For years I’ve hung my head in shame, every time the
inevitable question would arise, “Have you ever climbed The Grand?”
Given the number of high-school kids and tourists that I’ve known to summit, it’s felt embarrassing to answer, “No, nope, never..." sheepishly confessing, "I've been to the
saddle a few times.” With distaste for
busy mountains, I’ve always avoided the park during peak-season and have been trounced by hard weather and sketchy snowpack on my half-dozen or so
attempts at winter climbing in the Tetons.
Now, alas – I can hold my head high and answer, “Well,
sorta...I mean, I’ve skied The Grand...”
While the descent has overshadowed the climbing experience, there was certainly a “mountaineering” element involved...you know: lots of slowly-walking-uphill & not-feeling-so-good sorta stuff. There
was a cool stretch of gully ice in the middle, but that seemed to be more of an
obstacle to the skiing than a technical challenge. Mostly, I felt like my legs were very skinny
and my cardio weak-sauce at the high elevation - penance for several weeks of either
sitting in a bar at sea level, or lounging around base camp on the Kahiltna Glacier...eating far more than the shoveling and short tours burned off.
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| Chris Ebeling getting his slog on |
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| Eyeing up the Teepee Pillar, sucking wind and hoping for cloud cover |
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| Mid-way through the Chevy Couloir, 200 meters of rolling ice offered respite from the slog |
With those weeks of poor weather and inactivity, I had
festered for long enough, and only needed a moment on return to empty
the duffels and spin some laundry before I
was not only ready to get up and move, but simply
needed a mission.
Chris Ebeling jumped onboard and we were southbound in a matter of hours.
We made a quick afternoon approach in trail runners, set up
camp in the meadows, knocked out another 1,500' to scout the next morning’s approach, then made a scratchy evening run from the Jackson Hole Mountain
Guides hut - timing the freeze perfectly for bonus points to round out the day.
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| Hard, frozen conditions on our way back to camp after the evening scout |
Topping out the following afternoon, I was warm & fuzzy and savored the simple pleasure of excellent conditions coupled with steady
movement (We clipped the rap stations as running belays…otherwise, I placed
only one screw on the sharp end and discovered that despite the apparent
contradiction, “mountaineering” can actually produce
Type1 Fun – go figure.),
then I realized – this time around I was totally comfortable with turns like
these being my “first” of the season. (
Full
disclosure: this past winter, I did actually managed three
days on my skis, working as photo assistant to
Paolo Marchesi, but honestly, hauling around his camera kit, linking perhaps half-a-dozen turns at a time, as we moved from one position to the next, was hardly the same as “going skiing.”)
Apparently, the frequency (or
infrequency) is paying off…for the last several years, I’ve been having great winter seasons, filled with ice climbing, yet utterly devoid of skiing. The
payoff? Every spring I end up ski
mountaineering someplace rad, and stepping onto the boards for the first time
in ten months or more atop some wildly exposed position. I guess experience breads confidence.
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| Chris Ebeling, exiting the Chevy Couloir |
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| Chris Ebeling, getting his tourist-pose on |
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| Leaving the summit snowfield, dropping into the Ford Couloir |
That said, I was far from rippin’ it up there. I enjoyed carving some sweet, buttery turns,
and even laid into a few – in the good
snow – but I also rested plenty on the way down, kept my legs fresh and
maintained control with a series of jump turns, and even anchored off my uphill
Whippet a few times in between as I caught my breath.
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| Pausing to suck wind, shortly above the rappels |
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| Feeling good after catching my breath and charging toward the Chevy - good snow and massive exposure: a delightful combo |
The raps were pretty casual to approach, but a shocking junk
show of rigging, along with a variety sketch-o pins gave pause to re-think our running belay and meager reinforcement gear on the way up. We re-set a number of anchors and found a few
bomber nut placements in the process.
With the amount of traffic this thing is seeing now, it should tighten
up soon.
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| Chris Ebeling, somewhere in the middle of four 60m rappels - to save weight, we used a single 7.8mm along with a 6mm tag line |
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| Letting 'em run on the Teepee Glacier |
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| Two happy dirtbags, as seen from the meadow camp with The Grand towering above - remember, "If it wasn't for foreshortening, no one would go up on anything..." |
All in all, a hoot of a quickie… We broke camp, jogged down the hill,
dosed on caffeine and punched the return drive. It was just what I needed – a quick and
successful adventure fix. Now then,
to climb something on The Grand…
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| Point-and-shoot shadow play on the hike out |
