Thread and Needle



After getting shut down on the west face of the Grand Teton and listening to rain on the tent fly all night, I was pleasantly surprised to wake to a sunny, cloudless day. It's been years since I did any personal climbing in Garnet Canyon, and Irene's Arete was the perfect re-introduction to alpine rock in the Tetons. 

 

The crux pitch was harder than I remembered and necessitated much grunting to surmount. Jaime and I both agreed it was a sandbag. We made it back to camp in a little more than eight hours and I promptly fell asleep, worn thin from a summer of work.

Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Skillet: Mid-Winter Skiing in the Tetons

Powder skiing is generally a low-stress outlet for fun. As my aforementioned mishaps with climbing associated high-levels of stress with the venue through which I typically seek excitement I decided to spend my winter learning to ski. Below are a few pics from ski touring in Grand Teton National Park January through February, 2013. Objectives included: Turkey Chute, Chute the Moon, Albright Peak and the Skillet Glacier.

 

 

Landon and Patrick skinning at the top of Ullr's, about to drop the Turkey Chute

Jim fixing his heel and the problem in Chute the Moon

Jim wishing he could free his heel and his mind on the outtrack down Avalanche Canyon

We watched two skiers rip Albright on the way up

Approaching Albright

Evan dropping knees not bombs on Albright Peak

The long skin to Mt. Moran across Jackson Lake

Skinning up the moraine below the Skillet Glacier

In the crosshairs

Ski penetration in the pan handle, AKA faceshots at 12k

Dropping in before the sun sets

Wister in Winter

Back in mid-January my friend Nadav Oakes and I climbed the North Face of Mt. Wister. I wrote a short piece for a local ski harman's website. Read about our ascent here.

Entropy

I've always excused myself for knowing little about physics. Often, I addend the remark with a kitschy apology like "I camp for a living or "I studied English, which I speak very well." This past week climbing ice in the South Fork Canyon, I worked closely with physics, or maybe just my lay understanding of it.

Nick approaches Moratorium

I finished a nine day ski trip in the Absoraka mountains ready to ply ice. I'd heard shady side climbs were getting fat, so I packed up and headed to Cody. Day one offered a short hike up to the Moratorium which was rumored to be climbable.

Tiny Dancer on the first pitch

Nick took the first pitch, which climbed like off-vertical eggshells with dubious protection. Ice this thins likes to pitch off at the slightest provocation, so Nick tapped gently. At the belay, I was showered with whatever he knocked down.

View of redemption

I drew the second pitch which in years past had been a short curtain followed by an easy ramp. Unfortunately the ramp hadn't formed and I was pushed onto a steep curtain to top off the flow. It looked hard from the bottom, so I clipped leashes onto my tools and proceeded to bash, thrutch and otherwise unceremoniously tap my way up the feature. Near the top, with only one stick needed to get to a good rest and shake out, I lost it. I swung and swung and swung and couldn't get my tool to stick. I tried to shake out but I was too pumped. With a primeval scream, I peeled off ass first, tools gyrating from my wrists, until one of the skinny 8mm ropes caught me. Shaken but uninjured, I went back up and finished the pitch.

The next couple days we got some good climbing done, but the South Fork still needs a bit more love before things will be great. Word on the street is the last three weeks have been good and I'm excited to get back.

Thin is In: Early-season Hyalite Ice

After spending the last eight months rock climbing, guiding and teaching rock climbing and learning about guiding and teaching rock climbing, I was ready for some winter climbing. A cursory inspection of the Tetons revealed little ice due to a warmer fall with little precipitation, but after a few phone calls I determined that while climbing was going off in the Canadian Rockies, south of the border the mantra was "Thin is In." I packed my bags and headed up to Hyalite for a three-day quickie before my next trip.

Travis on Crypt Orchid

The first day we swept the Mummy Cooler area, starting out with a simulsolo of Crypt Orchid for a warmup, followed by a quick lap on Feeding the Cat. After an ill-fated attempt at a small ribbon between Feeding the Cat and The Matrix during which Travis took a short lead fall, I flashed The Matrix, which was quite thin.We cooled off on Mummy II, which was soaking-wet, hollow and relied on turf sticks for half the route. Travis cooly dispatched the pitch.

Travis on Mummy II

The next day called for adventure and we got it. I'd never been up to Flanders Mountain before but we had it on good intelligence that there were classics in the area to be had, which we confirmed on the walk-in when we spied High Crimes, our objective for the day.

