Riding the Grand

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.

Tags: aj linnell, backcountry snowboarding, snowboarding, tetons