Meghan's Blog

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August 20, 2007

The Middle Teton

I apologize in advance, this is going to be a long entry. So, here's the short version: My sweetie and I climbed the Middle Teton. It was challenging.

Now, here's the long version: I admit it, I'm a trail hiker and runner. Place me on a trail, and I'll go wherever it goes, around a hill, into a valley, up over a mountain. I've never really gone to the top of a tall mountain via a route, rather than a trail. However, in celebration of my 29th birthday (which is actually later this week), my sweetie and I did something a little bit different (for me), and summited the Middle Teton, in the Teton Mountains, Wyoming. My sweetie has spent a fair bit of time climbing and mountaineering, so summiting the Middle Teton via its easiest route is rather vanilla for him. For me, it was quite a challenge.

The weather in the Tetons had been crap on Friday and Saturday. Some sort of unsettled system came in and sat over the region, dumping lots of rain, hail, wind, thunder, and lightning from morning until evening each day. Sunday's weather prediction was the same as Saturday's, so we knew that we might not be able to summit. We decided to head out anyways with Gore-Tex, and turn back if the weather was foul.

We left the trailhead at Lupine Meadows, elevation approximately 6700 feet, in Grand Teton National Park, at 5:10 am on Sunday morning. The drive to the trailhead was incrementally quite foggy, but we could see an encouraging star-filled sky through the fog breaks.

We hiked for 2 hours on a good, well-graded (runnable, if one wished to) trail about 5-ish miles and 2000 feet elevation gain to a place called The Meadows. The Meadows often serves as a base camp for climbing the Middle Teton and the South Teton. Interestingly, the trail to The Grand Teton (the tallest and most popular mountain in the range) diverges from The Meadows. There were a few groups camping in The Meadows, and we passed quietly through in the still early-ish morning hours. At The Meadows, the trail ends, and the route towards the Middle Teton begins.

Just above The Meadows, there are two route choices up a nearly 1000 foot tall steep pitch. My sweetie thankfully led us up the easier of the two routes. It was mostly huge, van-sized boulders, some scree, and a little bit of slippery dirt. At one point, as we contoured across some slippery dirt, I became somewhat nervous. Below us, a stream of snowmelt undercut a huge snowfield. If we had slipped here, we would have been washed underneath the snowfield by this whitewater! We made it to the top of this steep pitch without issue, and the route flattened for a bit.

Now about 3000 feet into the climb, we observed that the sky was clear and the sun was warm. For the moment, the weather was looking great. Soon, the route steepened again, and we scrambled over some more huge boulders. Fascinatingly, we could hear water rushing underneath the boulders, but we couldn't see it! Of course, in many places, all I could see was a dark abyss in the gaps between boulders. Once we topped out over this pitch, again the route flattened into a more gentle climb to The Saddle.

The Saddle seperates the Middle Teton (to the north) and the South Teton (to the south). I think The Saddle is about 10,800 feet elevation. From there, the view back down the canyon we came from is fabulous, as is the westward views into the rest of the mountain range in Idaho. From The Saddle, the easiest route up the Middle Teton turns right (north) and proceeds towards, into, and up what is called the Southwest Couloir. My sweetie, having summited the Middle Teton several times, took us on a slight shortcut that bypassed The Saddle, to the base of the Southwest Couloir.

Via this shortcut, we climbed up and over the very top edge of a snowfield. Here, the going was finally getting tough, for a new mountain climber like me. The terrain was steep; the rock was loose; the snowfield was exposed. Physically, I was not challenged by this route. Mentally, I was becoming quite challenged. I unabashedly shed several tears here and told my sweetie that I didn't want to go any further. I knew the route would continue to become more difficult; I was uncertain if the weather would hold for the time it would take us to make it to the summit and back down again; I was just plain scared. In those few moments, I was really quite satisfied with making it this far. My sweetie was most supportive and encouraging, and I got my wits about me to start moving up again. Once above this, the route climbed some more big boulders and scree to the base of the Southwest Couloir.

To show you how much of a mountain climbing novice I am, I had no idea what a couloir was until yesterday. Basically, a couloir is a steep gash/gully carved out of hard rock. From the base of the Southwest Couloir, it was about 1200 vertical feet through the couloir to the summit area. This couloir was filled with loose rock and scree, and intermittent hard rock exposures. We climbed up, and up, and up. The loose rock and scree was really steep hiking and hands-over-feet scrambling. The intermittent rock exposures required a few actual climbing moves, using foot and hand holds. In the grand scheme of climbing, these moves were simple and straightforward. It was actually quite fun and easy to make the moves, though I feared my ability to down-climb them on the descent. I'm confident that I shed a few more tears over wondering whether I was going to make the down-climbs on the descent, but my sweetie assured me his assistance should I need it.