Nick and I following Champagne Slot

Travis is irrepressible. When it comes to runout, loose, dangerous or otherwise sketchy moderate terrain, no one is more psyched to put the rope up. When we arrived at the base of Champagne Sherbert which was dripping reportedly less than it usually does, Travis quickly racked up and blasted up the Champagne slot which was bereft of dripping water and, likewise, lacked ice.

Nick on High Crimes

High Crimes, however, was a treat. Undoubtedly the longest, steepest pitch currently frozen in the canyon, it was a pleasure to climb. The lower half was just off-vertical for a good 15 meters and it was fun to get in the thought-free groove of swinging and kicking up homogenized ice.

Travis assesses his options

On the way down, Travis spied a mossy, loose corner in an alcove climber's right of High Crimes. I remembered walking past it and thinking to myself that it could be a fun, if a bit gritty. Travis, however, is an enthusiast of the obscure and quickly racked up for the route.

Dustin Pinkpoints on Travis' Gear

I climbed a snow gully to the top ostensibly to take photos, but mostly to avoid getting suckered into climbing the route. It looked dirty and burly, a hypothesis confirmed when Nick came down with a jacket full of grime. Travis and Dustin called the route At a Moss for Words, which will probably stick unless someone else admits to having climbed it.

On the third day it rained, and after some meager dry-tooling near Fat and Thin Chance, I bailed out of Hyalite towards sunny Landiego. Word on the street is that winter's a-coming and I look forward to plain-old "In" climbing when I finish with work.

On Staying Positive

I finished seven weeks of field work at the end of October itching to get on some alpine routes. Word on the street from sources both reputable and suspect was that ice conditions were shaping up in the Tetons, so on a sunny Tuesday afternoon Landon Wiedenman and I set off for Glacier Gulch to have a look at the North Face of the Grand. From the Teton Glacier, our prospects looked dim – black streaks on rocks taunted us with dreams of ice – so we settled on taking the Hossack-McGowan up for a look at the North Molar Tooth Couloir.

Landon in Glacier Gulch

Landon and I have been climbing together for as long as I’ve been climbing in the Tetons. Lately, he’s been spending more time getting his massage practice off the ground than climbing, so I’ve taken it upon myself to drag him into the mountains with promises of plastic ice and warm temperatures. He’s solid and continues to impress me with how hard he can push off the couch.

Rappelling over the bergschrund

Our foray up the Grand was cut short at 1 PM when we realized that going any higher would mean a long, dark walk out that night over snow-covered boulder fields. Our plan had been to climb the route and walk out, so we hadn't brought enough fuel to spend another night on the glacier. But the new snow on already loose moraine was a hazard we preferred to negotiate in daylight.

We rationalized that the route was anemic at best and it was going to require a lot of dry-tooling to get to the smears of ice beckoning from the East Ridge, neither of us had slept well, and I was getting sick; so we went down.

Landon and the Teton Glacier cirque

The beauty of the Teton Glacier cirque never ceases to amaze me, and I stopped to take the same picture I take every time I go up there: Landon a small figure against the enormity of the glacier, with Mt. Owen and the Grand towering above.

Camp at the toe of the glacier

We returned to camp and made coffee and water. The stove gave us each a litre of lukewarm water before it hissed away the last of its fuel. Sunset found us past the delicate travel on the snow-covered moraine, at the car by 10 PM.

I spent the next several days resting and beating a lackluster flu-ish illness before the skies opened once again, and Landon and I headed back up into the mountains for a shot at a thin smear of ice on the North Face of Mt. Wister. We’d learned from our mistake and brought an extra days worth of food and fuel. That, on top of the extra ice screws necessary for a route with that much ice, made for heavy packs. The tradeoff was that having a camp so close to route would allow us to focus on the climbing. I even brought a pair of speakers which we used to drown out the wilderness experience with a pumping dubstep wobble.

North Face of Wister, red marks the line of ascent

We planned to climb a summer rock route, North Face, East Chimney, then access the ice via a beautiful Traverse of the God’s-esque ledge which intersected the smear at a quarter height. Morning saw us climbing short mixed steps punctuated by snow slopes in five pitches to the chimney proper. The last of these mixed steps was a wonderful slanting chimney capped with an icy goulette – classic! When we arrived at the East Chimney proper, we decided to climb steep mixed terrain rather than the chimney, which looked wide and overhung in several spots. I hooked and thrutch up one of the most challenging mixed leads of my life, swearing most of the way, and in two pitches we were on the traverse ledge. Unfortunately, by the time we’d crossed the ledge and climbed a short but poorly protected icy step, the sun was setting.

