The intriguing shortcut

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

By Henry Sweets

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-A group of us set off last week to commence the swimming season and explore two new trails to Phelps Lake through the Laurance S. Rockefeller Preserve, a 1,100-acre parcel recently donated to Grand Teton National Park.

The trail begins from the preserve’s interpretive center. The structure is a 7,000-foot Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (L.E.E.D.) platinum certified building, making it seem like the ecological equivalent of a silent machine.

The building’s physical presence was not imposing, and its forward thinking posture seemed agreeable. It almost looks like a church or a space station.

Opened in November of 2007 with a murmur, every aspect of the project echoes the Park’s effort to return the land, which once held as many as 30 buildings, as close as possible to its original state.

As it turns out, the preserve’s namesake, a conservationist and venture capitalist who donated the property, was also a U.F.O. buff. His penchant for intrigue is evident in the final design of the center and its surroundings.

The most surprising features of the preserve were the meditative nooks on the way from the center to the Lake.

A group of planar Adirondack chairs on the center’s deck drew a few different groups of locals and tourists into restful chatter, but not for too long, as much awaited them along the trail.

As we followed the trail from the Center to Phelps Lake, two spurs of the trail shot off into the bushes.

One led straight onto a grate over a plunge pool and terminated into a waterfall. The other led to a low-lying, curved terrace. Both structures sat over pools of water in a purposed and postured way.

From these two stations, the main trail leads on to a junction at a bridge over Lake Creek, a Teton Park gem previously hidden in a private wood. The Lake Creek Trail over the bridge winds for 1.5 miles to Phelps Lake, but going straight on the Woodland Trail takes only 0.9 miles to reach the lake from the center. From there it was a little more than a mile and a half to the other side of the lake.

Because the water was so high, only a strip of the beach was exposed, and the water wasn’t very warm because of the valley’s late summer start. Quick dips, long conversations, sandwiches and cookies sustained us until my drip-castle sculpture was finished. I returned the installation to its original state, and we went on to the Jumping Rock, where the water was even colder.

When the trip was finished, I couldn’t help but think I had stepped out of a Japanese garden, or some other different place. The park service expects as many as 260 visitors per day at the preserve’s interpretive center. Hopefully the melding of art, nature and function will keep people happy this summer when it gets crowded on this trail.
But, like the family of grinning Texans sharing our trail, most will turn around after “interpreting” the sights without traveling to any sacred swimming holes.
Even if they do their adventures will be rightly rewarded.

Photo by HERNRY SWEETS
A hiker stops to hear the water.

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The intriguing shortcut | Planet JH News Article: Sports & Recreation

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