Blog Posts for April, 2009

After a season of turning back from objectives, it felt really good to complete a descent of the Grand Teton, so Jake MacArthur and I decided to carry that momentum up the Middle a couple of days later.  It almost felt like I had slept in when the alarm went off at 3:30 and we both commented on feeling well-rested after 6 hours of sleep.  Skinning away from the truck at 5:15, it also felt really good knowing that dawn would break in an hour.

Crossing the lake with the Grand and Nez Perce in the background.

These long approaches into the Tetons have made me super impressed by and thankful for my new approach skis from Wagner, and skins from Climbing Skins Direct.  For this year, the guys at Wagner Custom made my skis a bit wider and shorter, with a flat tail and more camber.  They’re also lighter due to an all-aspen core.  Snappy, with kick for the flats, and really light underfoot.  The skins from CSD are light and supple, and I’ve been shocked at how well they glide–it’s really unbelievable being able to kick-and-glide with skins on.

With these thoughts running through my head, the trip across Bradley Lake and up Garnet Canyon flew by.

Skinning up Garnet Canyon.

Before I knew it the sun had risen and we were staring up the Ellingwood Couloir–1500′ of 50-degree snow that tops out at the Dike Col.

AJ climbs the Ellingwood Couloir.

The climbing was fantastic–really firm frontpointing, with some short stretches of ice mixed in.  We hit the Col by mid-morning, stopping briefly to re-fuel as we looked over at our tracks on the Grand, just receiving the morning sun.

The upper East Face of the Middle Teton loomed above us in the sun as well, the last 600′ before the summit.  I had turned back from the East Face a few times in the past, so I was definitely chomping to finish it up on this day.  We traversed across a 50-degree powder slope to get to the gut of the climb and found soft, boot-top powder conditions.

Jake climbs through the steeps.

With the sun full on the Face it felt like climbing in a solar broiler–fortunately we cruised up it quickly and surmounted the 60+-degree pitch at the crest.  The East Face route culminates in a notch ~50′ below the summit; the final pitch to the top might be skiable in some years, but we found dry, slabby rock so we decided to call the notch our high point.

Sitting in the notch on a sunny, windless morning, looking down into Wyoming on the east and Idaho on the west, I felt supremely satisfied with our adventure.  Sure, it’s a ton of effort to get here and there are risks involved, but the reward is so sweet.

Soaking it all in at the summit notch.

And without calculating and managing risk would it be a worthwhile pursuit?  We let our sweat dry in the sun and chuckled about the enormous group that was rumored to be over on the Grand while we were the only party on the Middle.  Sometimes it all just works out.

When it felt like time to go, I put my boots back on and we rigged up for the descent.  The initial entrance onto the East Face was actually pretty sporty–no wider than the length of my board, really steep, with thousands of feet of relief below.  Whew.  I side-slipped and hopped my way down onto the crest of the Face and then made controlled turns down to the gut, where things eased off a bit.

Tiptoeing through the entrance to the East Face.

Jake side-stepped through the entrance–his skis were definitely longer than the space allowed–and joined me.  The trip down to the Dike Col was fun and brief–really just a few turns and a traverse, but in pretty great, moist powder.

And then we leapfrogged down sweet springtime corn in the Ellingwood, taking pictures, whooping it up.

Going heelside in the Ellingwood.

We had a variety of theories about how to handle the sluff that we brought down, but it seemed to work best for me to just ride faster than the sluff was traveling, making high-speed GS turns, laying it over hard.  Jake’s skis weren’t quite as fast, so he chose to vary his fall-line to stay out of his sluff.

Jake skis sweet corn in the Ellingwood Couloir.

Once we exited the bottom of the couloir a hard left brought us to the top of the Cave Couloir for another 1000′ of mellow turns down to the Meadows in Garnet Canyon.

The trip out was quick and uneventful and we cruised the trip across the lake and over the moraines, back to the truck.  Compared to the day on the Grand, I felt remarkably energetic after more than 7000′ of climbing and riding.  I wish I could have another month of Teton adventures like this, but I’m headed to Alaska next week for a month of guiding.  I’m stoked to have ridden these lines at the end of this season–maybe I can squeak in one or two more before I leave…

Leaving the house at midnight feels really early, or late depending on how you approach your evening.  Nevertheless, having gotten less than two hours’ sleep I loaded into Jake MacArthur’s car with Andy Tyson and drove away for a day in the Park.  We had our sights set on the crown jewel of the range, the Grand Teton–I rode it a couple of years ago and wanted to give it another go, this time via the original route that Bill Briggs skied in his groundbreaking 1971 first descent.

Looking at the Grand from the Middle Teton. The Ford Couloir drops straight from the summit, the Stettner is to the right.

We would approach via Garnet Canyon to the Teepe Col, climbing the full Stettner Couloir to the East Face and then to the summit.  Which sounds much more straightforward than it turned out to be.

