An Introduction, plus Teewinot Mountain and other peaks. Today, on 19 July 2013, I am starting the recording of my adventures climbing the major peaks of the Grand Teton Range. The primary purpose is to improve my notes for future reference. The secondary purpose is to post my experiences so that others may benefit from what I have learned. It's a trip record, and also a diary. What's a bit out of the ordinary is that I am starting the record retroactively....all the way back to August of 1975, when I embarked on this adventure. Enjoy.....
8 Aug 1975. I've loaded my 1966 blue Chevy Malibu with my few possessions and leave my hometown of Independence, Missouri on my way to Edmonton, Alberta via the Grand Tetons of Wyoming. I was definitely not an uber experienced rock climber, but had spent my fair share of hours climbing the limestone cliffs along the Missouri River near my college town of Columbia. I had also been to the top of Long's Peak in Colorado....a long but not technical effort. I had a modest amount of gear, and a hint from a professor friend to stay at the American Alpine Club's Climber's Ranch near Moose, Wyoming, in the Grand Teton National Park. There I would find other climbers to partner with to get my first exposure to technical rock climbing on the big peaks. I was perhaps, shall we say, not fully prepared for the size and complexity the Tetons offered, but hey, you gotta start somewhere. And since I was going to be in grad school at the University of Alberta, a short distance from the Canadian Rockies, there was a lot of climbing planned in my future.
9 Aug 1975. When one approaches the Tetons from Jackson on a clear day, the view is, in a word, stunning. The Grand and it's surrounding attendants pretty much leaves a person from the flat lands speechless. The other thing I notice is the air is not as dense here, and I wonder what that will mean....
11 Aug 1975. I have checked in at the Climber's Ranch. It's a small collection of dark brown cabins in the flats of Jackson Hole, surrounded by park-like cottonwood, lodgepole pine, and sagebrush. I am soon talking to other climbers, a collection of those who range from those who are inexperienced, all the way up to those who are actually brash enough to complain about what their climbing rivals are doing in places like Nepal. It's a new world for me.
12 Aug 1975. I know I need to get something going; I have bought Leigh Ortenburger's 1965 "A Climber's Guide to the Tetons". After 1971, the book was out of print, and being revised. What I got was the "Condensed Version" to fill in for 1973-1975, only 144 pages, covering the major peaks. Being pamphlet style, was easily small enough to carry in a pocket or pack. I still use it today. Anyway, yesterday I talked with another climber, John Rigley (a grad student or professor at Princeton Univ, can't remember which), and we decide to climb the Durrance Ridge on Symmetry Spire (10,546'). It's supposedly about 6 pitches of F5.4 with some class 4 in between the class 5 areas. Seemed like a good starter. What of course we found after crossing Jenny Lake on the Park boat was a long approach up a very brushy couloir. Not used to this rarefied air of over 7000', I struggled. But nonetheless we started the climb. John led two pitches, and I followed. But after those two pitches, I found exactly what altitude sickness feels like. I wasn't going to finish this climb. We rappelled down. I felt bad for John, I'd ruined his climb. It was my first pitches in the Tetons, which was significant for a guy from Missouri. It was also a lesson learned.
13 Aug 1975. So now I knew I needed to work up to these endeavors, both getting used to the altitude, and the immensity of the place. I wanted to get to the top of the peak I'd failed at, and what I found was a class 4 route -- the Northwest ledges of Symmetry Spire. So, on the morning of August 13, I coughed up a few more bucks and caught the boat ride across Jenny Lake. I diligently worked up to Hanging Valley to Ramshead Lake, turned left and headed up the couloir between Symmetry Spire and Symmetry Crags. Then I encountered easy scrambling....almost a path in many places, and made it to the summit about 4 hours from leaving the boat. The guidebook said it would take 5-1/4 hours, so maybe I was starting to acclimatize. In any case, this was my first Teton summit; I was damn happy. I didn't know at that time I would return to it many years later.
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| 1975. Me on the summit of Symmetry Spire. In the backgrount, note Teewinot on the left and Mt Owen and the Grand Teton merged together optically on the right. There is much more snow on these peaks than the 2012 or 2013 season. Global Warming? |
16 Aug 1975. I took some time off to get used to the altitude, and felt good by today. I don't remember who my partner was, but today we are climbing the Southwest Ridge of Storm Point (also known as Guide's Wall). We planned on about 9 pitches of 5.7. I started off the lead on pitch 1. Getting to my first belay point, I soon learned a basic problem in the Tetons: the weather. After belaying my partner on the second pitch, a very hard rain started. Maybe we should have looked closer at the sky before starting this. So we rappelled down, and once again I was heading down that brushy couloir after not completing a climb. This time, of course, it was wet brush, and we stayed completely soaked.
17 Aug 1975. Sometime early in the morning, about sunrise, I left the Lupine Meadows parking lot to climb the East Face of Teewinot Mountain (12,317'). It is class 4 route, and with there being no climbers at the ranch interested in anything less than class 5, I was once again on my own. I remember this was a spectacular climb....great views, some route finding, and up close views of the rest of the big peaks of the range, I was getting use to the altitude by now, with my ascent taking 6 hours.
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| Looking at the upper slopes of Teewinot Mountain as I approach the summit. |
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| The small summit pyramid of Teewinot (left) with the Grand Teton in the background. |
19 Aug 1975. I am ready to get a big route under my belt at this stage. Once again, I had to find a partner. One fellow was itching to do Serendipity Arete on Mt Owen (12,922'). Several pitches of 5.7, one of 5.9, and plenty of class 4 along the route. Leigh Ortenburger describes it: "This enjoyable climb is consistently interesting and nowhere excessively difficult." While I felt some concern because we were going to do it in one day, and it's a very long approach via Cascade and Valhalla Canyons (we didn't have gear to camp out) I once again proceeded ahead. We made made our way through these canyons, scrambled at length to get to the base of the climb. We took turns leading and my partner was able to free climb the crack the first ascent party used direct aid to get past. Somewhere near the top of the first tower we assessed our rate of progress and what was left ahead of us. We now knew that we had started the climb much to late, and the likely hood of a late summit arrival and the threat of bad weather was staring us in the face. So we opted to be conservative and rappel and downclimb. I didn't know for sure at the time this was really the right decision; I hated to leave the route. My experiences in the Canadian Rockies in the next three years eventually told me it was the right decision. Neither the Tetons or the Rockies are the mountains to be late on with inadequate equipment. We didn't approach this route the way it should have been approached. Once again, I learned a lot.
I left the Tetons a day or two later. Starting during the upcoming winter, I climbed for several years in the Canadian Rockies between Banff and Jasper, and the learning experiences of the Tetons gave me a great foundation for a long list of mixed snow and rock climbs in an area of world class mountaineering. I lost contact with the Tetons as a result. But I never forgot. In 2012, they were back in my life, as I'll describe in following blogs.
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