Middle Teton, Southwest Couloir.

Middle Teton, June 29-30, 2014. (written 8/1/2014).  A fun climb in the central part of the range is the Middle Teton (12,804').  The Southwest Couloir route is Class 3 and requires a fair bit of travel on loose scree in the late season, so I decided to head up in early season and enjoy some crampon and ice axe work and avoid the scree. This is a time of year when I am working on conditioning as well, and I thought it would be fine for that purpose.

The Middle Teton (12,804') is the peak in the middle, with Nez Perce to the left, and the Grand Teton to the right, and Mt Owen to the extreme right.  Picture taken from near the AAC Climbers Ranch.

I decided to do a 2-day trip, with a overnight in the Meadows in Garnet Canyon. The only negative to this approach is I ended up carrying a fairly heavy pack on the first day. First carry of season so it was a slow plod up the hill. It took me about 3 hours from the Lupine Meadows trail-head to the Meadows, a gain of about 2500 ft. One reason for the heavy pack was the 10 feet or more of snow still at the meadows. I brought a tent, sleeping pad and heavier bag in case I was snow camping. Fortunately, however, there is a stringer of trees which comes down from Disappointment Peak and I was able to find a flat spot which was nicely melted out for my camp. There may be as many as three of these flat spots in the tree stringer. I was able to find water in the creek about 200 feet down from my camp, where the creek exited from under the snow-pack.

I arrived at the meadows at 2 pm, and had camp set up by about 2:30 pm, and just kicked back and enjoyed the scenery. Talked to a few people coming up and down, including a pair who had been successful on the Exum ridge of the Grand that day. Considering it had rained and snowed in the range for the proceeding 3 days and there was a lot of ice on the route, that pair had done very well.

Also met another fellow, Alan, in the Meadows with plans to climb the Middle Teton the next day. It would be good to have someone else around. 

Looking toward Jackson Hole at about 6:20 am as I start to gain altitude coming up from the Meadows.  The snow is very hard and crampons work well.

Left my tent at 6 am the next morning.  Alan left his camp a while later and we met up about when it was time to put on the crampons. The sky was clear and the snow was set up very nicely. Alan and I hiked about the same speed, but he had a slightly faster pace and got to good rest spots before me. I was also slowed down by needed to remove my aluminum crampons for short sections of rock...whereas he had steel crampons and could continue on through those sections.

Alan moves ahead as we work our up toward the Middle/South Teton Col.

It's about 3 hours to reach the col separating the Middle from the South Teton.  The view is delightful down into Alaska Basin to the west. Iceflow Lake was still entirely frozen and the landscape was still predominantly snowy. Turning north at this point will take you up and across hard snow and some rock to the bottom of the Southwest Couloir. The sun had not reached inside the couloir so the snow was still very hard and it was good crampon work on a pretty steep slope. About the limit I would want to be on without a belay here and there.  The couloir was 98% snow; there was only a couple of very short sections of rock.....I left the crampons on for these. As the couloir tops out, I removed the crampons and stowed them and my ice axe. Then it's a hundred feet or so of easy 3rd class to the summit, but the snow and ice that were present did make it a bit interesting at times.

The SW Couloir of the Middle Teton.  It's located slightly left of center of the image, and slants from left center to upper right.  Most of it not visible because its right side wall blocks the view from this vantage point.

Got to the summit at 11:00 am, total time from the Meadows was 5 hours.  As expected, I found Alan already there.  I took some pictures, had lunch, and we talked for over an hour, waiting for the sun to soften the snow/ice in the couloir so descent would be easier.  A marmot shared our space....he was finding something to eat under the snow just below the summit proper.

Me at the summit.  The peak in the background is the Grand (right), and the Enclosure (left).  There is a clear view of the huge snowy gully that leads up from the lower saddle to the upper saddle (it's on the left under the summit of the Enclosure, not the even larger gully just barely in the sun. The Exum Ridge is in the sun, but the Owens-Spalding  (out of sight,around the corner to the left) is in the shadows and probably quite chilly.

From the summit of the Middle Teton, the South Teton on the right, and Gilkey Tower on the left with the pyramidal Ice Cream Cone between.

About 12:15 we decided to head down.  Met a couple of guys just exiting the couloir who I found out later were on their first climb ever. This is a pretty challenging route to do without an experienced person in the party. I found later that both self-arrested during their descent of the couloir 30 - 60 min after us. Alan and I had no trouble, the snow was softening quickly; however, there were several sections we took turns on and did a fair bit of front-pointing facing into the slope. No slips for us; good thing, as there were still some icy sections and a fall would have been lousy. (Apparently there is a long history of such slips and this couloir has had more than its fair share of accidents in years past.)

Alan shot this image of me carefully descending the upper section of the couloir, making full use of my front points on a still frozen snow slope.

Before we got back to the Middle/South Teton saddle, Alan decided he would also climb the South Teton in the afternoon. The weather was good.....I was tempted....but Alan had a camping permit for 2 nights and mine was for one only.  Plus I was tired and was looking forward to pizza and beer at Dornan's in Moose that evening.  So he went up and I went down.....the trip to the meadows was fast on soft snow and a few nice standing glissades. I got back to the meadows at 2:30 pm and had a late lunch and packed. Left there at 3:30, and rolled into Lupine Meadows at 6:00 pm. 

Quick trip to the Climber's Ranch, a hot shower, and into Moose for pizza and beer and watching the sunset over the peaks. Perfect.