Skinning away from the parking lot at 1:30, the five hours that remained before dawn felt like a pretty long stretch of headlamp skinning.  Fortunately there were three of us in it together, and the iPod made it feel easier.  Refrozen skin tracks proved to be super slippery on the steeper stretches getting into Garnet.  Ski crampons were vital for the trip up the rock-hard surface snow on the Teepe Glacier.  But just when the endless darkness was becoming oppressive, the upper glacier glowed orange as we finished climbing to the Teepe Col in the warmth of sunrise.

Approaching the Teepe Col at sunrise.

We left any unnecessary gear at the Teepe Col (skins, ski crampons, my approach skis and poles), pulling out crampons and ice tools for the remaining climb.  With a thousand of feet of relief to the canyon below the traverse around to the Glencoe Col felt exposed, but it was easy travel and we quickly reached the shadows of the Stettner.  The lower Stettner was pretty good climbing–boot-top chalky powder, and the ice bulge in the pinch was completely filled-in so that we could just fly past it.  The upper Stettner was another story.

Looking up as we climbed past the mouth of the Chevy (which we would descend hours later), the narrows above looked pretty easy–shallow snow over low-angle slabby rock with some scree thrown in.  The chockstone that used to present the greatest difficulty of this route blew out two summers ago, in theory making the Stettner a much more achievable line for winter ascents/descents.  As I started to climb past the first rock bulge, though, it proved to be significantly harder than it looked.

Climbing past the first rock section in the Stettner Couloir.

The rock was actually steep, with little usable ice, and the snow was all sugar.  I backed off halfway up it and we pulled out the rope and gear.

Andy found a patch of ice that took one screw just above our belay platform, and I somehow took the lead.  (Andy is by far the better climber–what was I thinking?)  We acknowledged that there would be no protection on the climb up this stretch; it was solo climbing while dragging a rope so that I could belay my partners up to me.  But that was the situation that we had, so up I went.  Climbing slowly and deliberately, placing my picks and frontpoints in small clefts in the rock, I squirreled my way up to the easy snow above and belayed Andy up to me.  (After hauling my pack and snowboard up–there was no way I was going to lead through that with my pack and snowboard on my back.)  Andy continued up to check out the next bulge while I belayed Jake.  Unfortunately, this just wasn’t Jake’s day–he was worn out from no sleep the night before and the climbing we had already done, so he decided to turn back and meet us at the Teepe Col.

It was cold as hell in the Stettner–by the time I was done belaying and climbed to Andy I was wearing everything I had with me and still didn’t want to stop moving.  As a result, we decided that I should lead the second bulge as well so that I could warm up.  And of course, the climbing proved to be significantly steeper and harder than it looked from below.  Andy had found good ice for a belay anchor (which we hadn’t found at the first bulge), but there was no way to protect the climbing up here either.  Once again placing my picks and frontpoints gingerly on the rock I slowly climbed past this bulge and finally reached the sun at the top.

I must say, the sun felt really good.  After belaying Andy up to me, we stood in the sun and ate a quick snack while stowing away the ropes.  The last thousand feet to the top were technically easy, but physically crushing.

Climbing the upper East Face to the summit.

We could see the summit the whole time and the boot-top trailbreaking occasionally turned to stretches of thigh-deep powder.  It should have been pretty quick and manageable, but at 13,000′ with the sun baking us it took over an hour.

But summit we did, right around noon.  Amazing views in all directions, with a stiff wind out of the west.  I had forgotten how far the top of the Grand is above everything else–even the Middle looks small from up there.  We took a brief respite on the top, snacking a bit and recharging on Red Bull and Monster.  And then we made turns right off the top.

The snow in the upper Stettner had been pretty bad, so we decided to ride the Ford-Stettner variation instead.  The first hundred feet or so off the top were just picking our way through a few rocks to the top of the Ford, but then it all turned sweet.  50-degree turns on firm windbuff led down into the gut and 1000′+ of 45-degree moist, ankle-deep powder with a slight soft crust on the surface.  Awesome carving turns on my snowboard, maybe not quite as much fun for Andy on his skis.  We cruised down the Ford pretty quickly and found the anchors at the top of the Chevy after a super exposed sneak between some rocks and the top of the Petzoldt Couloir (a thousand feet of air to a rocky landing.)  Two full 60-meter rappels took us down the Chevy and back into the Stettner for more soft, fun turns to the bottom of our line.

AJ rides the Stettner.

A traverse around to the Teepe Col brought us back to Jake and all of us had a sunny descent down into Garnet Canyon and back to the parking lot.

Andy skis out the Teepe Glacier.

This time on the Grand felt easier than the last, but it still took 15 hours and I can’t say that at the end of it I was ready to go throw a frisbee or do much of anything besides eat and sleep.  It was a super fun, challenging day on a truly spectacular mountain with great friends.  As we drove home we were already planning our next trip.  It’s amazing how easy it is to be inspired by this range, how each objective reveals a myriad of others.