guest + post {ann marie}

hi friends!

please read this beautiful post by ann marie from I am an age old tree. I am stars in white snow.

she's another blogger out west and takes amazing photos!

here are photos from her trips to jackson.

thanks ann marie~

i think the first time i visited jackson hole was on one of our many starvation trips as a family.

you see, we didn't take vacations when i was a kid. we went on survival trips.

i remember two things about that trip: too many plain bagels and a float trip down the snake river

where we adopted our guide, russ, as our newest brother.

strangley, despite my continuously empty gut, my heart was tied...at least for a few days.

i forgot about the jackson and the tetons for many years

until in high school when my older brother asked me {!} to go 

on a backpacking trip along the crest trail.

so we borrowed some gear for me, and off we went.

how could i not fall in love with such drastic mountains, and open fields?

i feel deep. and fast...

however, i did not return again for many years. strange.

but i got distracted by a boy {now my husband} who introduced me to another love: red rock in southern utah.

and somehow i forgot about jackson and the mighty tetons.

fast forward eight, yes eight, years.

my heart started pounding again for jackson, for wyoming, for tetons.

cj, my husband, and his friend had plans to climb the grand and i basically

stowed myself away in the car wanting to revisit an old love.

i started with the basics...which are incredibly stunning. you can't go wrong here.

i started with jenny lake and a hike up cascade canyon. the further i went,

the more spectacular the views and the more isolated i became.

i felt that feeling of being born out of these mountains, and i remembered

how much i love the west and this very place.

i decided then and there that this would be the location of my birthday celebration this year.

i had to come back.

cj and i went back. and we wandered. i can't even tell you where we went 

because i couldn't even look down at a map or a guidebook for two seconds.

you can easily and wonderfully get lost here. this is the real world.

we're hoping to make a winter trip to jackson soon...this time with out skis. 

i don't think i can ever let years go by again without visiting these mountains of the west.