PAINTBRUSH AND CASCADE CANYON 19 MILE LOOP.

I had experienced a scary moment one time on the slopes of Mount Rainier as I was making a 20-mile loop. After being exhausted at the 17 mile mark, I began to wonder whether the trail really did loop back as the map indicated. If not, I would have to retrace my steps and end up with a savage one day 34 mile hike! In the rugged Tetons I have avoided that problem by doing the 9 mile Cascade Canyon part of the loop two days ago. Now, I can go up the new (for me) 10 mile Paintbrush Canyon trail, and if I find it impassable at any point I can just turn back for a planned 20 miler. Starting from String Lake trailhead you hike up the outside side of the canyon through a forest and get great views of the lake below you to your right. After a mile I pass a young guy who has taken a break. When I take a break, his sister has caught up with him and I hear him complaining about not feeling well. No kidding! I've spent two weeks at this high altitude, it's probably his first day, yet he is trying to keep up with me! Go figure! At about the two mile mark is a nice waterfall, and I take a break to sit on a boulder next to it. The next four miles is a steep, rocky climb upward on the canyon floor, with sheer cliff faces on your left and right. Even though I have been hiking for two weeks in the mountains, I find that this is a tough climb. Three women on horseback approach me going in the same direction, so I naturally get off the trail and stand quietly so as not to frighten their mounts.
"Now, that's the way to travel!" I exclaim, as they smile.
And so I keep hiking upward over the tough, rocky trail. When is this thing ever going to end, I think! Just when I think I'm at the top, there's another false summit. Suddenly, I see the three horses on a ledge of the canyon wall way above me. Oh, No! I have to do that! I keep trudging along on this neverending trail. Now I come to a trail that goes to Holly Lake, and a male hiker who has made the loop in the other direction gives me advice: "I had some scary moments near the top, but crossing the snowfield and stumbling around on loose rock got my adrenalin going." Oh, wow! Great! Is this a people trail or an old goat trail, I think. As I continue up the narrow trail, I get closer to the top of a mountain peak, and now see small snowfields and ice fields just below the peak in sheltered areas. I am only fifty feet from them, and the cold wind hits me, so I put on my long sleeve shirt. As I continue upward, a Park Ranger who is making the loop from the other direction passes me without saying anything. Guess he thinks I look pretty well prepared with a backpack, 4 quarts of water, and dark glacier glasses. Think again! I finally get to the top of a ridge where the three horses have stopped and the few other hikers have as well. Great views of the canyon floor I have just hiked up, and the top parts of the canyon walls. But where is the trail that goes over the top of one of the walls, and down to Lake Solitude in the adjacent canyon?? I notice that the trail veers to the left around a hill, and on the other side of the hill I see a snowfield going down a steep slope and what appears to be tiny rabbit tracks across the snowfield. No!! That can't be the trail! I continue along the trail, and lo and behold that is the trail!! I sit on a boulder to eat lunch, and two mountain climbers dressed in hard hats walk by.
"I don't think I'm going any farther. That looks too dangerous!" I exclaim.
"Ah, nothing to it," says the macho man. I am not persuaded by his encouragement, since I remember that when I was egged on by a guy in Hawaii to cross a stream I nearly drowned!
"You could avoid the snowfield by climbing down the boulders and crossing at its foot," adds the helpful woman mountain climber.
