A couple days before I left for Jackson, Becky posted a photo on her Facebook page. It was a photo of Paintbrush Divide, and it made me desperately want to hike there. It’s a 20-mile hike, up to over 10,000 feet, but I didn’t care. We would go there. Nevermind that I’ve hardly been hiking at all this year, and it would be the longest day hike I’ve ever done. The way I saw it, who cares if it kills me? Why do a shorter hike that you’ll soon forget about when you can do an epic, back-breaking one that you’ll remember forever? And so last Saturday morning, with grand plans of waking up early and hitting the trail, we slept in. But don’t worry, we still hit the trail.
The plan was to do the entire Paintbrush Divide loop, which heads up Cascade Canyon to Lake Solitude, over the divide, and then back down Paintbrush Canyon to the car… but well, I puttered out from not eating enough on the trail and carrying too much extra water. We reached Lake Solitude, the resting stop before making the final uphill ascent to the divide, and I downed some Emergen-C and some carbs and instantly felt better. From there, we could see the trail to the top, and it looked simple enough, but it was getting late, and though I felt great, I wanted to keep feeling great. Heading up to the divide and down the other side would tack two extra hours onto our time, and so I had to make the hard decision to say no to the place I wanted to see so badly. We turned around, and headed back for the car. There’s always next time…
Several hours later, covered in dirt, we arrived back at dusk. In the end, we hiked 18 miles, which almost seems like a waste to not have just done two extra miles for the full loop, but those extra two miles are the most brutal ones… so I think we made a good decision. We picked huckleberries and rinsed off in the lake, changed clothes and headed out for a beer.
Becky in Cascade Canyon

a pretty red bird that let me be his friend and get really close

Becky shrinks her swollen feet in the chilly water of Lake Solitude

one of the many marmot friends we made

and a pika

and a moose

and as Becky is a plant biologist, we also made friends with all the flowers, like these paintbrushes and elephantheads.

the fresh huckleberries we picked and chowed down on at the end of the hike

and of course, my infamous bridge pose.