Grand Teton, Aug 10-11, 2012 (written 7/22/2013). While climbing in the Tetons in 1975, of course I could not help but look at the Grand Teton and think about a climb of it. I didn't have the gear or the time in those days, and I remember thinking that was okay, and it seems that climbing it should be done with a partner who I knew well and got along with great. Or, maybe with a woman who held a special place in my heart.
When my wife and I married in 2004, I knew she might like to climb something like Mt. Rainer sometime in the future. I hadn't done any climbing in years, but I had kept up with hiking, and in my years with the U. S. Forest Service, I'd spent many days of difficult cross country travel doing vegetation transects or fire suppression. No question I was still an "outdoor" person. I can't remember exactly how our conversations settled on the Grand Teton (13,766'). Maybe a motorcycle trip we took to Jackson one Fall. Maybe just the need to always push a little. Or maybe the realization that in 1975 I promised myself to come back to climb the Grand. I don't remember whether it was Betsy or I that finally said, "Let's do it!", but in Fall of 2011, Betsy started going to our local climbing gym. And then as soon as skiing ended in 2012, I started hiking constantly. A couple of years before I had made an objective to hike/climb all of the peaks greater than 11,000' in the Wasatch Range, and I ramped up that effort up to get in shape for the Grand. But I had no up-to-date climbing gear, nor did I know the route well enough to lead our intrepid group of two, so the obvious thing to do was to get a guide. I talked first to Exum and got a sort of rude comment from them about short roping that told me they considered us essentially tourists and probably incompetent as well.That doesn't exactly describe either me or my former triathlete spouse. That eliminated Exum from my plans, and I promptly called Jackson Hole Mountain Guides (JHMG) and was very happy to be treated nicely and with a appropriate level of respect. It was easy to see they were the company to go with. So, on Aug 9, we took their one day multi-pitch climbing class on some crags near Jackson. Betsy quickly converted her climbing gym experience to the real world, and I was happy to be able to top-rope a 5.9 move.
On Aug 10, we shouldered our big backpacks about 11 am at Lupine Meadows and made our way toward JHMG's Corbett High Camp in upper Garnet Canyon. Betsy has always made better time hiking than I, so she and our guide Steve Q. quickly motored away from me in the last half hour of our haul up the canyon to camp. As I made my way up, I watched as ominous looking clouds came steadily in from the west. The wind picked up just as I made the Camp's shelter. Along with Betsy and Steve I found 2 other guides and and 4 or 5 other clients. Someone gave me a hot drink as we were all startled by a bright flash of lightening and crack of thunder when the skies let loose a torrent of rain and hail. I had barely made it in time. About 30 minutes later, the path outside the hut had 3 inches of marble sized hail, and it looked more like winter than summer. Eventually the stormed moved on across Jackson Hole, leaving us wondering what that meant for our climb the next day.
But as the guides prepared dinner, the sky started to lighten. Then as we settled into one of many tents slightly uphill from the hut, the skies in the west cleared and we actually enjoyed a brief and beautiful alpine sunset. I knew then that we were probably okay with the weather.
We sleep okay, but not great, through the night, and are awake at 4 am. We fill our small climbing packs with lunch, warm clothes, and climbing harnesses and flick on our headlamps to make our way to the hut. Steve is there, heating breakfast. After eating, we do a last check of our gear and head out about 4:30. We descend slightly to the trail that goes to the lower saddle, stash some gear to pick up as we pass this spot later our our way down to Lupine Meadows. It's quite dark, and no stars tell us it's socked in.
We arrive at the lower saddle just as there is some light, but we still need the headlamps. Steve speaks briefly to another guide who has been here for an hour. The report is there have been some flashes of lightening to the west. This is not a good sign, but Steve says the best course of action is to continue to the upper saddle and see how the weather is then. We make decent time up, with me of course as the slowest. I've never been good with early starts, it takes until about 8 am before I start to feel really good. The trip up the broad gully from the lower to the upper saddle is a mixture of class 2 to 4. It's locally known as the Idaho Express. We briefly roped up to pass a slab area known as Briggs' Slabs, but it's overall really a pretty good scramble; Steve knows the path perfectly. Soon, we near the top of the gully, pass Lunch Rock and move quickly to the lower saddle proper. Two things are imprinted for me: first, it's really cold and windy, the down jacket and the wool gloves are an absolute necessity. Second, the skies suddenly clear, and it is obvious that a fog bank has sat covering the mountain all morning. To every other direction, the sky is mostly clear. So clearly we will continue to the summit from here.