Once at the top of the couloir, the summit is a short but terrifying scramble up a jumble of highly-exposed (Think: multi-thousand foot drops on both sides of you) rocks. As I scrambled, I hollered with equal parts terror and exhiliration. At 10:30 am, 5 hours and 20 minutes after leaving the trailhead, we arrived at the summit of the Middle Teton, 12,804 feet elevation. I was shocked and elated and amazed. The views were truly amazing. It was also windy and cold. My sweetie gave me the grandest of hugs, as well as my birthday gift right on the summit! He gave me concert tickets to The White Stripes, and the tickets nearly blew off the mountain in the wind! We could only stay on the summit for about 15 minutes, because it was so cold and windy. We took some pictures, chatted (well, shouted over the wind), and stared open-jawed at the 360 degree view of the world. Besides, we were watching the puffy white clouds begin to gray, and we knew that, at some point, the weather was going to turn.

The couloir descent wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I was quite scared by the hard-rock down-climbs. As promised, my sweetie talked me down them, telling and showing me where to put my hands and feet. There was a lot of exposure, but the rock was solid and easy to stand on/grip. During this descent, I talked about laying down on/kissing the more stable flat ground, whenever we got to it. Slowly, surely, carefully, and without incident, we exited the couloir. This time, we took the long way over to The Saddle because it was easier, and so we could see the views that The Saddle offered. And, the views didn't disappoint!

We had originally talked about resting and snacking at The Saddle (Believe it or not, aside from the time on the summit, we hadn't yet taken a legitimate rest break.). However, Mother Nature was beginning to show her colors. At well over treeline, The Saddle isn't a great place to be in a thunderstorm, so we kept heading downhill. We then set our sights on The Meadows, 2000 or so vertical feet below us, as our resting spot. As an aside, we had encountered 5 other people while climbing that morning. Three women were headed for the South Teton, and 2 other women summited the Middle Teton a bit after us. All of us got early starts on and off of the mountains, because of the volatile weather way up here. However, on our way down from The Saddle, we met up with 2 guys who were headed up the Middle Teton in the early afternoon, in what appeared to be declining weather! Sometimes I don't understand humanity, and I guess I should stop trying. I hope that they safely summited! The descent back to The Meadows was uneventful but slow because of the technical terrain. Jumping, swinging, and scrambling through the boulders was hard but fun work!

Once back in The Meadows at treeline, we opened our packs on a wide rock and gorged ourselves. At this point in the day, The Meadows was busy with people, mostly those along the route to the Grand Teton. Strings of guided groups, and small, independent climbing parties marched up and down the trail. It was fascinating to see the spectrum of people who were headed for the Teton Mountains' tallest mountain! Several fat marmots hovered nearby, watching us eat, obviously having successfully obtained food from humans before. We watched the now-gray clouds froth and fold high above us, and we listened to the distant sound of thunder.

After about 30 minutes of feasting, people-watching, marmot-avoiding, and resting, we headed back down the trail (Trail! Oh glorious trail, how I've missed you!) to the trailhead. Thunderstorms were now prevalent, and we were happy to feel sprinkles of refreshing rain here at the lower, warmer elevations. At about 4:15 pm, or just over 11 hours after beginning our journey, we arrived back to the trailhead.

We drove a short distance to a place called String Lake to swim, and to conclude our adventure. My sweetie fully-submerged himself, but the snow-melt water was way too cold for me. I waded in to my thighs, hoping to mimic a post-run ice bath.

In all honesty, the mental fatigue induced by being beyond my comfort zone for such a long time was much greater than the physical fatigue of a 16-ish mile, 6000 foot alpine peak ascent. I was simultaneously thrilled at our accomplishment and shell-shocked by mental fatigue! My sweetie and I went through a tremendous bonding experience, though. He worked very hard to teach me how to climb the mountain, and to keep me safe and motivated. I implicitly trusted him and his guidance as we accomplished our goal. At this point, just 24 hours after-the-fact, I have little desire to climb another mountain. However, I anticipate an attitude shift and I predict that there will be more mountain climbing in my future!

My sweetie took a bunch of pictures, so I intend to post some later this week.

Posted by Meghan at August 20, 2007 4:57 PM

Comments

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