The Reflection of the World in the Grand Tetons: 3 Days, 3 Lakes, 11 Miles.

My backpack is so heavy that I have to prop it up on the edge of the car’s open hatchback, then somehow slip my shoulders under the straps from below. I look around the hot and sandy parking lot while my boyfriend attaches our backcountry permit to his own 26-pound backpack. A backcountry permit is an official paper that allows a person to camp in the wild, undeveloped backcountry of a National Park in the United States.

The Grand Teton, the highest mountain in the Grand Teton National Park, looms over us at 13,770 feet like an imposing wall. Gray like a burly elephant. I swear, that silly chunk of rock is laughing at us. We want to hike more than 11 miles to three lakes with 3,300 feet of elevation gain on the first day. On a trail where last time I had ten thousand blisters on my feet and bowel cramps to die for—and that was with only a light daypack.

So, the first thing I do is sit on a log and tape my feet prophylactically.

"I don't know if we'll have enough Band-Aids for that," my boyfriend notes.

"I'll also take duct tape," I reply.

Then we're off.

To a circular paradise of water and stones, to bear boxes, to a turquoise glacial lake, to sweat, curses, and gigantic boulders—and to the most beautiful and perfect reflection in the world.

A long hike is like a day in school. First there's easy art and music classes, then breakfast break, then you analyze a weird Shakespeare poem in literary class, and in the afternoon it's math and your brain starts buzzing just before going dead. Well, there are actually people who like math. But I'm part of the group that wins the Nobel Prize for Total Incompetence when asked, “Five bananas cost $5. How much does one banana cost?”

Anyway. The first two miles feel good. We walk through a shady forest with tall, dark green, pointed fir trees. In between, the elephant gray peak of the Grand Teton occasionally peaks through the branches. I'm excited and take photos.

"One last photo?" my boyfriend asks with a grin. If it were up to him, we would have been on Everest and K2 three times in the same amount of time. He is the Gyro Gearloose of all hikers. And he is almost as old as the mountains.

Shortly after, the moderate trail turns into an arduous steep path of dusty switchbacks that just never end. All of it in the scorching heat of that radiating pulsar in the sky, which some people simply refer to as "the sun".

I brace my shoulders under the 26-pound sandbag on my back, which seems to have enough sand to save all New Orleans from the next 30 floodings during a Class IV hurricane.

What the heck are we doing here and what do we need all this stuff for again? Well, when you camp in the wilderness, some of the things you need is a tent, sleeping bag, sleeping pad, stove, food, toothbrushes, first aid kit, sunscreen, warm clothes for icy nights, and most importantly, water. Lots of water. Especially because of that pulsar and the 3,300-foot change in altitude.

"Now we have only the nine more little switchbacks!" my boyfriend shouts cheerfully, while I sit on a rock and curse silently. At least I don't have any blisters. I wonder if Moses also had a sleeping pad and sunscreen when he was in the desert for 40 years? What nonsense!

We continue.

After five hours we finally reach the area where we want to and are allowed to pitch our tent. There are a few designated primitive camp sites in the forest above Surprise Lake, the first of the three lakes we had planned to hike to. There is nothing more than a slightly leveled patch of sand and gravel, and a metal box to keep food and toothpaste safe from bears. Once attracted by odors they eat not only your food and toothpaste, but you as well. No kidding, but well-established knowledge and rules in the wilderness. 

There's also no running water, no toilets, and no fireplaces. Out here, you're alone, with no one else around. It's beautiful and yet tantalizingly wild at the same time.

After we pitch the tent for the night, we walk over to Surprise Lake. Green and circular, it lies between a deep, gaping abyss on one side, and the now very close peak of the Grand Teton on the other side. The evening light shimmers with a bluish aura like a faint gas flame.

Then we hike another quarter mile to the slightly higher Amphitheater Lake, dark gray and rippling with small quivering waves in a basin at the bottom of a huge stone cirque. Golden light, shifting every second, lies over the entire mountain range. It's like a hologram postcard.

My boyfriend and I embrace each other. What a day, what an accomplishment!

"Your eyes are as blue as the mountain lake," I tell him. Strangely, I find it easy to be romantic in English language. In my native language, German, everything sounds like a military command, or it comes across as total Heidi twee.

Then we stomp back to our campsite and cook up some store-bought freeze-dried stuff that blows me away about as much as a seven day old hamburger that had been forgotten on a garden chair in the rain. But it is an easy meal that is light to carry. And that's all that matters in backpacking.

As darkness begins to envelope us, we sit wrapped in our jackets on a fallen log, sipping hot chocolate, and looking up at the sky. A star. Just one. Directly overhead. A one-star campsite. And it couldn't be more beautiful.

The next day I literally sprint excitedly down to Surprise Lake. On one hand, I need go to the bathroom, which just looks like a big fir tree in front of me, and on the other hand, I want to see the lake in the morning light! My boyfriend follows me, a bit more practically minded, with our water filter because we have to prepare for the descent and the detour to the third lake, Delta Lake, and we don't have enough drinking water. We filter the water from the lake.

When I arrive at the lake’s shore, the Grand Teton itself stretches skyward in a reddish-yellow light, jutting up into the pale blue sky. And at the same time, it stretches downward in the exact same way into the water of the lake.

A reflection that could not be more perfect. So surreal that I feel compelled to throw a small pebble into the water to see if the lake has not secretly turned into a glass surface. Like a painting, Surprise Lake lies in a natural bowl, adorned with a tiara of trees. Large, fallen boulders are scattered across a soft, bright green meadow, overlain with golden morning light that seems to flow silently into the stillness of the water.

In this moment I want to stop breathing, afraid that otherwise the landscape before me could shatter into a thousand shards. That's what I am out here fore. That's why I chose this kind of life. For moments like these. Moments that no one can take away from you again. If I was going to die today, I wouldn't have any regrets. Because of moments like these I feel that I have truly lived.

The offshoot to Delta Lake from the main trail is supposed to be a mere half-mile. However, we are forewarned that the route will be very steep, rough, strenuous, and indistinct.

And that's exactly how it is. Loaded with our sandbag-laden backpacks, we tenuously crawl over huge boulders that someone has stuck inconveniantly vertically into the side of the mountain. And my beloved pulsar is back in the sky, too. I'm sweating so much that any bear within 100 miles could smell me. Not even a triple-sealed bear box would save me. 

Unfortunately, I had seen photos of the lake on the internet before. It was turquoise with a huge mountain backdrop that made your jaw drop. We simply had to pull through, there was no going back before we would get there and see it up close and personal. I also keep trying to tell that to my knees, which, with every step, are turning more and more into woobly pudding.

After just under an hour (for a half-mile—just sayin’!) we reach a ledge. Looking over it, I can hardly believe what I see. Directly in front of us at eye level is an opalescent blue-green glacial lake, framed by the magnificent mountains of the Grand Teton Range. I toss my backpack—okay, I kind of whine as I ease the pack off my hurting shoulders—and run—okay, I crawl—onto a rock right next to the water. Then I throw off my shoes and take a few steps into the freezing water. It is breathtaking!

"Oh my God, it’s so incredibly beautiful here! This can't be real!", I shout to my boyfriend, waving my arms up and down like a penguin.

Three lakes, three days—we spend another night at the base of the mountain—and 11-plus miles. After we get back home I am sleeping solid for eleven hours so exhausted am I. But I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. In this nature, with my favorite person, in this life.