20th May 2025

We have settled in to our lovely cabin here at Dornans. One thing we had forgotten about was the height of the bed. Si at 6.0 feet tall has to climb into it so you can imagine what it’s like for me at 5.0 feet nothing! Si’s worried I’ll get a nose bleed or suffer the return of altitude sickness. 😂

As this is our first full day in the Tetons, it was only right and proper that it started with breakfast in bed, well for me anyway, of toast with huckleberry jam and coffee. 🍞☕️

One of the delights for me at being back in Wyoming is huckleberry everything. Yesterday while shopping at the Deli here at Dornans we found cinnamon bread, another favourite and huckleberry jam made especially for them. Well, who could resist that?! 🤷‍♀️

Huckleberries have been described as having a taste of blueberries and raspberries. I also have huckleberry chocolate and Huckleberry Mini Sammies in the freezer. I believe the Sammies are huckleberry ice-cream with coconut on the outside. They look delicious.

Our plan for the day was not to hike but to do a recce to establish which trails are currently open and hikeable and those that are not and to decide if we needed to buy crampons and new walking sticks. Some trails still waist-deep in snow but as usually happens, not everything went according to plan.

We started our recce with a drive to Taggart Lake and once there decided to hike the Taggart Lake Trail to photograph the lake. It’s a fairly short walk from the car park, although quite a steep one but we’ve done it a few times before and knew it would be okay. We were at an elevation of 7,000 feet.

Once at the lake it started to snow ❄️ but not heavily, so then decided that perhaps it would be a good idea to hike the Taggart Lake Loop as we had never done that before. That would be a total of approximately four miles. By now the snow had turned to rain 🌧️ and it was a little chilly🥶 but not too bad.

This is snow melt on the way to Taggart Lake.

Snow melt

The Taggart Trail

We met a lady from the Florida Evergades hiking the Loop from the opposite direction to us. She was all alone and told us she always holidays that way and has done all kinds of exciting adventures like undertaking an 8,000 mile boat journey, all alone! She’s a braver woman than I McDuff, that’s for sure. 👍

One thing we are always told is do not hike alone in bear country. One good thing, she did have bear spray with her.

On our hike we decided it was a good idea, in addition to shouting “hey bear” so if there is a grizzly present he would know we were coming so wouldn’t be startled and charge at us, is to also play some music, so we decided on John Denver (JD). After all, if we were to be confronted by an angry grizzly 🐻what better way to smooth his troubled breast than by listening to the gentle tones of JD! Always smoothes my troubled breast that’s for sure. 🤣 There was evidence of bear activity by means of bear poo and scratches on trees. Luckily, we didn’t come across any creatures apart from one lonely chipmunk.

Tonight we ate at Pizza & Pasta again with Si enjoying the Lobster Ravioli and I had pizza. Delicious! Sadly, I was unable to have my Amoretto Sour as they had run out of Amaretto! 😔

The beautiful view from Pizza & Pasta

Si and his lobster ravioli

Sand and her pizza

Coming to the Tetons at this time of year is a gamble regarding the weather but we are always prepared for that and it doesn’t detract from the beauty you see everywhere.

Although the day started sunny it’s ended mostly cold and wet but, fingers crossed, it should be sunny tomorrow and if that’s the case, please join us for an aerial tram ride to ‘the top of the world’ with magnificent views over the mountains …………………. or so the literature says! 🤞

As always, thanks for travelling with us.