After a nice break, continue up this trail and rejoin Paintbrush Canyon. Continue up this steep climb to this crystal clear lake set in the shadow of Mount Woodring (11,591'). When you hit the junction for Holly Lake trail, you can continue up the canyon, but it's recommended that you head to Holly Lake to get some great lakefront views. In addition to great views, this canyon is teeming with wildflowers, specifically Indian Paintbrush - this canyon's namesake. The higher you ascend, the more the forest starts to thin out and the more colorful your surroundings will become. Turn right (northwest) and start your ascent of Paintbrush Canyon.
Continue through this mature forest until you reach an intersection with Paintbrush Canyon trail. Immediately after this junction you'll cross a long, trussed footbridge and enter some deep forest. Initially String Lake Trail is doubletrack, but after turning left (west) at the junction of Leigh Lake Trail, the trail becomes singletrack. These views are best during the morning hours when the skies tend to be clearer. From here, soak up the awesome views of the surrounding Teton Range just across String Lake. Sunset Lake is about three miles north of Mount Meek Pass, and the length of the Teton Crest Trail that passes through Alaska Basin is approximately five miles.Starting from Leigh Lake Trailhead, head west on Leigh Lake Trailhead Connector, then head immediately north onto String Lake Trail. This particular site is the first one you encounter as you descend to the lake from the south, and it is elevated slightly above the lake offering views of the tip of the Grand Teton and to the TCT trail that wends its way up toward Hurricane Pass. Despite having covered almost 13 miles, we were able to arrive early enough at Sunset Lake to score the best of the approximately ten unofficial tent pads there. The camping here would be pleasant, but we had our sights set on Sunset Lake about a mile farther north. The Basin Lakes area should have been called “Sierra Nevada Basin” with its glaciated, Sierra-like granite. We started to see a lot more people at Mount Meek Pass and in the basin, which was somewhat of an unpleasant shock to the system after being isolated from contact in the Middle Fork and Phillips Pass area.
The descent into Basin Lakes of Alaska Basin was steep and hot on the Sheep Steps. Our prospects did not look good, but I somehow had the good fortune of getting backcountry bookings in the Middle / South Fork Granite Canyon zone (Night 1), Alaska Basin (Night 2), and the North Fork Cascade Canyon zone (Night 3). There were already 12 parties queued in front of me. After a week of obsessively checking the local webcams and air quality index reports and seeing a favorable trend, we decided the trip was a “go.” I left my house in south Denver at 12am and arrived at the Moose Visitor Center backcountry permit office at 6:30am. The wildfire smoke that drifted in from California right as our trip was scheduled to start prompted us to forego our backcountry reservations – permits that were secured in the furious online stampede on seven months prior – and delay the trip by one week in hopes that the atmosphere would clear and that we could score walk-up permits at the key locations to support our four-day window. The best part of any backpacking trip is the time spent above the trees, so the experience of hiking so many miles through meadows with commanding vistas was for me confirmation of the TCT’s lofty reputation.
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