08/18/2006 - WY, Grand Traverse

Thursday 8/17/06:

I finished wrapping up an assignment for work around 5:30pm, right when Ben came over.  His catalytic converter on his car was completely off; and the car was LOUD.  I got out the jack and tools, and Ben began the repair work.  I went inside and finished packing for the trip.  A bit too rushed, but sometimes it goes that way.  We fixed the car, finished packing, and were on our way at 6:15pm.  We took turns driving, and were near Jackson around 2:15am.  I just found a spot outside of town to park, and we moved the stuff around in the car and just sacked out in the car since we were moving again at 4am anyway.

 

Friday 8/18/06: 

Woke up at 4am.  Wow, I'm tired.  Both Ben and I were WAY sleep deprived from busy weeks, even BEFORE the all night driving with about one hour of sleep.  Drove and picked up Chris and his stuff, and then off to the park.  We got to the Lupine Meadows trailhead, and made our last minute gear prep.  I brought a sleeping bag for Chris, and we decided which ropes and gear to bring.  We were going light, even decided to not bring a stove.  We ate some food, and drank as much as we could, and then hit the trail around 6:30am.  The Teewinot approach had a lot of elevation gain.  The climbing was a little exposed in places, but mostly around 4th class.  Hit some spots up to 5.4, but still easily done in boots.  We hit the summit just before 11am.  Not bad, considering the trip report we read started out at 4:30, and hit the summit at 11am.  So far, we were ahead of schedule.  We took a bunch of photos, and headed down.  There was some exposed downclimbing that was pretty interesting, and then we hit the ridge.  This is where the other group had an advantage, as there was route finding involved.  The ridge was mainly class three and four as well, but we ended up summiting all the points along the ridge, including East Prong.  There may have been ways around those to save time, but I guess it's good that we hit the extra peaks. 

From 20060818D1-35 Teton Glacier Terminus, you can see where the glacier used to terminate.  It's melted out quite a bit.  You don't get perspective from the photo though.  That ridge of rocks that was pushed by the glacier is probably 3-400 feet tall.  Look at the full size pine trees in the upper right portion of the picture.  Sad how quickly all our glaciers are melting out.  But that is another story...

There were two big rappels between Owen and Teewinot, the first one went over several overhanging ledges.  Kind of a spooky rappel on 8mm ropes.  The pull of that first rappel got stuck for a little too, which was a little nervous.  We didn't have a good ledge to pull them from either, just a sloped rock ledge, that dropped off at least 50 feet afterwards.  We were able to get the ropes free and down.  Whew.  The second big rappel was off East Prong.  I went first, and did the full rappel.  It wasn't really a good place to do a full 60m rap, as the ropes just barely got me past the snowfield onto a small ledge.  I was worried, as I didn't know if it would make it all the way down, and the snowfield was very solid; almost ice.  We weren't going to be able to traverse it, as we only had one pair of crampons and one axe between the three of us.  I called up to them to do an intermediate rappel which I saw on the way down, so we could all get to the ledge safely.  We then roped up, and I tested the crossing of the solid snowfield on it's crest to the next section of the Owen climb. 

The normal Owen climb is a 5.2 chimney.  We were initially going to do that climb, but the chimney turned out to be a waterfall from the melt of the snowfield above.  We filled up on water, and scouted other ways up.  There were ledges, which were also wet.  We decided to try a dry, but much more intimidating section on the right hand side of the chimney waterfall which had an overhanging section.  Ben led it, and it turned out to not be that bad, maybe 5.5 as you could skirt around the overhanging part.  We were running out of daylight now, so we went looking for the ledges to camp.  Most of the relatively flat spots were flooded with water from the melting snowfield.  There was a specific ledge in a picture in a trip report, but we couldn't find it.  It was starting to get really cold, so we just found a couple small areas to bivvy; one dry which would hold two, and one mostly dry to hold me.  Ben had a 32F bag, with a bivvy sack, Chris had my 15F Go-Lite bag, and I had a 20F REI bag which was old, so it was probably more like a 30-35F bag.  We had a Go-Lite Hex 3 shelter with us, but there wasn't a spot big enough to put it up.  Ben also realized that a small bag was missing from his backpack, which had his contact solution, headlamp and more.  Bummer.  We just wore all our clothes, and went to sleep.  It was a cold night, guessing 25F.  I was chilled during the night, and didn't sleep as well as I would have liked to.

