Hiking Table Mountain aka "Table Rock"

Nathan and I woke up Thursday morning and decided we wanted to go hiking. We've heard Table Mountain (also known as Table Rock) was an awesome hike with amazing views, but would take a good junk of the day to finish. There was no time to waste! We quickly packed our camping and hiking gear, stopped at Walmart for some Bear Spray, and we were off!

As soon as we got to the base of the trail in Teton Canyon we set up our tent at a camp site and started our hike. (It was about 2:30 p.m.). Nathan told me that we were starting at 7000 ft elevation and would get up to 11000 ft during our 7 mile hike in. At the time my body didn't know what it was getting into.

We passed a couple of people on their way back down after we had hiked in about 30 minutes...

"Are you planning on going all the way to the top?", one man asked with a tired voice.
"Yeah we are!", we responded excitedly!
"No you won't."
"Yes we will."
"No you won't. There's no way you're going to make it... You're leaving too late in the day."
"We'll be fine. We'll make it!"

With more motivation to prove we could do this hike, we picked up the pace. It wasn't bad at all. It was a pretty gradual incline with beautiful patches of meadows with wild flowers and forests. I was loving everything about the hike! As we continued to get further up the mountain and passed more people on their way back down, we received more positive comments that we could make it, but that we were cutting it close. (We kept telling ourselves, "WE CAN DO THIS!")

Two hours into our hike I was getting a little tired. We passed a friendly guy who had just come down from the top. He told us we just had to do a couple of switch backs and then walk across the ridge. Sweet! It sounded like we were almost done and it shouldn't be too hard... One hour later...

Straight up to the top!

Oh my goodness we pretty much walked straight up the mountain. After the switch backs we were on top of the ridge and the views were beautiful! Totally worth it! Walking on top of the ridge was exhilarating and gave us the motivation and energy to do the last stretch to the top of Table Rock. With about half a mile left of our hike it was so rocky and I felt like I was walking up a million uneven stairs. My legs were barely moving. We were so close to reaching our goal and my legs just didn't want to move anymore! (I partially blame running a 10k for the first time ever the day before this hike, and waking up with a cold, that made my body struggle in the end. Don't get me wrong. I know it's a harder hike that takes most of the day, but I definitely think those contributed to making it even harder.)

Almost there!

We ate our dinner on the side of Table Rock, using it as shelter from the wind, then climbed the last 20 ft to the very top. We had made it! And it only took us 4 hours to reach the top. It was incredible! You feel so close to the Tetons you could practically touch them! Nathan and I loved being on top of the world together! (Except for the fact that it was super windy and freezing cold!) Sadly we had to head back down a little sooner then we would have liked. We needed to make sure we made it back down the mountain before it got too dark.

The hike back down was a piece of cake! Nathan and I were booking it down the mountain and my body wasn't tired anymore! We felt like we were making such good time, and wouldn't even need to use our headlamps.... Boy were we in for a surprise....

About half way back down the mountain it was starting to get a little darker, but we could see just fine. We heard a couple of twigs break. "What is that?", Nathan asked. I honestly didn't think anything of it and thought it was just us. We heard more twigs break and again Nathan asked what was making that noise. We got out our head lamps just in case because it was starting to get even darker, but still didn't turn them on.

I continued on, with no hesitation, leading us down the trail, turned a corner, and out of no where there were two HUGE animals right in the middle of the trail!! We both scared the other and ran opposite directions! Nathan was about 5 ft behind me and around the corner, so he didn't see anything, but heard all the commotion. I clung to Nathan's arms and told him what I had just ran into. "There's a momma moose and her baby right around the corner! What do we do? We don't want to make her mad at us!" Nathan was so calm and basically said, "We had better be careful, but we've got to get down the mountain. It's getting dark a lot faster than we expected."With our headlamps on I carefully lead us around the corner. The moose and her baby were no longer on the trail so we walked by quickly and carefully, looking all around us. Two eyes reflected back at me about 10 ft off the trail. The momma moose was standing over her baby watching us closely. I said a little prayer in my heart that all would be well.

We made it past safe and sound and were a little more anxious to get back to our tent. Picking up the pace and paying a lot more attention to our surroundings we continued our hike. It was to the point where you could still see without a light, but at the same time you could hardly see anything. I was very grateful we had headlamps to help us on our way down.

The trees gave way and opened up to the first meadow of many we would need to cross. I stopped dead in my tracks... In the middle of the meadow were two more large animals. They weren't as tall as the moose and were walking a little differently. All of a sudden I realized what they were.... BLACK BEARS!!! One was definitely a cub and the other was probably the mom! This realization happened within a second but felt like eternity! Bears?! It's dark! We are still no where near camp! And there are bears on the trail!!! Again I turned around and ran into Nathan's arms informing him of what I had just seen! I was nervous! What should we do? Turn back up the trail? No because we hadn't even gone that far away from the moose yet. Use the bear spray? I didn't want to use that. We didn't even know why we bought it in the first place! Ok.. What did we read about on the bear information board? 

My mind was thinking so many things at once. Nathan seemed so put together though. We got the bear spray out and ready if worse came to worse. Then discussed what we needed to do. We had to continue on and get back to our campsite. We needed to let the bears know we were there and not sneak up on them. We started clapping and making loud noises... IT WORKED! We had scared the bears and they ran toward the river and away from the trail! My heart was racing! We walked as fast as we dared through the meadow looking at everything around us!

You better believe the rest of the way down we were clapping and looking everywhere! I was praying the whole way down that we would make it to our camp safely and wouldn't be hurt. We were talking loud and motivating each other to get down the mountain. It was completely dark by then and I was nervous we would run into more wild life. We were walking so fast and I kept tripping and stubbing my toes because I wasn't paying attention to the path at my feet.

It seemed like it had taken us way longer than it should have to get to the end of the trail. When we had finally reached it we were so relieved! We had done it! We made it to the top of Table Rock and back! We survived running into a mama moose with her baby and a mama black bear with her cub! We made it through the dark of night! We made it back by 10 p.m. like we had planned! WE DID IT!!!

As we walked in comfort and safety to our tent it dawned on us... We should have taken pictures of the moose and bears!!!!!! In the moment we were too nervous to even think of that! It was also a little too dark and the pictures wouldn't have turned out. But it would have been so sweet to have pictures of how close we were to those amazing animals!

We slept like babies that night in our tent! It felt so good to lay down and take our shoes off! (My toes were so mad at me!) We woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of rain, and were very grateful we decided to put the rainfly on when we had set up the tent earlier that day. The sound and smell of rain while camping is so refreshing to me! In the morning we woke up sorer than sore! Our bodies hated us! But it was totally worth it!

Before we headed home we stopped at the local farmers market in Driggs. Fresh baked pizza in a brick oven, a delicious juicy peach, a creamy chocolate shake, and a cool cream soda were exactly what we needed to end our adventure!