Day 1: Approach
We left the Climbers' Ranch (5,800 feet) at the end of the worst hail storm we'd seen yet. We climbed with heavy packs for the next several hours through intermittent rain showers. The approach trail was consistently steep, and our sea-level bodies felt the altitude. We were exhausted when we stumbled into our base camp on the moraine at the foot of the Middle Teton Glacier (10,500 feet). This picture is looking up from our camp over the glacier to the Lower Saddle between the Middle and Grand Teton, which is out of view to the right. Look closely and you can see the bergshrunds (cravasses at top of a glacier separating the ice from the mountain) about halfway up the photo:
It's rock, snow, and SPF 70 sunblock up here. The weather was variable throughout the day. Note the ominous clouds swirling in the valley below our camp:
As we set up camp, the altitude hit Clark, and he came down with nausea and a severe headache. After a few rounds of vomiting, we decided to abandon our plans for the Middle Teton in favor of acclimatization the following day.Day 2: Scouting and Acclimatizing
A night at altitude helped us significantly, and we were both feeling stronger in the morning. We spent the day hiking up to the Lower Saddle (11,500 feet) and scouting our route. This is the Grand Teton from the Saddle. Our route, the Exum Ridge, is silhouetted against the sky; the summit is just barely obscured in the fog.
Day 3: The ClimbWe set our alarm for an alpine start at 3:30AM, although we didn't need it as neither of us was asleep when it went off. We were out of camp by 4AM. We climbed for the next few hours through steep 3rd class (1), and some easy 4th class terrain:
We reached Wall Street Ledge, the beginning of the technical portion (i.e., 5th class) of the route, shortly after daybreak. Ascending up Wall Street Ledge with first morning light hitting Middle Teton in the background:
As I was setting up anchor at the top of the first pitch, the climbing ranger who gave us our climbing permit a few days earlier appeared around the corner. He was free soloing (2). We briefly discussed how he was going to descend without a rope, and as he was leaving I said, "Well, you'll probably be up there a bit before us, but you're welcome to rappel down with us if you'd like." He was polite enough not to laugh in my face at this unintentional hubris: I didn't appreciate it at the time, but at the speed he was going, he would be off the mountain and home with his family before we'd summit.We also made the acquaintance of Jack, a 60-something hardman trying for his 42nd summit of the Grand. Jack had his hands full guiding an inexperienced party up the route but was gregarious and polite to a fault. Given the concern we had for routefinding over the coming 9 pitches, we were encouraged to have Jack not far behind us in case we had questions.
The next several pitches progressed smoothly over easy 5th class and some extended periods of 4th class terrain. This picture is looking down the route with the Middle Teton in the background; Jack's party is on the ledge a pitch below.
The next two pitches were easy, but we belayed them anyway. We later realized that most parties simul-climbed (3) these portions as we saw Jack et. al. gaining ground on us. At this point Jack shouted up to us that we'd be better off taking a variation through a notch 25 feet below us. This seemed odd to us, but we didn't want to argue with 41 ascents. I led the awkward downclimb to and through the notch, up a meandering offwidth crack and then back around... to a spot 25 vertical feet above Clark at the belay station. Evidently Jack's beta was going to be questionable at best. As Clark followed the lead to retrieve the protection I'd placed, we were passed by a different, large group that was making good time simul-climbing. Thus began the antics.The party was composed of two strong climbers leading two three-person rope teams. We noticed that some of the party seemed significantly less experienced, and, as the route steepened, these followers appeared increasingly uncomfortable simul-climbing. Clark and I opted to set up a proper belay station after a hundred feet, and I led, following the last of the two teams through the crux pitch (4). While purely psychological, I've found the feeling of "exposure" (i.e., the natural fear from being high on a rock wall) can be cumulative throughout a day of climbing. As the party in front of me reached the crux pitch, one of their climbers froze halfway up the pitch and started sobbing. The uncertainty we'd seen several hundred feet earlier had apparently built on itself, and the exposure on the crux pitch was too much for her, even though she was on a proper belay by this point. While she made it through the pitch uninjured, it took 15 valuable minutes (5) for her to get herself together. We took several lessons from this episode: 1) The party's leader should have better evaluated the competence and comfort level of his group. Members of the group were clearly uncomfortable, and this party should have started belaying earlier; 2) The importance of communication cannot be overstated, and proper communication can actually be challenged by increased group size. In a large group it is essential to foster a spirit of open communication, so that the weaker members of the group could have felt comfortable expressing their unease in the earlier exposed simul-climbing.
