We start the day around 8,400 ft. elevation on South Fork Cascade Canyon Trail, dropping slightly. Twenty-five minutes down the trail, we turned on North Fork Cascade Canyon Trail headed up to Solitude Lake for lunch. With the trail going slightly upward, we hit a gain of around 9,100 ft. at Solitude Lake, and we stopped to have lunch. Not much for Solitude at the lake; several people had day hiked in. After about an hour of rest and lunch, the most challenging part of the day was yet to come. Paint Brush divide in our sights, we set out on a grueling 1.700 to 1,800 gain in elevation to reach the top. The path leading up was a combination of large and small rocks, with a few switchbacks here and there. As Paint Brush Divide soon to be in sight, it was a relief to hit the 10,700 ft. of elevation gain. A beautiful sight to behold, and the hard part was over, so we thought. We started down the other side.
Traversing down was a little sketchy. Park Rangers had spent several days moving and shuffling rocks around on the backside of Paint Brush Divide Canyon Trail. What was supposed to help with erosion soon became scaling down small parts of the trail. Heading toward Holly Lake Campsite for the night, the rest of the route seems easy. We were stopping for the night at Holly Lake. After setting camp up and preparing dinner, I didn’t feel like eating the first night since we started the trip. We ran into a volunteer ranger who seem to love to talk. She spent around an hour chatting up the park and places she polices. The night ended with an incredible moon rising over the mountains that looked like the sun.
DAY 4 ROUTE OF GRAND TETONS
This is the route marked out with Gaia.
This is the route my Garmin recorded