Grand Teton 2023
We chose The Grand for our mountaineering trip this year. Arguably one of the most iconic mountains in the United States, I think of it as the North American sibling to the Matterhorn.
Grand Teton stands 13,775' above Grand Teton National Park near Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
Our fearless crew for this trip was Natasha Boghani, Brandon Lowe, Mihir Parikh, Matt Connelly, and yours truly.
Getting to Wyoming
Due to some work travel, I skipped the Seattle to Jackson road trip with Natasha and Brandon who got to see some giant clouds in the big sky state. Mihir tried to see how many times he could be rebooked on different flights. Eventually we all got to our exceedingly expensive log cabin in Jackson where we exploded our bags. What a mess.
On Wednesday we had afternoon gear check and guide meeting followed by grocery/missing stuff shopping. Then an early wake-up on Thursday to test the suspension on a 2016 Honda Civic before heading to the park to start the climb.
The Climb
Unlike the other big mountain climbs we have done, Grand Teton is a lot of alpine rock climbing, meaning there are roped climbing pitches at altitude. In early season conditions this means mixed climbing with rock, ice, and snow on your route. We were the one of the first guided climbs of the season for Jackson Hole Mountain Guides so we were definitely in early season conditions.
With that in mind, there was a lot of scrambling, especially on summit day, so my GPS is mostly a guess of what we did, not exact. Furthermore in my Gaia GPS screenshots, the map shows the mountain with very little snow on it. As you can see in our actual pictures there was in fact a lot of snow.
Day 1 — Hike to High Camp
Start: 6,745', End: ~11,000'
Day one was our heaviest pack weight, somewhere between 30 and 40 pounds depending on the person. We met our guides at the Lupine Meadows Trailhead before starting up.
The first few miles were pretty mellow incline through the forest. We got to know our guides Michael, Pete, and Holly. All have a lot of personality and were super fun to hang out with for the four days.
We had some panoramic views of the valley as we got up higher.
And eventually got into the alpine, where we had stunning views of Middle Teton. At this point we ditched the trail runners and donned our mountain boots to help us with the snow and ice we were beginning to experience.
Day 1 was actually pretty tough with the amount of elevation gain and the heavy packs. Once we got through the moat, things got steeper and we had to watch our footing as we crossed some snow fields and made our way up some loose rock and dirt. Eventually we made it to plush camp at 11,200'.
Unlike many of our trips, we didn’t have to haul and setup tents this time. The tents live at JHMG high camp and we would be staying there for all three nights. Also no need to carry up pads or sleeping bags because they were already up there. Very plush indeed.
There was one other group climbing at the same time as us. They were all ~50 and had each carried up a six pack of beer (as well as some stiffer libations) for their evening relaxation. They were super strong climbers too, blazing past us on summit day. Life goals for sure.
We had a great pasta meal before calling it a day. I slept like a rock.
Day 2— Training | The Watchtower
We woke up inside a cloud but it changed quickly and turned into beautiful cloud cover of the valley below us.
Pete “Pizza Stone” Stone cooked us some great bagel sammies before we started our training day.
We started with doing some walking/climbing techniques around camp, climbing the boulders strewn around the area. Then we put on our gear and made our way to the Watchtower, a ~200 ft spire near camp.
Both rope teams got a chance to climb the two spires which used a variety of skills. The weather changed about nine times during the climbs including snow so it was real on top of those spires. For me, the exposure in a few places was pretty spooky so that’ll be something I need to get more comfortable with as I do more alpine rock.
We got some downtime during the afternoon to nap and hang out around camp. After a hearty dinner of rice, quinoa, turkey, and sauce, we went back to our tents early to get our gear set and get some sleep before our alpine start the following day.
Day 3— Summit Attempt | The Enclosure
We woke up at 2:00am on day three to go for the summit. We downed some coffee and burritos before heading toward the lower saddle.
You drop a couple hundred feet first thing out of camp which would really suck about 10 hours later. After that it was mostly rock until we hit the steeper snowfield leading to the lower saddle. The snow was hard and we needed to put on crampons for most of the snowfield. The final ~300 vertical feet on the snowfield were really steep too so the travel to the lower saddle was pretty intense and a bit slower than normal. The benefit of being lower than the saddle was we were not yet exposed to the gusting wind.
