Grand Teton Climb

After many years of "someday I am going to climb that mountain ..." I learned the someday would come to be August 25, 2007. Lexie and I made an unsuccessful attempt two weeks earlier. We were able to make it to the lower saddle and learn the approach that far. We also learned that our current level of conditioning didn't lend itself to a single day summit.

Robert got really excited about the idea of climbing the Grand and agreed to go on an over night attempt where the first night would be spend at the lower saddle (10,700 ft.) and the summit day would happen the next day.

The scenery on the approach was fantastic. There is a 4.1 mile switch back trail to the mouth of Garnet canyon. On the way up it seems like you are very high when you get there, on the way down it seems like you are very low when you get there.

At the mouth of the canyon it becomes neccessary to traverse a bolder field to get onto the meadow trail. The traverse isn't very difficult but it is necessary to pay attention because there are a few places where the large bolders can leave 10-15 feet of exposure.

After the boulder field I started having trouble with my right knee which had caused me considerable pain on the down climb two weeks earlier. The knee pain made climbing extremly painful but I decided to go slowly and monitor the pain to make sure it didn't get any worse. Robert found a stick that made a reasonable walking stick and it helped quite a bit. I expect a set of trekking poles is going to find its way onto Santa's list in the near future...

I was originally annoyed with Rob for taking this photo but I decided that it had documentary value.

After the meadows there is a very steep set of switch backs which gains about1500 feet of elevation up to the Moraine Camp. We stopped in the Moraine Camp for lunch. I think it was about 2:00 PM so although we were not making fantastic time by any measure we were doing fine with respect to when we needed to get to the Lower Saddle camp another 1200 feet higher.

When I first saw the approach to the Lower Saddle my initial thought was "NO WAY!". It looks like a large scree slope divided in the center by a large cliff. The reason for this is that it is a large scree slope divided in the center by a large cliff. It turns out that the rock is relatively stable and there is a trail through it with a fixed rope which accends an easy chimney break in the cliff. The fixed rope remains my least favorite part of the climb but it is just easy enough to not quite justify a formal belay. The next time I climb the Grand however I am planning on camping at the Moraine Camp to avoid needed to accend the fixed rope with a full pack on (I had over 50 lbs. on for this part of the trip).

Finally getting to camp that evening was great. I was very disappointed to find my knee still very much in pain even as I walk around without a pack on.

Pumping water, setting up the tent and making dinner seemed to take up most of the evening. Rob and I were both anxious to get into the tent and get some rest for what would be an early start the next day. There were some guides in camp and talking with them we were advised that 5AM would be an optimal departure time in as much as it would afford us day light in the part of the upper saddle approach which required route finding. This turned out to be good advice.

Our camp site was next to a large boulder with a "fence" of smaller rocks around it which helped break what seemed to be a 40 mph wind. I didn't have anything to measure the wind speed with other than to know it was strong enough to knock me around a bit.

Everything above the Moraine works on a pack it in pack it out policy including fecal waste.

Sleeping on the lower saddle did not prove to be very restful. I hadn't expected it to, all the same I was very happy to see when the clock had finally crawled its way to 4:40AM. I was also very pleased to find that my knee was not giving me anywhere near as much trouble as it had the day before. We had our summit packs arranged the night before and were able to start hiking by head lamp almost immediately.

The accent to the upper saddle also looks much more difficult than it is in reality although as big as it looks it feels even bigger as you climb it. As mentioned previously the guides advice to wait a bit "later" (many groups leave a 2 and 3 AM) proved to be good advice. Even with day light we had a route finding difficulty which cost us about an hour and a half.

There was one part of the approach to the the Upper Saddle which I decided to do on belay (the chockstone chimney) but other than that it was a combination of hiking and scrambling. I didn't see anyone else belay the portion I did but I will most likely run a belay there when I do it again in as much as I am not a fan of getting too much air under me with out a rope.

We finally gained the Upper Saddle at about 9 AM. I was very glad I had brought my rock climbing shoes as much as anything to get a break from my heavy mountaineering boots. The boots had started to seriously agrivate my ankles and it was very refreshing to have the lighter foot wear on.

The rock climbing part of the teton climb really starts at the Upper Saddle. We selected the Owen Spalding route because it is the easiest route up. Robert and I both had a flash where we questioned our sanity as we looked at the route. The combination of the exposure (I believe it is about 2000 feet at the start of the route) and the wind made it quite formidable. I was able to convice us both that we would get a solid belay in, see what things looked like and if we didn't like them turn around. Unfortunaley we do not have any pictures of the climbing part in as much as we found ourselves occupied climbing.

I had expected the "belly roll" to be the most difficult mental move of the route. This is the move which actually puts you out on the cliff. I found however that I got by the move without much trouble at all. The next pitch however "the crawl" did get to me a bit. In my reading and conversations with people I had learned it was easier to do this portion by again as done in the "belly role" climbing on the outside of the cliff. When I got there however I was distressed to not find anywhere to get a good protection placement so I decided to crawl the portion much as the early accent parties had done. Crawl really is an exageration in as much as a low roof makes it only possible to kind of millipede along. The up side is that it puts the climber in a position from which it would be all but impossible to fall. Speaking of position that was the part that got to me the "crawl" put my face pointing directly to the valley floor a very very long way below me.

After getting out of the crawl I didn't notice the exposure again on the climb. The west side has a lot of very large ledges in it so there are some great spots to rest. We went up the double chimney and then proceded into the Owen chimney. The Owen chimney was my favorite part of the climb. The rock climbing was easy and there were lots of places to put protection. The view was absolutely outstanding. The Owen chimney turned out to be the most technical part of the climb. We did a pseudo running belay up and around Sargents chimney. Then after a few hundred feet more of scrambling we did what had not seemed possible. We ran out of places to go up!

Looking around from the summit was a glorious experience probably less for everything I was able to see and more for the awestruck feeling I had of where I was.

Getting off the summit was surprisingly simple. There was a reasonable trail to follow most of the way down through the ledge system. We set up a rappel at Sargents chimney because there was a good anchor there, it really streched what I would want to down climb and it offered Rob a chance to try some rappelling before he needed to do the free rappel.

I had been told by multiple sources that a 60M rope thrown left from the old rappel anchor would touch the Upper Saddle. I had fully indended on decending this way however when we got to the rappel anchor someone had a 70M rope they offered to let us use with them my practicality of seeing a touching rope soon won over my curiousity.

The rappel was a lot of fun. Backing off the view goes all the way to the valley floor and the last 60 feet of the rappel are done in open air.

Getting to the Upper Saddle was a great accomplishment in that it ended the most technical part of the climb. We didn't use a rope on the decent. Coming from the top I was more comfortable navigating the chock stone chimney.

Fortunately on the decent my knee didn't bother me nearly the way it had the day before my ankles got worse and worse again forcing a very slow pace. We did a good part of the decent by head lamp and toward the end I was all but collapsing into break stops I was so exhausted. There were a couple of times we saw eyes in the night but we didn't have a way to know if they were deer eyes or bear eyes. I was fairly certain they were bear eyes and was at one point guilty of thinking "if the bear eats me at least I won't need to finish the hike out!". At 1:45AM we finally reached the true destination of any mountain climb the PARKING LOT!.