Monday, September 17, 2012

Blood bath on the Grand Teton!

  I've been back in the dirty south for the past 11 days, and I'm flying back into Jackson tomorrow. Been doing a little reading, a little drinking, a LOT of driving (football games, weddings, seeing family/friends, etc.) and a LOT of sleeping. I guess my last update was the trip report for the Cirque of the Towers. Soon after that, my brother and father came to visit and I got to show my brother the place that I have been hiding out for the past 3 years. One of the scenic Leigh Lake campsites allowed us to get into GTNP without doing any strenuous hiking...and afforded us the luxury of dragging along a beer cooler. Just before they arrived I had the opportunity to spend a weekend in the mountains with Katie and friends. It went as follows:

  Left Lupine Meadows TH at around 7:30 AM. The 3 week, soul sucking, eye drying, lung burning, smoke screen had lifted from the valley and it was a beautifully clear morning. As we began the hike, the elk bugling in the distance and the crisp morning air reminded us that fall (always my favorite season no matter where I am) was on its way. The plan was to try to do a link-up of the Middle and the South Tetons on Wednesday with the girls, then for me and Devin to cruise up the Upper Exum Ridge on the Grand on Thursday morning. We realized pretty quickly that doing the Middle and the South in one day wasn't gonna happen, and I couldn't have cared less. As snobby as it sounds, I wasn't too thrilled about the long ass "hike" up the Middle in the first place, but I did want to get the epic view of the Grand from the summit. We took our time cruising up the South Fork of Garnet Canyon to the saddle between the Middle and the South. From there, the Southwest Couloir is obvious and the route scrambles straight up. By the time we'd reached the top, the smoke had moved back in. My eyes started to burn and I was feeling lightheaded so we bailed after taking a few photos on top.

 Soon we were back at the meadows where Devin and I had our camp set up. We begrudgingly said goodbye to the chicks and enjoyed the afternoon in the serene environment of the meadows. Wake up was around 2:40 AM the next morning and we took our time drinking coffee and eating oatmeal. Soon we were making our way to the Lower Saddle. We made pretty good time without busting our ass too hard and were through the Eye of the Needle sometime around sunrise.

 As we were standing on the west side of the Wall Street couloir watching other climbers negotiate the end of the Wall Street ledge, Devin's nose began bleeding. No big deal. Just stuff some tissue in there and keep moving. We reached the end of Wall Street, started to rope up and Devin was starting to get annoyed, but still not concerned. Around the top of the Golden Staircase is where we were both thinking "WTF is up with your nose?!" The entire climb went off without a hitch, except that Devin's nose kept bleeding, and bleeding and bleeding. It literally bled the entire way up the ridge, then entire way down, stopped for a SHORT while back at camp, only to resume bleeding for the duration of the hike back to the car; at which point it promptly stopped so that Devin could slam some victory beers. We chalked it to already dry mountain air, excess smoke and the altitude. It was the only blemish on an otherwise perfect day in the Tetons. As painful as it was to watch Devin suffer through such and annoying ailment, it was rather funny to watch the reactions on the faces of other hikers as we approached them. Devin literally looked like had just sunk his fangs into someones jugular. Blood was running down his face since we had long run out of tissue and paper towels. Most people must have either thought that he'd been in some kind of an accident or that he was a pretty damn good looking zombie.

  I'm super excited to get back to Jackson and enjoy the fall weather in the mountains. Gonna try and squeeze in some bigger routes before I (hopefully) head out to Yosemite on Oct. 1. After that, its possibly some City of Rocks climbing, deep south November climbing, and then....SKI SEASON BABY!

  Here's a picture I snapped of Devin at the bottom.
Way to go Dev!!

I'll upload more from the climb later

_BY

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