Directly after the snowfield, we crested the lower saddle and boy did the wind hit us hard. It was a walk up loose gravel and rock to get to our first rest stop which was only *slightly* sheltered from the wind.
After our break where we hydrated and ate some snacks, we got into more class 3 and 4 terrain where we needed to scramble and add a bit of terrain protection (wrapping our rope around rock horns).
Natasha and I were on Pete’s rope team, and he decided to take us up The Crack of Doom, a small class 5 pitch that he led and then belayed us up.
You’ll notice that we are all wearing a lot of jackets. It was really really cold. Especially as we reached the higher sections of the climb where we had more wind exposure. Our guides were estimating that it was approaching 0 F, and everyone except maybe Natasha was wishing they had an extra puffy with them — she was smart and brought one.
This came to be a factor once we reached a break on a feature called the Sun Deck (~12,700 ft.). Due to some issues unrelated to us, we had to take an extended break there during which time we all got cold. When we finally continued to push up the mountain, I was having difficulty getting my feet back to being as warm as I wanted them, so I made the call to not pursue the summit any longer. My thought process was that since we were going to be idle more as the rope was run up and down the pitched out section of the mountain, my being cold was unlikely to improve as the day progressed. Being stuck on a cliffside without being warm did not sound attractive to me so I made that call for myself. I was really missing the extra 25 pounds of blubber I took to Denali last year :D
The rest of the crew, though still going strong, was having similar thoughts to varying degrees. Since we were not experienced with alpine rock climbing, most of us didn’t want to do something as big as The Grand in those conditions. We came to a consensus to stick together as a group and instead climb the second highest point in the Teton range: The Enclosure.
The Enclosure is right next door to the Grand and has wonderful views of the summit wall and all the routes up it. We could see the other group going up the Exum Ridge route which is on the right side of the picture above. Again, life goals.
After hanging out at the top for a half hour and soaking up the views, we began to make our way back down. Down is always a bit more harrowing in my opinion since you can really see the fall line below you. We took our time.
Eventually we got back to the lower saddle and took a break there.
Our guides set up an anchor system to get us some protection on our way down the steepest part of the snow field. That was the last major obstacle before we could cruise back into camp.
Once the slope settled out, we took some time to boot ski down the snowfield before facing that $%#&ing 200 ft incline back into camp. Ending on an uphill is the worst. It gave me Bonney Pass vibes from our Gannett trip in 2021. Eventually though we were back in our tent for nap time after a long and [in my opinion] successful day.
After our naps, we had a great night hanging out in the cook tent, telling stories and possibly sampling some libations with the other crew in camp. They took a long time but made it to the top via the Upper Exum Ridge route.
That night the weather started getting more intense. The wind picked up significantly and was pushing our tent over on us all night. The other guys had an even worse time with the wind actually shredding part of their rain fly during the night and the tent lifting some of them up in the air.
Day 4— Hike Out
Sunday morning we got up to the weather turning even more sour. We moved quickly to get packed up before the rain was to come in. Looking up at the upper mountain it looked like winter conditions with a ton of snow having been deposited during the night.
Unfortunately there was no beating the rain…or the wind. On our way down the lower snowfields, along with some sprinkling, we were getting some monster gusts that had the ability to knock you off your feet, and they did in fact knock Natasha off her feet a couple times.
Despite the weather though, it was still a beautiful hike out. Eventually we got our soggy selves back down to the woods for the final few miles. We even saw Chris Brown, our JHMG guide from Gannett in 2021 on the way out.
We posed for our success picture in the parking lot then stuffed our soaking wet selves in the Civic for a trip to the local restaurant for some well earned lunch and beers.
Closing Thoughts
This climb was super fun, but also tough. The exposure and the cold were two aspects that I wasn’t comfortable mixing during my first alpine rock experience. I’d love to go back later in the season some year and do the whole thing while warm:) I have no regrets, and I learned a ton. Can’t wait for the next one!
Picture credits to all the climbers and guides. Huge thank you to the guides for so much fun during the trip.