As one looks to the peak from the lower saddle, the Owens-Spalding route is to the left and up. The Exum guides take their clients up that route. The Pownal-Gilkey route from the saddle is to the right and up. We'll go that way. We put on our harnesses and try to warm our hands, as Steve uncoils our rope. We tie in, with Betsy in the middle, and Steve carefully walks across some 4th class ledges and slabs to the first belay point. We follow, one at a time, and Betsy enjoys her first big mountain alpine scrambling. I think she was happy Steve was belaying her over, and when I went, I didn't mind it either. After catching up to Steve and Betsy, I settle in to a belay position and Steve climbs up and soon clears the crux of this route. It's slightly open left facing chimney with a crack in the middle. The problem here is the route is often wet, and after last evening's rain, it is soaked. No way for us to climb a wet 5.8 in approach shoes, so Steve leaves us a couple of long slings and direct aid is the name of the game. That's quite an introduction to climbing for Betsy, but she does really well with a little bit of coaching from below. I follow and clean the slings and make my way up to the belay. Above this point, it's dry, easy climbing (5.6), and just plain fun. After we top out,we move left a ways to Sargent's Chimney and encounter people coming down from the summit. So Steve maneuvers us a little to the left and we climb a short 4th class slab and face and quickly get past the congestion. Then more easy scrambling, and at 10:15 am, we break into sunlight on the top of the Grand. It's a precious moment for Betsy and I; her first big mountain, and my return to Teton climbing after 37 years, and most important, we did it together. It's tough to match this.
At the summit, we sent a text message or two and start lunch. A few moments later, we are surprised to see two people - a young man and woman - pop up onto the summit in running outfits and bright florescent training shoes. What is going on? They have come up the west side, probably the Owens-Spalding route, we surmise. They walked around for a couple of moments, with the woman actually slipping in a puddle of water and barely caught herself before falling full force on Betsy. (Hope her balance is better on her descent!) Another person on the summit suggested the man was Kilian Jornet Burgada, a professional trail runner. I did a little bit of research later and found it was indeed him, and his partner was Emelie Forsberg, a Swede. Apparently, they ran up from Lupine Meadows and down that morning, with Emelie setting a woman's record of 3 hr, 51 min, car to car. Kilian set the men's record the next day.
We finished lunch and went a slightly different route down for the first few minutes, going along the Sunnyside exit from the summit and staying in the sun rather than immediately dropping into the cold west side. The descent is straight-forward, climbing down the Sargent's Chimney, then eventually doing a rappel down to just above the upper saddle. Then a long hike and scramble down, this time passing the Eye of the Needle.
Not too much to add to for the trip down. It took us a while...unlike Kilian and Emelie. We made it to Lupine Meadows about 6:30 pm. Plenty of time to get showers and then head to Dornan's in Moose to celebrate with beer and pizza. We both were very happy, it was a good two days.
 |
| The Grand Teton from Jackson Hole. |
When my wife and I married in 2004, I knew she might like to climb something like Mt. Rainer sometime in the future. I hadn't done any climbing in years, but I had kept up with hiking, and in my years with the U. S. Forest Service, I'd spent many days of difficult cross country travel doing vegetation transects or fire suppression. No question I was still an "outdoor" person. I can't remember exactly how our conversations settled on the Grand Teton (13,766'). Maybe a motorcycle trip we took to Jackson one Fall. Maybe just the need to always push a little. Or maybe the realization that in 1975 I promised myself to come back to climb the Grand. I don't remember whether it was Betsy or I that finally said, "Let's do it!", but in Fall of 2011, Betsy started going to our local climbing gym. And then as soon as skiing ended in 2012, I started hiking constantly. A couple of years before I had made an objective to hike/climb all of the peaks greater than 11,000' in the Wasatch Range, and I ramped up that effort up to get in shape for the Grand. But I had no up-to-date climbing gear, nor did I know the route well enough to lead our intrepid group of two, so the obvious thing to do was to get a guide. I talked first to Exum and got a sort of rude comment from them about short roping that told me they considered us essentially tourists and probably incompetent as well.That doesn't exactly describe either me or my former triathlete spouse. That eliminated Exum from my plans, and I promptly called Jackson Hole Mountain Guides (JHMG) and was very happy to be treated nicely and with a appropriate level of respect. It was easy to see they were the company to go with. So, on Aug 9, we took their one day multi-pitch climbing class on some crags near Jackson. Betsy quickly converted her climbing gym experience to the real world, and I was happy to be able to top-rope a 5.9 move.
On Aug 10, we shouldered our big backpacks about 11 am at Lupine Meadows and made our way toward JHMG's Corbett High Camp in upper Garnet Canyon. Betsy has always made better time hiking than I, so she and our guide Steve Q. quickly motored away from me in the last half hour of our haul up the canyon to camp. As I made my way up, I watched as ominous looking clouds came steadily in from the west. The wind picked up just as I made the Camp's shelter. Along with Betsy and Steve I found 2 other guides and and 4 or 5 other clients. Someone gave me a hot drink as we were all startled by a bright flash of lightening and crack of thunder when the skies let loose a torrent of rain and hail. I had barely made it in time. About 30 minutes later, the path outside the hut had 3 inches of marble sized hail, and it looked more like winter than summer. Eventually the stormed moved on across Jackson Hole, leaving us wondering what that meant for our climb the next day.
