Up the Grand again

After dealing with a painful shoulder for a few weeks, Mark finally decided to go get an MRI. As was somewhat expected, he had torn his labrum, and created a small bone spur in the process. He wanted one last weekend on the Grand before surgery, so we had planned to do the Petzoldt ridge with one of his friends from work.
After spending a few days in Rapid City hanging out with Jason and my parents, I took off at 3am on Thursday morning. I arrived back in Jackson at 1:30pm and stopped in the park to see if I could get a camping permit. I managed to get the very last permit in Garnet Canyon, the launching spot for the Grand. I was set to camp in the Morraine, at 10,200ft, in an attempt to let my body acclimatize. I packed and set off from my car at 6pm. At 6:02pm it began to hail pretty hard, so I sprinted back to my car and decided to sleep a bit and take off at midnight. However, I was worried about getting lost in the dark. So, when I awoke at 7:30pm to a gray sky but no precip, I took off again.
Hiking in daylight was nice, and I covered a decent amount of ground before 9:30pm, when it became dark. Soon after, I encountered a climbing pair headed down the mountain. Seeing that one of the guys was in a lot of pain, I asked if I could help. He had run into a rock while glissading, and had broken his arm, right below his elbow. He was trying to hike through rock fields, while stabilizing his arm with his other hand- no wonder he was in so much pain! Within about 25 minutes I had helped them use the removable padding of one of their packs and some extra clothes to make a splint and sling. I then quickly took off, eager to get to the Morraine.
I was able to stick to the path for the most part, getting lost only a bit in the rock fields. By 10:30pm I thought I must be close to the Morraine, but the trail was becoming impossible to follow. The darkness left me with little clue of which direction I needed to be heading, so I spent considerable time exploring, then backtracking to the trail. At 11:15 the mountains were enveloped by a whiteout of clouds, and by 11:30 my visibility was no more than 5 feet. Finally, at 11:45, I lost the path for good and decided that I should find shelter and attempt to sleep. So, not knowing where I was, I found a rock to crawl under, covered my pack with a raincover, and got into my sleeping bag.
Within 5 minutes of lying down the whiteout became so dense that I couldn't see my hand when it was stretched in front of my body. I spent about 45 minutes shivering slightly before I decided to get out my emergency blanket and put it around my sleeping bag. I was then decently warm and comfortable under the rock. It began hailing, then the hail turned to snow, and finally rain. I lied there, unable to sleep, though not worried because I was dry and relatively warm. I pulled my mummy bag so that only my nose stuck out, and just listened to the impressive gusts of wind. At about 3:30am I opened my sleeping bag enough so that I could see out, and was utterly surprised to see a clear sky and stars. I poked my head out and saw two beams of light below me, and about 1/4 mile away. Headlamps! I thought, 'I bet they're on the trail!'. So, I marked their position by a big rock nearby, quickly packed up my things, and took off toward that rock, hoping to find the trail nearby.
I found the trail again and had made it to the Lower Saddle by 4:45am. I curled up in my emergency blanket and waited for Mark and his friend to show up, which they did around 6:15am. Mark said that his shoulder was hurting quite a bit on the hike in, so we decided to forgo the Petzoldt Ridge and climb the Upper Exum instead, an easier route. The route was covered in a thin layer of ice, and clouds chased us all the way up the mountains, making for some hairy spots. But, it was a fun climb, and we hit the summit at 11:55am. The descent went smoothly, and by the time we had reached the Lower Saddle again it had begun to snow. We hiked through a blizzard for a bit, but the snow stopped below 10,000 ft. We made it back to the cars around 8pm, and although I was incredibly tired, my body felt marginally better than it had on our last trip up the Grand.


This was my last trip up the Grand for the summer. Mark had surgery a week later and everything went well. We left Jackson a few days later. I already miss the Tetons, and will definitely be back soon. They left a much larger impact upon me than I anticipated heading out there at the beginning of the summer.