Landon below the mixed chimney

“You can go as far as you want,” Landon said as we checked out the ice in the fading sunlight, “set a v-thread and rap off.” He wasn’t interested in following the pitch. I’d come all this way to climb the damn thing so I flipped the ropes and started off. The ice was thin enough that I could see the rock behind like figurines in a snow globe. I climbed twenty feet before I could get in a stubby, and another forty before I got in a screw that might stop a fall. Fortunately, Landon’s anchor included three stellar cams, but ripping all the gear would still mean a big fall. I got gripped.

Looking down from partway up the crux pitch

“Can you get gear?”

“I’m busy,” I spit. “If I could get gear, I’d put it in.”

“Take it easy. You’ll find screws,” Landon assured me from the belay.

Self-portrait at the top of the crux pitch

I swore under my breath at Landon for being so gracious while I threw myself at a dangerous pitch and ensured we’d do the descent in the dark. Finally, I found an ooze of ice thick enough for a v-thread. I twisted in a screw for a belay, clipped into it, relaxed, and promptly dropped a screw as I tried to place it. It tumbled down the ice, hit the ledge and shot off into space. In my mind, I was watching myself fall that same distance.

It took me three tries to hit the v-thread. (Just a few days ago I hit my first v-thread of the season on the first try.) I was wrecked. I rappelled to Landon and apologized. He forgave me and we re-racked the gear. The descent included re-climbing the traverse ledge, then a combination of down-climbing and rappelling. A full moon illuminated the sky, and that combined with our headlamps allowed for an eventless descent. Near the bottom, we even started joking.

Unformed route on the North Face of Dissapointment Peak

The next day we walked out. Back at home, a quick check of the NOAA forecast confirmed that there would be no other opportunities to climb before I had to be back at work. I wanted another go at the smear. With the beta, I know now that I could take it to the top, but that’s not what climbing is about: I’ve learned more from failure than I ever learned from success, which is good because I fail often. It’s having something to come back to that keeps me going.

Fall Climbing in the Winds

It's snowing in Lander today, just as I come off almost two months of work. Hopefully the new snow will bring good conditions in the Tetons. I have a little more than two weeks off, but it's hard to get motivated again when you've spent the last two months disseminating climbing knowledge without the opportunity to climb yourself. The snow on my face this morning reminded me of crisp winter mornings, and I think seeing the mountains coming over Togwotee pass tomorrow morning will likewise rekindle some forgotten wanderlust.

In late September, I took a morning at work to climb the Southwest Face of Midsummer's Dome. Anne Peick and I hiked up from the John Day Cabin site in the early morning light, hoping to be off the face and back to work by midday.

Approaching Midsummer's Dome. The SW Face roughly follows the sun-shadow line.

When I was in the East Fork Valley in early August, I climbed the Southeast Face several times, but I had yet to do any other routes on the dome. On the Southwest Face, I was impressed by the quality of the rock and of the climbing. Midsummer's Dome is a crooked neapolitan of granitic rock, and the Southwest Face follows a vanilla-esque layer of creamy orange and tan rock.

Anne, pitch four.

We swung leads up easy fifth class punctuated by the occasional boulder problem. The route was straightforward, necessitating little thought and allowed for concentration on the joy of climbing. Sometimes I get caught up in longer, colder, darker and forget how type-one-fun climbing can be. I gazed out to the horizon line, the East Fork Valley dropping off to the West, yielding breathtaking views that stretch out to the Pinedale Anticline.

Looking down into the East Fork Valley

A few days later, the course was almost over, and I was itching to get out of the mountains. Fortunately Anne and Jim Margolis had the requisite gumption and suggested another go at Midsummer's Dome. This time it was the South Face Left. A natural line, the South Face Left has fewer ledges than the Southwest Face and offers fun climbing on good rock.

Jim and Anne following pitch three.

We third-classed up low-angle slabs to a good ledge and the start of the roped climbing. Jim led the first pitch, a slabby corner pitch that gained us a hanging belay below the route's crux: a flaring offwidth to a sloping lieback groove. We had only one rope for the three of us, and we either tied into the middle and made the pitches shorter or the second and third moved together at the end of the rope.

Jim demonstrating appropriate brake strand management.

It seems that this north-easterly cold front is dropping most of its snow along the Absaroka's and Eastern Winds, leaving a small dusting in the Tetons. Things are looking good for a trip to the Teton Glacier with Landon Wiedenman tomorrow and Thursday. More to come!