Canoeing, Hiking, Swimming and... the Grand!
On Friday, Adam, Odub & I went for a paddle as part of
Adam’s “rest day”. Colter Bay has canoes
for rent so we headed out on Jackson Lake & canoed around an island. Other than that, it was a pretty relaxing
day, including some laundry, hammock sitting, & generally relaxing. Adam & Jeff went to bed at 6:00 since
they were waking up at midnight to climb the Grand.
Cool duck thing we saw
I promise he had more fun than this picture seems!
His favorite thing... hands in the water!
Naps in the tetons :)
Fencing lessons from Jefe
On Saturday Odub & I headed to Jenny Lake to hike to the
boat launch.
Due to a surprise trail closure, our 1.5 flat walk around
the lake with optional extra ½ mile up to a waterfall turned into a mandatory
2.8 mile hike with several hundred feet of elevation change. Odub was a champ for most of it though, and
he loved the shuttle boat ride back to the visitor center.
Mandatory flower picking and truck playing breaks.
Chipmunks!
Almost there!
Waterfall
One of these peaks is Symmetry, which I hope to climb with Jeff Monday
He loved the bridges
After you hike more miles than you are old, you get 2 cookies!
After lunch & a nap, we headed to the lake to go
swimming! There’s a nice swim beach
walkable from our campsite, but you definitely need to wear shoes. It’s a
rock beach which hurts your feet! The
water is also quite cold, but Odub loved getting tossed in the air &
splashing down and playing with rocks and sticks in the water. And you can’t beat the beautiful backdrop of
mountains across the lake!
Meanwhile......
Adam and Jeff had a crazy long day! (this is Adam now). We managed to summit the Grand Teton via the Exum Direct route in a 23 hour car-to-car push. The Exum Direct route is a combination of the lower Exum ridge (6 pitches, 5.7) and the upper Exum Ridge (12ish pitches, 5.5). This is after ~6,000 feet of elevation gain through some very annoying boulder fields (~6 hour hike). We started our day at midnight and were the first party heading out for the day. There were a bunch of parties camped at the Lower Saddle - near the start of the climb - so we were 3rd in line to start climbing. It was very VERY strange being in such a remote alpine setting yet standing in line to start a climb.
Climbing technical rock in an alpine setting was a new experience for me. The huge scale of all the rock around you and the exposure is truly awesome. The physical and mental crux of the climb was about 2/3 up the lower ridge, where you pull around a corner, and all of a sudden have ~2000 feet of air below your feet and overhung rock above.
We moved super quickly on the lower parts of the climb and passed all the parties that started before us, but the altitude really started kicking our butts once we got on the upper ridge. We really slowed to a crawl, but managed to summit mid afternoon. We luckily managed to run into a group that really knew the decent well and showed us the most efficient way to get to the rap route and walk-off. We hit level-ish ground by 6pm, shoved food in our faces, and headed back to the car. After the LONGEST hike out ever, we got back to the car just after midnight. Crazy hard, crazy long, crazy fund day.
Summit marker on the Grand Teton
View from partway up the climb
Jeff on the one-and-only rap we did for the day
We did that! Jeff is pointing at the summit. The Exum Ridge is the long ridge line to right of him
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