The next several pitches proceeded quickly, and we reached the "open book", a beautiful 90-degree corner on the ridge above the Grand's West Face. The fog that had enveloped the route for most of the morning lifted for a few minutes, and this was a thrilling, albeit only moderately difficult, pitch with the West Face providing several hundred feet of exposure below on the left. Right around this point I told Clark, "Assuming we make it through this with all our fingers and toes, this will be probably be the coolest thing I've done in the mountains."
The temperature continued to drop as we reached the 13,000 foot mark, and the route, which had formerly been wet in spots, now took the form of ice. This portion would have been easy in dry conditions; it was somewhat more difficult navigating the sometimes-icy footholds and icicles around the handholds.
The fog settled back in as the route continued. By this point it was around 1:30PM, and we'd been working for over nine hours. This jamcrack on the crest of this ridge was tricky but was especially fun (note the lead climber on the crack towards the top of the picture; the summit is above but obscured by fog).
This crack proved to be the last technical pitch before the summit, although we still needed to cross one final snowfield.
After the snowfield, we made the summit (13,770 feet) after a hundred feet of easy 4th class scrambling. Clark's summit dance:
The climb up until this point had proceeded fairly smoothly: we never got seriously off route, which had been a major concern, and, while climbing had taken longer than it should have, we had moved deliberately and safely.Throughout the day I had wondered when the mountain would expose our relative inexperience.
We had painstakingly researched our ascent route, both in guidebooks and through speaking with anyone we could. We were rewarded for this diligence with a relatively uneventful ascent. While it seems a painfully obvious oversight in retrospect, we hadn't paid the same attention to our descent route. We knew that we were to descend via a series of rappels to the Grand's easiest route, the Owen-Spaulding, and then downclimb from there. But as we paraded around the summit snapping pictures, it dawned on us that we couldn't find any rappel anchors, and the route down was not immediately obvious. Enter the bush league.
Downclimbing through the snow and sometimes-icy rock along an uncertain route was the only part of the day I'd file under "Distinctly Unpleasant." Fortunately, this is a popular route and we were able to follow tracks to the first rappel down an icy couloir. We'd heard that all the rappels could be made with a 60-meter rope, but our third rappel was not so. Halfway down the rappel I came over a bulge and could finally see the bottom; our ropes were swinging in midair, easily 25 feet from the ground. Clark and I shouted back and forth discussing options. A nearby gully was quickly dismissed after we witnessed rock- and ice-fall. We were debating a few mediocre options when our man Jack appeared at the top of the route. His party was using double ropes, so the rappel length issue became moot, and the "Jack: Friend or Foe?" question was finally put to rest (6). This picture shows a member of Jack's party in the free-hanging portion of the rappel:
An obvious lesson learned, the remainder of the descent proceeded without incident. At the Lower Saddle, nearly 14 hours after we left:
Your man with ten fingers and ten toes,
Jay
Notes:
1 The "class" of a route relates to steepness and difficulty. 1st class is walking on flat ground; 4th class is scrambling on steep terrain that doesn't require a rope; 5th class is technical rock climbing requiring a rope and protection placement
2 Free-solo = solo climbing without a rope or any protection
3 Simul-climbing = roped climbing without an anchor over easy terrain. The leader sometimes places protection between members to avoid the party being pulled from the wall in the event of a fall. However, more often the terrain is simple enough that there isn't risk of a ground fall.
4 Crux = the trickiest or most technically challenging portion of a climb
5 The use of the word "valuable" here is not hyperbole: in alpine climbing at altitude the risk of afternoon thunderstorms makes efficiency not only a prerequisite to summiting, but means that wasted time is a very real safety issue
6 Friend, in case that was unclear
