It’s been a month now since the eclipse but those few
precious minutes of totality are forever cemented in my mind as one of the
coolest phenomenons I’ve ever seen. Bria
and I spend the long weekend up in the alaska basin and had a great couple of
days. The hike in Friday evening after work
went smoothly and we set up camp just before dark.
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| entering the basin with buck glowing in the evening light |
We spend the next day taking a leisurely hike up to
hurricane pass, to take in one of the best views in the range. Sunday was spent scrambling the east ridge of
buck, with a long, slow descent linking together ledge systems down the east
couloir from the notch below the south ridge.
But we persevered, bootied an old rap station along the way and
eventually made it back to the buck-static saddle and onwards to camp.
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| top notch wildflowers (bria photo) |
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| remnants of a marmot, melting out from his cold grave |
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| atop hurricane pass |
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| approaching the east ridge of buck |
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| jammin' up buck (bria photo) |
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| buck summit |
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| weaving our way down |
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| had to get creative to get around the bergschrund (bria photo) |
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| imbibing on the bergschrund runoff |
Monday morning we broke camp and moments after hitting the
trail, were pleasantly surprised to bump into jeffrey, out for a pre-eclipse
run. We continued up the sheep steps to
the devil’s shelf and started trending west towards the devil’s stairs til it
was time to post up for the eclipse. We
were both taken back by the big temperature drop as we slowly added layers til
we were both bundled in puffys and hats.
I’ll never forget how incredible totality was, with the orange
sunset-esque glow to the west, the twinkling planets and the surreal feeling of
being in a sci-fi film with a black orb blocking out the sun.
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| not a bad spot to lounge and stare at the sun (bria photo) |
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| sunset-esque glow to the west (bria photo) |
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| moments later (bria photo) |
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| hiking out through waist deep wildflowers |
Soon after totality passed we hit the trail, largely in part
to warm up. We would periodically stop
to glance at the progress of the remaining partial eclipse but quickly agreed
that partials are nothing exciting once you’ve experienced a total. The main teton canyon trail and the park lot
were a crowded mess (cars were parked along the road for nearly a full mile
before the trailhead). We made it home
in a half hour (instead of the customary 20-25min), discussing how far we would
have traveled (like most people) to see totality. The answer was far, since it was truly such
an amazing, unforgettable event.
Rose: must I say it again…totality was spectacular
Thorn: over an hour of “will it go or are we cliffed out?”
on our buck descent
Bud: maine or vermont in april 2024??
