Kathie and I bought the kayak around twenty years ago for four hundred bucks so we could have it to play around with in the Tetons. It was the best money we've ever spent.
I should add here that neither one of us likes getting wet and we are not particularly eager about shooting the rapids on the Snake. We just like to paddle around the lakes near Jenny Lake Lodge as a way to rest from the other days we spend hiking. The second day of our stay we always put in at the boat launch at Jenny Lake right after breakfast. We do one lap alternating between a gentle float while looking for critters and RAMMING SPEED when we are trying to impress the tourists looking out at the lake from the trail. Our Jenny lap takes about two hours. Then we pull the thing out of the freezing mountain lake, hoist it on top of the car, and head back to the lodge to hang out on our porch with good books and a bottle of wine.
After our kayak break, we try to head up to Lake Solitude the next day. The day after that we generally take our kayak to String Lake. String Lake is actually more like a river that connects Leigh Lake to Jenny Lake, so it has a light current and killer views of the Cathedral Range. When we get to the top of String, we take a two hundred yard portage over to Leigh and put in there. Leigh is our favorite kayak destination because once we get past the portage, we have the lake pretty much to ourselves. Occasionally there will be a fisherman in a canoe and the buggy campsites along the shore will be filled, but that is the extent of human traffic. Leigh is a gold mine for critter spotting. We have seen otters playing on an outcropping of rocks, an eagle stripping a fish, two eagles having sex in the sky just off shore (If we had been Native Americans conceiving a child at that moment, we would have named the kid "Two Eagles Fucking"), and once a moose was rude enough to impede our progress by wading across the lake directly in front of us. The lap around Leigh is almost always a thing of wonder; however, the weather does roll in with alarming speed and we have been caught in the middle of the lake as the whitecaps swamped our little craft. Those times are always Jack London moments.
We used to put in at Two Ocean Lake on the continental divide, but the put in there is swampy and leech-ridden. We don't go there anymore. We did have one memorable morning where we somehow got between two trumpeter swans and one of their babies. No sooner had we noticed our mistake then one of the big birds stood up on the water, wings flapping, and ran toward us, coming to a skidding stop right next the kayak. Then the other swan attacked and skidded to a stop in front of us. It was more than a little terrifying. Mostly, I was trying to figure out how we would explain to the rangers that we just killed two trumpeter swans with kayak paddles. Luckily, we extricated ourselves from the situation and made a bee line back to shore.
We always spend two days paddling along the south shore of Jackson Lake from Spaulding Bay all the way up to Moran Bay. Great eagle spotting along this stretch and a whole new view of the mountains. Once, we paddled up the north shore from Colter Bay to Leek's Marina. We put our kayak up on shore about the same time a busload of Japanese tourists (I don't mean to sound racist, but the bus was in fact filled with Japanese tourists all armed with cameras) emptied into the parking lot. When we came back for our vessel, two of the tourists were in the boat, holding our paddles, pretending to row, while one of their friends took pictures. We politely told them that our kayak was not part of their tour and quickly got back on the lake.
We also put in on the Snake right below the dam. Sometimes we team up with Jim Friend and his red canoe and go all the way to the Pacific Creek access. One time Kathie and I floated down to Oxbow Bend, played around, and paddled all the way upstream back to the dam. Paddling upstream on the Snake gave us both a more reverent regard for Lewis and Clark paddling and portaging all the way upstream to the Columbia River and their boats were probably heavier than our yellow kayak.
We don't use the kayak for family picnics at Chatfield any more. It got to be such a drag hauling the thing on the top of our car with the Wyoming winds buffeting us all the way, that we asked the folks at Jenny if they would let us store the kayak there over the winter. They were nice enough to say yes. The nine hour drive to the Tetons became a lot more pleasant. I'm sorry that Sammi and I won't get to sing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" at Chatfield anymore, but I'm hoping that sometime in the not to distant future we can all go to the Tetons together. Her big finish would echo off the canyon walls impressively.
Here's what I'm hoping will happen when we arrive at Jenny next month. We will be greeted with smiles and hugs like always. I will ask for a bottle of Veuve Cliquot on ice for our porch and when we drive into Bluebell's driveway, some enterprising bellman (Connor are you reading this?) will have already put our little yellow kayak along the side of the cabin. I can't imagine a better welcome than that.
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