Up Teewinot

While climbing the Grand a couple weekends ago, Mark slipped on some ice while trying to climb near the summit and managed to dislocate his shoulder. It popped back in immediately, but was pretty painful. It is still feeling unstable, so he decided to take the weekend off climbing. Since I haven't found anyone in the area I trust as a climbing partner, I decided to do a fairly non-technical climb up Mt. Teewinot on my own. So, at 3am Wednesday morning, I took off on a trail towards Teewinot, carrrying a ridiculously heavy load of anything I could need to get me on and off the mountain. I knew that the easiest route up wasn't easy to find, but I was prepared to be able to back off of anything I found myself on. The only problem was that there was a 30% chance of thunderstorms, with a low probability of lightning in the mountains.
As I took off into the chilly dark night, the stars were out and I saw a few meteors. The approach was not difficult to follow, but it was very enclosed by bushes and eventually trees, making for what I imagined to be a perfect bear hangout. So, I clapped and sang myself along, and stopped fairly often to survey my surroundings. By about 4:45, I was sick of being in the dark, in the middle of nowhere, by myself. I had seen headlamps down below me eariler, but didn't see them now. Surveying the sky, it was completely overcast, and the clouds didn't look nice. I stopped for about 15 minutes trying to decide what to do. I finally decided that I couldn't justify continuing to ascend with the sky looking like it did, so I turned around. I had hiked down for about 30 minutes when dawn hit and I began to feel much more comfortable on the trail. I came upon the other climbers I had seen the headlamps of from earlier and they asked if I had already summitted and was headed back down. I replied that I had instead been scared away by the clouds. They brushed it off and said they're still high in the sky, no worries for now. They continued on, and I again sat and contemplated my situation. I finally decided that I would go up until I got wet or until I saw lightning, and that it was just too early to forgo the hike. So, back up I hiked.
I came across another pair of climbers eventually and stopped to chat. They were headed up the north ridge, a much more difficult climb. They were surprised to see me without a climbing partner. As I hiked on and finally reached the base of Teewinot, there was a cluster of about 10 climbers within sight of each other. Most were pursuing the same route as I. I decided to let most of them go in front of me because it seemed more likely I would find the easiest route up with people to generally follow.
After climbing a bit, we came across the big snow field on Teewinot. I had read the accident reports, and many of the accidents on the mountain came from this snowfield. As I stepped on, I immediately noticed that the snow sucked. I knew that it would be difficult to self arrest if I fell, and I stopped to consider the consequences. There was a rock field at the bottom of the snow field, which would hurt to fall into, but there was no cliff. The consequences were not life-threatening, so I proceeded. I made it 90% up the snow field and was very excited to get back onto rock, when I fell. I dug into the snow with my axe, but wasn't rewarded with the familiar sound and feeling of immediately halting. Instead, I slid, lost control of the axe for a few seconds, then regained control. I got the axe directly under me, dug my feet in and put all my weight into the arrest. But, I continued to slide. I remember thinking, 'ok, this isn't working, but I'm doing everything right and all I can do is keep digging in. If I slide all the way down to the rock field, I'll be ok, so just stick with it.' After a 90 foot slide, I came to a stop, about 60 feet above the snow field. All the other climbers were within earshot to hear the fall and slide, so they were all watching. A few yelled out a congrats on the arrest, and two climbers offered to snake down a rope and belay me up the snow field. (I wasn't the only one to fall that day- a guide did the same and fell into the rock field, slicing his leg open, and another climber had managed to arrest a similar fall the day before.)
I paused to regain composure, then retraced my route up the snow field and successfully reached the rocks. I laughed about the fall with a few of the climbers. I was never in any real danger, and I wasn't panicked while I was sliding, but it was still felt like a bad start to my climb. It was at this point that the two climbers that were headed up the north ridge suggested I rope up with them. Although they were climbing a much harder route (5.8), the idea of having partners and being tied to a rope was incredibly enticing, so I agreed. We set off up Teewinot at 7:30am.
Luckily, my two new partners were safe, experienced climbers, and a ton of fun to climb with. We climbed about 10 pitches and did about 5 scrambles up to the summit. We were in a total white out for about 3 hours, unable to see anything more that 100 feet from us. It wasn't the safest weather conditions to be climbing in, and I was worried about getting caught in a storm, but we couldn't descend the route we were ascending, so there was nothing to do but push on and enjoy the climb. Eventually the white out cleared, and though we were threatened with some dubious clouds at a few points during the day, we summitted at 7:30pm and managed to get back to the cars by 10:50pm without a single rain drop or lightning strike. There's maybe only 10 days like that a summer in the Tetons. We were incredibly lucky. It's pretty stupid to summit anything in the Tetons past about 2pm. I had promised Mark a 2:30pm turn around time if I hadn't summitted, which was ignored due to my change in route and inability to turn back. He was pretty disappointed in my lack of better judgment, but all I could do is take in the evidence around me and minimize the risks to the best of my ability.
In the end, that route required better planning on all our parts, and I'll never summit anything that late again. But, having said that, our immense luck provided for an absolutely amazing day. The pictures below are from various points up the climb. Absolutely gorgeous. It was so cool to be challenged by some tough rock routes while 5000 feet over the mountain's base. Overall, we gained about 5600 feet, and I hiked for 20 hours straight. My body hated me by the end, but it was probably the most rewarding day I'll experience this summer.
This is from the start of the trail looking at Teewinot, though not taken by me. Both times I stood in this spot it was pitch dark, and I couldn't even tell I was hiking towards a mountain.

