles to Lake Solitude, knowing spectacular scenery lay that way. At the fork, however, I felt incredibly strong (I think I’d “hiked myself into shape” two days earlier in the Bridger Wilderness) and unsatisfied the canyon was not high and open enough, and I felt hemmed in. I had planned only to hike up to where Cascade Canyon splits into its north and south forks first, I was early in my trip and didn’t feel ready for an epic high-altitude day hike yet, and, second, I expected amply rewarding scenery along my intended route. That hike alone convinced me that the Tetons were easily among America's most spectacular mountains.
On July 18, I took the eye-opening and exhilarating loop through Cascade and Paintbrush Canyons, and I had most of the good stuff, even Lake Solitude, to myself thanks to a dawn start. July 2001 came along, and I figured I had to suck it up and endure the crowds so that I could experience the backcountry of these mountains and get a taste of what they were really about. Although the bitterly cold winds kept me in my car most of the time, the majesty of the mountains, clad in white from crown to toe, made an indelible impression. I found a Grand Teton National Park that was quiet and buried in snow coyote tracks in the drifts were the only signs that someone else was out there, too. In late March of 1999, though, things began to change. When I visited again the following summer, I felt mostly the same way. The crowded overlooks and pullouts, the slow and inattentive drivers, the commercialism, the pretentiousness of Jackson- they all made me want to get far away as quickly as I could.
How many times would I have to see the same old picture from the Snake River Overlook or from Oxbow Bend? How many calendars, car ads, and other media products would just keep beating those images to death? By the time I got to the Tetons for the first time, in July 1997, I wanted to do little more than drive through and get somewhere else. A Change of Mind and HeartI was tired of the Tetons before I'd even visited them.
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