Riding the Pinnochio Couloir
Tuesday, March 9th, 2010
Sometimes you get it done in the mountains, sometimes you don’t get to do anything, and sometimes the consolation prize is pretty sweet. On March 2nd, we left the parking lot at 3:30am under starry skies and a just-past-full moon, heading for the North Ridge of the Middle Teton. We had heard that the technical challenges offered by the North Ridge were minor, and that it would likely be mostly a snow climb with a bit of ice to make it interesting. Unfortunately, the only ice we touched on this day was in the skin track during the wee hours of the morning.
Skinning under a full moon is cool. With headlamps off, shadows are so long and the muted glow reflecting off the snow provides a surreal lighting for travel through the lowland approach to the high peaks. Partners are merely black silhouettes and the skin track is an ill-defined line across the crusty re-frozen snow surface. Traveling across Bradley Lake and through the forest, we spent the pre-dawn hours quietly skinning through this dreamscape into Garnet Canyon.
As morning approached, the moon set and we were forced to turn on our headlamps for the last hour before sunrise, climbing up out of the forest and into the glacial basin of the Meadows in the canyon. We stopped for a morning snack in the Meadows as the sun barely lit the eastern horizon and then bared our teeth for the icy, slick-as-snot-on-a-marble climb from the Meadows up into the North Fork. The slope between the Meadows and the North Fork is about 35 degrees and faces south, so it bakes all day and then freezes overnight. Skin tracks that get put in during the heat of the day get burnished to a high gloss with the water content in the surface snow and then freeze like glass. Having forgotten to bring the ski crampons, we alternated between skinning and bootpacking as the snow conditions demanded on the climb up. Skis on feet, skis on packs, skis on feet, skis on packs.
Mark below the North Ridge and the NW Couloir. Looks pretty thin. Anybody need to check their email?
The sun rose as we cruised through the moraines in the North Fork and we were able to make good time getting to the Lower Saddle. We could see the BIG red duffel bag with Exum’s high camp in it as we scrambled up the scree towards the base of the North Ridge of the Middle. Surmounting a series of benches, we soon gained a view of the route and quickly ascertained that it wasn’t going to happen on this day. There wasn’t a shred of snow on the ridge, and the access to the NW Couloir was dry as well. Standing in the shadow of the Middle with a chill wind cranking over the ridge and no harnesses or rock gear in our packs, none of us felt inclined to tackle 2000′ of 5th-class rock. So we punted and decided to seek out the Pinnochio Couloir, a 1000′ line from the base of the North Ridge down to the glacier below.
With a narrow entrance that goes at ~55 degrees, the Pinnochio is a super aesthetic line that we got a good look at while skinning through the moraines an hour earlier.
Maybe this route will work?
Finding the top proved to be harder than we expected; after scrambling up and then downclimbing a few short pitches of slabby rock on misguided routes, we finally crested the Pinnochio Pinnacle and gazed down into the couloir. My 25-meter strand of rope barely reached down to the notch at the top of the couloir, but with a brief body-wrap rappel we each made our way down to the entrance.
Mark sits back onto the day's first rappel, with the Grand Teton in the background.
Evan raps off the Pinnochio Pinnacle.
I cleaned off the cornice at the top while Mark and Evan found a rock horn to sling the rope around for our second rappel of the day, getting beyond a rocky pinch and into the couloir proper. Going first, I found chalky powder in the couloir with excellent edging, which felt good in what seemed a bit like an elevator shaft. 55-degrees and barely wider than the length of my board, the Pinnochio Couloir was pretty sporty!
Snowboarding on rappel--not as easy or fun as it might look. But on a side note, this was my first day in the alpine with my new Wagner Custom board. Totally amazing--it's so lively, and with a bit more sidecut it makes tight turns in this kind of terrain feel easy. Awesome. Thanks guys!
After passing a particularly narrow pinch a hundred feet down, things opened up and I found really fun riding down to the mid-couloir rockband. I pulled off to the side and yelled up for Mark to ski down to me.
Mark skis the upper pitch of the Pinnochio Couloir.
We poked around a bit for a route to downclimb while Evan made his descent to us, ultimately deciding to pull the rope out again for one last rappel past the 15′ band of rock that blocked our path. Mark slung another horn, we rapped past the rock, and then ripped dreamy turns out of the fan of the couloir and down the glacier to the moraines below. The sun felt pretty damn good after spending a couple of hours in the shadow of the Middle, so we took the opportunity to eat a big lunch before exiting the mountains.
Evan skis across the glacier to the moraines after exiting the Pinnochio Couloir. Pretty skinny up top!
AJ and Mark soaking up the sun on the moraines.
More challenges awaited us on the way out, mostly in the variable and shallow snow conditions that we have this winter at mid- and low-elevations in the Tetons, but we eventually made it back down to the lake and cranked out the last two miles to the parking lot. Though it was disappointing to get turned back from summiting the Middle, getting to ride the Pinnochio was pretty sweet and it was a fantastic day to be in the mountains with good friends. Ultimately, the most disappointing part of the day was arriving back at the parking lot to find that somebody had taken the beers we stashed under the car to keep them cold! So lame!
And so, we wrapped up the day with the standard trip to Dornan’s for a pitcher and some quesadillas while gazing back up at the Range through the gigantic bay windows behind the bar. Another decent consolation prize.