 

Saturday 8/19/06: 

We woke up and decided to rap back down to the snowfield to look for Ben's bag; he knew he had it around there.  He found it, so climbed back up and pressed on towards the summit.  We were able to skirt around the lower snowfield, with one interesting downclimb and stem around a section where the snowfield continued down a section of the mountain that had crumbled and fallen.  It was well below freezing last night, and all the wet areas were now covered in ice.  The downclimb had a sheet of ice, which made it very interesting.  We got to the upper snowfield and decided to stay on the ledges on the right hand side.  There were some very exposed moves, but most of it was lower fifth class, around 5.4 or 5.5 max.  We hit the last part to the summit. and figured out we were on the East ridges.  The last summit push was a runout 5.6 section, which Ben led and was only able to put in two pieces.  I scouted around a corner, and found a tight squeeze, crawl under a precarious chokestone, and then the rappel we would need to go towards Gunsight.  We all climbed up to the summit, and took some photos.  The North ridge route on Grand Teton looked pretty intimidating.   

We then rapped down to the East ledges, did the squeeze, crawled under the choke, handed our packs over, and set up the rappel.  The rappel was big, and overhanging.  Fun stuff.  When I got down, I saw the tent spot from the picture.  At least we know where it is for next time.  We followed the ledges and almost made it to the Gunsight notch.  Ben was exploring, and a block came loose.  He was fine, but the block went a long way down. 

It was a loose and dangerous downclimb; maybe the climb was back up and over a ledge we had seen earlier.  It was now 2pm, so we talked.  We were running out of time.  If we continued, we had to continue to find the Gunsight rap, rap down into Gunsight, do a 400ft climb up the other side of Gunsight which was up to 5.8, climb the grandstand, then climb the Grand; which was the hardest climbing after Gunsight. Based on the time it took us so far, we thought that it would be better to turn back.  We didn't think we could complete the Grand climb before the sun went down, and we didn't know where the next camp site was; maybe there was one on the Grandstand, but it might not be until the saddle after the Grand.  We didn't want to chance it.  Instead, we would try to climb down to the Teton glacier, and find a way around the Grand.  Hopefully we could then climb up to the saddle between the Grand and Middle, and continue the traverse from the Middle.  We would call it the "Non-grand traverse." 

This trip would give us good beta, and we could use it later to try the Grand Traverse again.  We made our way back to the snowfields on Owen.  The ledges were exposed and loose, definitely needed to be careful.  A slip would almost certainly mean death.  We got to the snowfields, traversed it on the rock edge.  For the snowfield cutout, I kicked steps across using my boots and ice axe since the snow started to soften a little.  One of my footholds broke loose and I caught myself with the axe.  Exciting.  We then finished our traverse around the snowfield, rapped down the same area we climbed up, and then continued down the Coven route.  It was extremely loose ledges and downclimbing.  We did a couple raps on the way down to be safe.  When we hit the Teton Glacier, we got a good view of Owen, the Gunsight, and the Grand.  Wow, each of them were huge; especially the Gunsight notch.  Much bigger than I was expecting.  The descent had taken longer than we anticipated, so we decided to hike up to the Amphitheater lake.  We traveled to the end of the glacier, and saw a ledge system that might go around to the lake.  We climbed up the glacial terminus, loose dirt and scree to see if it went. 

At the top, we saw that the ledge system didn't easily go around.  We also met Dave; an Exum guide.  He told us of a climber trail to Amphitheater lake, and we gave him beta on Owen which he was guiding people up the next day. 

We climbed the climber trail to Amphitheater lake and found a place to camp.  Ben and Chris chose to sleep on the grass, and I picked a tall flat rock that I climbed up on.  It was a clear night again, so we all just decided to bivvy.  We had dinner on the rock that I was going to sleep on, wonderful views of the amphitheater and lake.  Chris shared a bagel and some sausage; which tasted awesome after two days of just gorp and granola bars.  It got dark, so we put on all our clothes again, and went to sleep.  Slept better that night, didn't seem as cold out; probably 30-35F.

 

Sunday 8/20/06: 

Woke up around 5:15am, ate some food and drank some water.  There seemed to be plenty of water en route today, so I was going to do the ascent to the Col and descent into Garnet Canyon with a half liter.  Ben and Chris got up, and we were moving around 6am.  Climbed to the Col, and it looked like a very loose downclimb.  To be safe, we rigged a rappel.  Definitely a doable downclimb, but challenging and exposed with dire consequences for a mistake.  That, and any loose rocks would be a danger to the rest of the team below. 