This is from the morning, as I approached the base of the mountain.

The snow field, about 80 meters long,

On the way up,

And near the summit,

Finally, a pano of the range taken after eight glorious hours of sleep!

Up the Tetons

Alright, time for some stories and a bunch of pictures from the last couple weekends of climbing in the Tetons.
Trip 1: Two weekends ago, Mark and I took off to attempt the Chouinard Couloir on the Middle Teton. We left the car at 2am and began the hike up. It was a cool night, but I was quickly sweating due to the pace we were keeping. About 4 miles in I stopped for a water break, and became aware for the first time of the mountains towering over me. The moon was just bright enough to give an eerie view of what we were heading into, and combined with the cloudless, starry night, it was incredible. Surprisingly, we didn't see any bears on the way up; although I did see a pair of eyes that seemed too far off the ground to be a small animal, but it's always hard to tell in the dark.
I was getting pretty tired, and struggling to keep up. We hit snow about 7 miles in, and Mark stopped to make sure I knew how to self arrest with the ice axe. About 10 minutes later, I got a chance to practice. The snow was hard and icy, and as it got steeper, I fell more and more. It got to a point where we were forced to chop steps with the ice axes. This means 1 step per every 30-45 seconds. At this point I was tired enough and not feeling very well, so I was content to let Mark do most of the work while I followed. I gave chopping a try for a bit- it was pretty exhausting, and I found that it takes some practice to be able to do it well.

Too steep to hike up without falling

Mark's axe

I'm tired and my fingers are cold!

Once we reached the base of the Middle, I was cold, wet, tired, and had a stomach ache, so I curled up on a rock for about 20 minutes. Luckily, I felt better after a bit, and the sun began to reach us, warming me up. So, I shoved some calories and water into me, and we took off for the couloir. But, the snow field was steep and we had to chop steps the entire time. We could see that the couloir only got steeper, and Mark was worried that the descent might be pretty bad, especially without crampons. So, we decided to retreat.
This meant it was time for me to learn to glissade, which is just a glorified technique of sliding down a snowfield on your butt. You dig the end of the ice axe into the snow at your side to control your speed, and you’re prepared to flip over and self arrest if you lose control. I was skeptical and a bit nervous to try it, but I didn’t have much of an option at the point, so I went for it. It was pretty easy, and crazy fun. After about 45 minutes of going up, I was back at the base in about 60 seconds!

My first glissade!

We then took off up another snowfield (less steep) towards Nez Perce. After more chopping of steps and much practicing at self arresting as I constantly fell, we reached rock! We ended up scrambling up the northwest ridge of Nez Perce, but didn’t summit. We got within about an hour of the summit and it was getting late, so we decided to back off. It was a bit disappointing and I was tempted to just go for the summit, but the fact that Mark was worried about it made me quick to agree to give up on it. The scrambling was easy, but a bit exposed at times. It’s pretty safe, but watch your step!

Great picture Mark, thanks. I'm trying to chop steps- almost there!

Finally, rock!

Careful!

I haven’t mentioned this yet, but oh my, it’s absolutely gorgeous up there! Just to stop and look around makes you want to explore everything you can see. It’s hard to explain the feeling- I’ll let you know when I figure it out.
We climbed back down, then got the chance to glissade down a huge snowfield- it was awesome! It also allowed us to cover a lot of ground in little time, which I’ll miss as the snow melts. The video below is of Mark glissading. It’s horrible quality, and if you listen to the audio it’s pretty ridiculous. I became somewhat worried he was going to run into me, which had me clutching the camera, my ice axe, and evidently just giggling.

View on the way down and Mark waiting for me to hurry up and glissade down (impressively patient)

The video is sideways. Mark glissading down a snowfield at the base of Nez Perce.

We got back down to the car by about 5:30, and I was pretty tired and sore. We drove a few miles to the climber’s ranch in the park, where we were able to shower, cook dinner, and crash!

On the hike out

Trip 2: Last weekend we took off to do the Petzoldt Ridge on the Grand Teton. Again, we took off at 2am. This time however, I began to get really tired only about 45 minutes into the hike. I started to feel sick about 4 miles in, but just wanted to try to tough it out. I was hoping that once the sun came out I would feel a little better. We stopped about 6.5 miles in and considered calling it off, but I wanted to keep going, so we proceeded to the Upper Saddle, which is the launching point for the Grand. By this point it was about 7:30am- the hike had taken much longer than normal, thanks to my extreme lethargy.