I watch as the two climbers cross the snowfield. The man walks in the frozen footprints with no problem. The woman keeps falling to the left (against the mountain, rather than away from it). It's as if she is trying to grasp plant roots for a hand hold, but there's only snow there. Her tactic seems too dangerous, since if her boots slipped out from under her, she could slide right down the frozen snowfield on this steep 60 degree mountainside. A slide could result in death, as one could hit their head on a boulder, or even slide right off of the mountain. All of the other hikers have turned around rather than cross the snowfield, and the mountain climbers are now out of sight. Without human distractions, I can now calmly assess the situation. Also, the rest has permitted me to catch my breath and to calm down. I place one foot into a frozen boot print, and then the next. (I am wearing New Balance running shoes on all of these hikes, and while one park ranger ridiculed those not wearing hiking boots, I find that they are comfortable, give me no blisters, but that you must step carefully on all trails to avoid injury.) I make my way across the frozen snowfield without slipping or falling. Now, I am on the other side, and must climb up a ten foot mountainside by clinging to shifting, loose boulders. Oh, hell! I make it up, but now realize that it would be very dangerous to retrace my steps. I have done something I always pledge never to do--I have burned my bridges behind me! I can only continue upward. I notice that the mountain climbers have been watching me to ensure that I safely make it across the snowfield. I now follow them up a series of switchbacks on the most unstable rock and dirt on a narrow ledge that I have ever hiked on. The narrow trail consisting of loose and shifting rocks switchbacks upward, ever upward. I have been gaining about four thousand feet of altitude on this hike, the highest gain I have made out West; it is as high as many of my Smokies hikes, but it starts at a 6700 foot level that is higher than anything in the Smokies and continues to a 10,700 foot level. I wasn't sure I would be able to even complete this hike earlier in the day, but now I have no choice. Being out of breath, tired, or dizzy at this point in the hike could be fatal given the narrow ledge on loose and unstable rock, but I feel okay. The air gets thinner and cold, with the wind gusting. Finally, I have made the top of the mountain pass!! But a gust of 40 MPH wind hits me, and I take out my winter coat from my backpack. The wind threatens to rip it from me, and I desperate hang on to it and eventually get it on me. I enjoy the great views down three canyons and a valley for the usual one minute, and immediate start down the trail into the adjacent canyon. A sign reads Cascade Canyon so I know that I am not lost, but the experience is sufficiently unnerving that I nevertheless ask two hikers that approach me whether I am on the trail to Lake Solitiude. I am indeed!! Starting down the switchbacks down the canyon wall, I advise a mountain couple making the loop in the opposite direction to turn back, but they continue. I now find that the 2.4 mile trail down this canyon wall is a lot longer than what it appeared to be from my boulder perch next to Lake Solitude two days ago, since I could only see about a half-mile of the trail. As I spend over one hour going downward I meet three campers, who reveal that they are spending three days to hike the loop that I am doing in one day. We finally reach the canyon floor and Lake Solitude, and as the day is getting later and my water is over half gone, I immediately continue on the trail. I am now rehiking the trail I had hiked two days ago, so the greatest danger of injury is now over and I feel very relieved. I soon fall in with a college professor couple who are very pleasant and amazed at how much hiking I have done on my first trip out west. As they stop for some water, I leave them and start jogging down the trail. Unfortunately, I twist my body while jogging and feel a pain in my side! Great! Five miles from nowhere, and now I might have an injury! So much for overconfidence! I slow my hiking pace and place more pressure on my undamaged left side, and continue the hike. It is later in the day, and I now meet nobody on the trail. The trail seems endless, even though I thought it was familiar to me. I make loud noises to scare away any bears, since they are much more likely to be around now that the people have left the area. Suddenly, I hear this rumble that sounds like a plane, but I quickly realize that it is a boulder avalanche that is not too far away! Fortunately, I have not been affected by such things in more dangerous parts of the mountains. After a couple of hours I finally come to a trail junction that points to a shortcut back to the parking lot. Instead of going to Inspiration Point, the waterfall, the boat dock, and then the trail around the lake, it goes down the mountainside directly to the trail. Is it a real trail, though? Well, it's going in the right direction! Downward, and to the left. So I follow it, but it is steep, and that's not good for my painful side. Finally, I reach the lake trail, and notice that the pain has gone away. So, no real injury, just a little of muscle strain. Scary moments, but no real problem. I notice that my 4 quarts of water are nearly entirely gone, which was another worry two hours ago. After nearly two more miles I finally come to the stream and the bridge. A fisherman stares at the hiker in the Hawaiian shirt singing Destiny's Child's Bootylicious.
"Don't worry. I'm not really crazy," I explain. "I just hiked that dreaded 19 mile loop!"
"I guess that would make anyone crazy," he joked.
The next day I asked a park ranger at the Visitor's Center about the loop I had just made and the dangerous snowfield that had not yet melted (it is only late July).
"Oh, we advise that people bring mountain climbing equipment including ice ax and crampons on that hike!" she cheerfully proclaimed. "I made that hike three years ago, but from the opposite side than you did, so that I could slide down the ice field. But I got my foot caught in the ice, and my friends had to cut me out!"
And such is the atitude of the people in Wyoming and Colorado. They love the outdoors. You can see young men hiking with broken arms in casts. Middle aged men run up the mountain trail. Ninety year olds hike the six mile Bear Lake loop in the Rockies. Seems like a great place to recruit students for our track teams!