The rap worked fine, with a good pull.  We decided to stash our overnight gear near the intersection with the Garnet Canyon trail.  We loaded all the stuff in my pack, and hung it from at tree.  I carried a rope, wore my climbing gear, stuffed my pockets, and put some gear in Chris' backpack.  We took the technical climbing stuff, and headed towards the saddle between Middle and Grand Tetons.  It was quite a climb back up.  At a glacial field, about 1000 feet below the Lower Saddle, Chris decided to turn around.  He just wasn't feeling it; we've all been there before.  He took as much stuff as he could with him, and I took his backpack with our technical rock gear and my emergency gear.  He headed back, while Ben and I pressed on towards Middle Teton.  We filled our water from the glacial melt, and then climbed the scree field to the ledges.  There was a huge rope fixed on the ledges; the same type as huge ships use.  Wild.  Ben took a funny photo of him fake trying to feed it through his belay device.

At the saddle, we reviewed the route, and pressed on.  We climbed a scree and talus field, and started the North Ridge route.  It soon got to be climbing on exposed ledges and a ridge.  There were some sketchy climbing sections; including a small ramp ascent.  At a small cove, we had a couple decisions.  Weather was moving in, and we decided to climb an overhanging crack to go straight up, rather than an exposed ramp or downclimbing to more ledges.  Ben led, and it was a pretty hairy climb.  Only about a 5.7, but algae covered with little and few foot placements.  What made it more interesting is I couldn't reach the footholds Ben could, so I was all compressed; lying back on the overhanging crack and smearing with my feet close to my hands.  Challenging stuff.  After the overhang, it climbed out around a ledge and was on a super exposed crack for about 40 feet.  Looking down was air for around 1000 feet.  Glad to have my climbing shoes on, and rock protection in.   

I was concerned as there were thunderheads forming right over us, and the wind picked up significantly.  We were pretty committed now though, so we continued on.  We climbed up the black dike section, and it started to snow.  Lovely.  At the top, was supposedly the hardest climbing section.  It was again an exposed crack climb, but I found this one a lot easier than the overhanging crack.  This I'd rate at 5.5 or 5.6.  From here, it was mostly easy, but still some exposed ledges to the summit.  At the Middle Teton summit, I recognized the route down towards South Teton from a previous climbing trip.  We took some photos, and the weather cleared a little.

It was nice to have a break in the weather; snow and possible lightning are not something you want to encounter on climbs.  Been there plenty of times, not pleasant.  We climbed down towards the South Teton, and had a small section of exposed, loose climbing.  At the saddle, we saw it was 3pm.  We decided to save South and the other peaks for another time, as we still had to go get our stashed gear, hike out, and had an 8 hour drive home.  We played on the upper snowfield a little, doing some boot skiing.  On the way out, we met Mike, a ranger there. 

We talked to him for a bit on our way out.  We were able to skirt around most of the snowfields on the way out. We picked up our gear, and did the rest of the hike out.  We got to the parking lot around 7:30pm, and unfortunately, Chris and the car weren't there.  Great.  I had hiked the last section without water, counting on my gatorade at the car.  Bummer.  We started walking towards the climbers ranch.  We got to the road split to Jenny Lake, and decided to wait there.  There was water from the Cottonwood creek, which I scooped into my bottle to treat; but Chris then showed up.  It was around 8:15pm, while we still had a little daylight, we went through our stuff and re-distributed the gear to the correct owner.  We then drove Chris back to Jackson, and stopped to eat at Subway.  Tasted great after a weekend of mostly gorp and granola bars.  We headed out from Jackson around 9:30pm, and drove through the night.  We were beat, but kept switching drivers about every hour, and had to stop for an hour nap on the way home.  I got home around 7:30am on Monday morning.  Took about an hour nap, and then started work.  A rushed, but awesome weekend!

I included a picture of our route and distance.  (Thanks Mike for letting me use the Wyoming Topo!)  It gives a cross section of the elevation change as well.  The weekend was about 16 miles distance, and about 13,600 elevation gain, and another 13,600 loss; much of it technical climbing/mountaineering.  Good stuff.  Now we know a lot more about the route, and are planning on going back and trying to do the Grand Traverse again next year...

 

Hope you enjoy the pics!

A.J.