A Sublime Experience in the Grand Tetons
In my 2022 novel Renaissance Radio, my six main characters have been horseback riding in the Grand Tetons in June 1928 when they choose to take a day and ride up to Jackson Lake. The main character and narrator, Riis Evans, tells the story:
In the valley, we’ve experienced the greatest diversity of wildlife we’ve ever known. There are deer, buffalo, badgers, otters, and rabbits.
We’ve been finding the elk elegant and a bit mysterious and we’ve never tired of hearing them bugling. One time we encountered a band of elk and they went dashing away from us, their hooves clattering on some rocks.
We’ve been seeing plenty of strong and potentially fierce moose and we’ve kept our distance as they graze in the thickets of willows. We’ve seen beavers doing their efficient work on the river and afterwards playfully bathing. Just after dark each night we’ve heard and been a bit haunted by the coyotes who take up their yipping and howling.
With and without binoculars, we’ve observed as many birds as we can. Like many places, the Tetons have a good share of jays, swallows, thrushes, finches, sparrows, and owls. We’ve especially enjoyed the high-speed hummingbirds and the noisy woodpeckers. In dead trees along the shores of the river live many bald eagles. We love watching them soar, with their fine white heads and their wingspans of eight feet. Various hawks and falcons are equally impressive.
After breakfast this morning, at the first streak of daylight to our east, the six of us mount our horses and move on out. Francis takes the lead, with Troy right behind. My wife Carmen, my sister Gwen, and Troy’s wife Mary are next. I’m last, keeping my eyes out for danger from behind us.
We ride up dirt roads that are surrounded by the valley’s sagebrush. We leave the road and head up a rarely traveled path. With the morning sunshine gleaming on us, we cross a creek, stroll through a brook, and even ford a stream with ease.
We find plums that are large and ripe. We find strawberries, raspberries, and black currants in abundance. We help ourselves. They’re delectable.
At lunchtime we halt our trek, tie our horses to trees, and turn the mule loose to roam free. We gather firewood and twigs, pile them up in a small pit that Francis digs, and stir up our campfire until we’ve got a warm blaze. I fire up potatoes and chunks of meat in a frying pan.
We’re sitting eating when three deer – a buck, a doe, and a fawn – dash out of the brush. The buck and the doe glide gracefully over the next ridge, out of our sight. The fawn gazes at us curiously and then bounds away after her parents.
We take again to the saddle, alternating between a walk, a trot, a canter, and a gallop, depending on the terrain. Then we take a breathing spell and give our horses another rest.
“One mile further now,” I say to my wife Carmen. “Are you up to it?”
Carmen imitates a wrangler. “Betcher life, Riis.”
As we approach Jackson Lake, we gaze across the water at the mountain range. The rocky, rugged band of peaks looms thousands of feet above us. The vast summits rise almost vertically. Each jutting crag, each striking precipice, each abrupt chasm, each richly-sculpted ridge, each sharply-tapered spire, each angular pillar, each towering pinnacle – each element adds to the enduring repose and majestic grandeur of the Tetons. As we gaze up at the towering forms that pierce the sky, we are entranced by the mountain range’s solemn, primeval, and noble power.
The afternoon sky begins to cast shafts of light and slating shadows across the valley floor and up the alpine slopes to the crests. The blue shade ceaselessly plays with reddish-yellow sunlight. Together, the sky and the sun drape purple and orange hues across the peaks, canyons, forests, and meadows.
“A mighty wonder!” cries Gwen.
“What a ripping great sight!” yells Troy.
“Sublime beauty!” exclaims Carmen.
“Glorious!” cheers Francis.
“Beyond all words!” shouts Mary.
“Perfection!” I declare.
What we scarcely notice in our entranced state is that the descending, lingering clouds that graze and obscure the peaks are growing grayer and larger. As they float and then billow across the sky, the clouds sink toward the peaks and begin to possess them.
The three of us stand on the shore, transfixed, as the silent silver cumuli turn noisier and darker, until Jackson Lake roars with both wind and waves. Then, for half an hour, the artillery of the skies shakes the earth beneath our feet, lightning unleashes its fury, and thunder peals forth in violent rumbles. The rain comes down in torrents and leaves us drenched.
Soon enough this fearsome thunderstorm is over. The clouds lift their misty fingers from the tips of the trees, drift off the peaks, and vanish.
We remain standing on the shore as sunshine bathes again the still and tranquil lake. We watch the mountains emerge again, clean-washed, each craggy feature standing before us in sharp relief. And now their splendor and glory are reflected clearly in the blue crystal mirror of the lake.
We fill our lungs with the fresh mountain air. We waft in the fragrant scents of sage brush as well as pine, aspen, spruce, and fir trees. We stand in rapt silence as the American white pelicans, trumpeter swans, California gulls, and Canadian geese return to the lake and float serenely across its surface.
After lingering at this scene as long as we can, we get on our horses and head back toward Francis’s homestead. We’re silent as we ride through each passing meadow, with its deep green grass and its flowers in every splendid color.
As we head into the valley, each of us looks back again and again at the deep-green forested hills. Soon we are taking in a panoramic and unbroken view of the entire forty-mile range. In the mellow evening light, we gaze at 18 peaks rising as high as 7,000 feet above us from the valley floor.
Arriving back at Francis’s ranch, we’re still attentive to nature’s pristine and ever-enchanting beauty and we let the time pass unheeded.
We all seem lost in thought as a quarter of an hour passes by. I go first. “So sublime.”
“Magnificent!” exclaims Troy.
“Filled us with wonder,” says Gwen.
“So vast, so beautiful, so grand,” marvels Mary.
“Drew us closer to the Divine, Heaven, infinity, the universe, the Earth,” intones Francis.
“Awakened the best that’s within each of us,” adds Carmen, “and moved us to yearn for perfection.”
Troy turns even more reflective, and brings our reverie to a conclusion. “Witnessing Creation’s glory made all the puzzle pieces of my mind and soul just fall into place. Even hours later I don’t feel fragmented in any way. I feel integrated.”