Hiking some fixed ropes up to the upper saddle

We hung around the upper saddle for about an hour, trying to decide what to do. By this I mean that Mark was absolutely set on not climbing with me, and I was absolutely set on continuing up the Grand. He has a good amount of experience dealing with others and high altitude sickness, so knew that it wasn't going to get any better by ascending. I knew this too, but I felt ok, with the exception of being REALLY tired. I knew I could tough it out, it was just whether it was worth making him put up with a sick climber all day.

"Seriously Mark, I feel fine." I have no clue why he didn't believe me...

In the end, we decided to head up the Upper Exum, an easier route, and a route Mark has climbed multiple times. I felt pretty crappy all day, and was moving very slowly. The highlight might have been pooping in a bag near the summit and having to carry that all the way out. However, the climb itselft was amazing, and of course, gorgeous.

Mark, getting ready for the second pitch

Climbing...

Climbing... and thinking 'man, I wish she'd hurry up'

A view of a climbing pair below us

A view from about half way up the Grand

"I'm about the puke on you and you're just going to take my picture?"

We started to see some clouds build as we neared the summit, so we were pretty anxious to get off as quickly as possible. We met another pair near the summit who was equally eager to get off quickly, and we used two of their ropes tied together to turn 3 rappels into 2, saving time. We finally returned to the lower saddle by 5:30pm. We took off almost immediately for the hike out, and I returned to the car by about 8:30pm. 18.5 hours of hiking and climbing had left me unbelievably tired, and my ankles were not at all happy to be hiking that long. A pretty epic day though, and well worth it. Strangely, it made me want to get out there even more. But, given how poorly my body was responding, I reluctantly agreed it was best to take a weekend off.

Proof! The summit mark!

Trying to keep my balance on the hike out

Next weekend the Petzoldt Ridge is gonna happen!

In the backcountry with Jason

Jason and I took a week to explore the backcountry of Yellowstone and Teton National Parks. We spent a few days in Yellowstone, where we hiked and camped around the Grebe Lake and Heart Lake areas. It was pretty area, though the park rangers weren't entirely cooperative and the mosquitoes were horrible! Luckily, Jason talked me into picking up mosquito netting before we left- best $3 I've ever spent!
After hiking half way around Heart Lake, I managed to lose the bear spray while crossing a river, and we decided to hike out. In the process, we unknowingly set off the 'help' button on the SPOT, sufficiently scareing the parents (they forgave us). Next, we headed down to Teton and spent a few days hiking up Death Canyon and Granite Canyon. This area was different (lush forest vs. burnt forest), but pretty in an entirely different way. And, less mosquitoes!
Jason dehydrated a ton of food before leaving Lincoln, which we consumed over the week- pretty good stuff. After Teton, we returned to Jackson for some good beer and amazing Thai food (coconut tofu- yum!). We had pretty good weather all week, and I was definitely tired by the end- a good feeling. Pictures to follow eventually!
And now to catch up on work...

Porcupine

The snow is melting in the Tetons, but slowly. Mark and I planned to hike up the trailhead to check out the conditions. We planned to leave at 1am this morning. So, after stocking up on calories and fluid, I went to bed at 8:30pm and woke up at midnight to drive out to the park to meet Mark. I tediously packed my bag and chose layers of clothes to fit the weather. By 1am I was incredibly excited to get hiking. But Mark was worried about the overcast skies, and we eventually called it off. As it turned out, we would have been caught in a nice thunderstorm. So although it was a good call, I was pretty disappointed.
I changed out of my hiking layers and laid down to sleep. After a few minutes, I heard something brush against my car, and sat up. I looked around, but saw no one, so laid back down. A minute later there was a light shining towards my car. I sat up again to see Mark, from across the trailhead parking lot, shining his headlamp at me. Then, it focused on a large creature, which I first took as a racoon. I cracked my door open and Mark said 'what the heck is that thing?!' It turns out the creature he was spotlighting was a HUGE porcupine! It approached his car, then went around the back and to the opposite side Mark was leaning out. While he switched his headlamp to the front of the car, I kept mine on the back, and watched the porcupine reverse his direction and lumbar back towards Mark. By the time he realized what was happening, the porcupine was only a couple feet from him and was standing up on its hind legs. Needless to say, Mark jumped back in the car and slammed the door!

Grill Master

I went back to Rapid for a few days to visit the parents and see the Michael family. It wouldn't be summer with the Michaels without 'where's the beef' night. Dad, as always, did an awesome job on the grill.


The Michael family at Pactola Lake,

And some rodeo pictures.