But as the guides prepared dinner, the sky started to lighten. Then as we settled into one of many tents slightly uphill from the hut, the skies in the west cleared and we actually enjoyed a brief and beautiful alpine sunset. I knew then that we were probably okay with the weather.
We sleep okay, but not great, through the night, and are awake at 4 am. We fill our small climbing packs with lunch, warm clothes, and climbing harnesses and flick on our headlamps to make our way to the hut. Steve is there, heating breakfast. After eating, we do a last check of our gear and head out about 4:30. We descend slightly to the trail that goes to the lower saddle, stash some gear to pick up as we pass this spot later our our way down to Lupine Meadows. It's quite dark, and no stars tell us it's socked in.
We arrive at the lower saddle just as there is some light, but we still need the headlamps. Steve speaks briefly to another guide who has been here for an hour. The report is there have been some flashes of lightening to the west. This is not a good sign, but Steve says the best course of action is to continue to the upper saddle and see how the weather is then. We make decent time up, with me of course as the slowest. I've never been good with early starts, it takes until about 8 am before I start to feel really good. The trip up the broad gully from the lower to the upper saddle is a mixture of class 2 to 4. It's locally known as the Idaho Express. We briefly roped up to pass a slab area known as Briggs' Slabs, but it's overall really a pretty good scramble; Steve knows the path perfectly. Soon, we near the top of the gully, pass Lunch Rock and move quickly to the lower saddle proper. Two things are imprinted for me: first, it's really cold and windy, the down jacket and the wool gloves are an absolute necessity. Second, the skies suddenly clear, and it is obvious that a fog bank has sat covering the mountain all morning. To every other direction, the sky is mostly clear. So clearly we will continue to the summit from here.
As one looks to the peak from the lower saddle, the Owens-Spalding route is to the left and up. The Exum guides take their clients up that route. The Pownal-Gilkey route from the saddle is to the right and up. We'll go that way. We put on our harnesses and try to warm our hands, as Steve uncoils our rope. We tie in, with Betsy in the middle, and Steve carefully walks across some 4th class ledges and slabs to the first belay point. We follow, one at a time, and Betsy enjoys her first big mountain alpine scrambling. I think she was happy Steve was belaying her over, and when I went, I didn't mind it either. After catching up to Steve and Betsy, I settle in to a belay position and Steve climbs up and soon clears the crux of this route. It's slightly open left facing chimney with a crack in the middle. The problem here is the route is often wet, and after last evening's rain, it is soaked. No way for us to climb a wet 5.8 in approach shoes, so Steve leaves us a couple of long slings and direct aid is the name of the game. That's quite an introduction to climbing for Betsy, but she does really well with a little bit of coaching from below. I follow and clean the slings and make my way up to the belay. Above this point, it's dry, easy climbing (5.6), and just plain fun. After we top out,we move left a ways to Sargent's Chimney and encounter people coming down from the summit. So Steve maneuvers us a little to the left and we climb a short 4th class slab and face and quickly get past the congestion. Then more easy scrambling, and at 10:15 am, we break into sunlight on the top of the Grand. It's a precious moment for Betsy and I; her first big mountain, and my return to Teton climbing after 37 years, and most important, we did it together. It's tough to match this.
 |
| This picture shows the start of the Pownal-Gilkey route. The first belay is at the end of the 4th class traverse. |
 |
| Betsy and Dan on the summit of the Grand Teton. |
At the summit, we sent a text message or two and start lunch. A few moments later, we are surprised to see two people - a young man and woman - pop up onto the summit in running outfits and bright florescent training shoes. What is going on? They have come up the west side, probably the Owens-Spalding route, we surmise. They walked around for a couple of moments, with the woman actually slipping in a puddle of water and barely caught herself before falling full force on Betsy. (Hope her balance is better on her descent!) Another person on the summit suggested the man was Kilian Jornet Burgada, a professional trail runner. I did a little bit of research later and found it was indeed him, and his partner was Emelie Forsberg, a Swede. Apparently, they ran up from Lupine Meadows and down that morning, with Emelie setting a woman's record of 3 hr, 51 min, car to car. Kilian set the men's record the next day.
We finished lunch and went a slightly different route down for the first few minutes, going along the Sunnyside exit from the summit and staying in the sun rather than immediately dropping into the cold west side. The descent is straight-forward, climbing down the Sargent's Chimney, then eventually doing a rappel down to just above the upper saddle. Then a long hike and scramble down, this time passing the Eye of the Needle.
Not too much to add to for the trip down. It took us a while...unlike Kilian and Emelie. We made it to Lupine Meadows about 6:30 pm. Plenty of time to get showers and then head to Dornan's in Moose to celebrate with beer and pizza. We both were very happy, it was a good two days.
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