Well this write up is long overdue... Two weeks ago Brett and I took a trip up to the Tetons to get in some steep skiing along with scouting out a few lines for future trips. We were more than psyched about how things turned out!
Friday evening we arrived at Taggart Lake Trailhead around six after the 5 hour drive from Salt Lake. The plan was to camp up Garnet Canyon for two nights and ski whatever we wished for those two days, with endless possibilities. After packing up and getting everything ready we hit the trail at seven, with some gorgeous views of the Tetons as we approached Garnet Canyon.
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| Crossing Bradley Lake on Friday Evening |
The skinning ended up being a lot easier than I expected. After crossing over Bradley Lake we began the uphill approach into the canyon, with more than enough snow to keep the skins on the entire time. Several hours later, in the dark of night, we started looking for potential campsites. We found what appeared to be the safest and most comfortable spot, tucked behind a large boulder somewhere between the meadows and the platforms. We dug out a trench platform for the tent, boiled water, cooked up some mac n cheese, and got to bed before midnight.
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| Basecamp |
The 4 a.m alarm sounded and we were up getting ready. Although we weren't too pressed on time stability wise thanks to the cooler temps, we were psyched to ski and that kept us moving at a steady pace throughout the morning. We started moving up the left fork as a beautiful sunrise started to illuminate the surrounding mountains. Our plan was to summit the Middle Teton via the Southwest Couloir and ski either the Ellingwood couloir, East Face, or Southwest Couloir. We passed underneath the Ellingwood Couloir on our way up and admired how fun it looked. As we neared the top we came up with our plan to ski Ellingwood and then if we were feeling good go back up the South Teton.
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| Heading up the left fork of Garnet |
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| Brett ascending the Southwest Couloir of the Middle |
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| Great views of the Grand from the summit of the Middle |
From the summit of the Middle Teton we snapped some pictures of the Grand Teton (scouting out the Ford-Stettner Couloir), and threw the skis on. The first few hundred feet of our line drops into the East Face for some steep and fun turns. As the east face continue skiers left into the Glacier Route, we approached the entrance into Ellingwood and got a glance of our descent. It looked sweet!! The couloir is somewhere around 1500 feet and steep the entire way. During the crux of it I would say the angle gets to around 50 degrees. We skied this run out to the bottom and collapsed under our tired legs, psyched none the less.
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| Epic hop turn to start out the run |
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| East Hourglass Couloir in the background |
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| Enjoying the steep skiing in Ellingwood |
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| Ellingwood couloir |
We took 20 minutes or so to enjoy some lunch of crackers, cheese, trailmix, and snickers before throwing the skins back on and making our way back up to the saddle between the Middle and South Tetons. From here we followed the Northwest couloir up to the summit of the South, enjoying some fun scramble terrain near the top.
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| Brett making his way up the Northwest Couloir of the South Teton |
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| About to summit |
We opted to drop in the East Face/East Ridge. To get to this you continue a hundred feet or so east to a false peak where you can see your line. The first few turns were steep, probably over 50 degrees and any fall here would be very high consequence. We picked our way through this upper cruxy section and it started to mellow out a little bit further down. Many of turns later we arrived back at our base camp, psyched on the successful day. It was about 2 p.m. and it was gorgeous out. One of the highlights of the trip for me was sitting out in this beautiful area that afternoon, boiling water and soaking up the sun. We cooked an early dinner and were ready for bed before eight, just as some snow started falling.
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| East Face/East Ridge of the South Teton |
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| Steep skiing at its finest |
The next morning we woke up surprised to find that there was a solid 6-8 inches of snow on the ground, and it was still coming down. We got ready at a much slower pace this morning, but finally put on the wet boots and stepped out into the winter wonderland. Still not too sure what our goal for the day would be, we made our way up canyon as we watched sluffs pour off the huge walls of Nez Perce and the Middle Teton. Every 20 seconds or so snow would, and we would watch it either dissipate from the wind or softly hit the ground. We made our way up the apron of Nez Perce, thinking of getting in some powder turns just throughout the apron. However, we crept up to the enterance of the Hourglass couloirs and the East Hourglass particularly looked like there wasn't very much activity on the walls. Everything we did see looked plenty manageable. Thus it was decided, head up East Hourglass Couloir and continue to evaluate what the snow was doing.
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| A winter wonderland in Garnet Canyon |
What seemed like a million switchbacks later we approached near the top of the couloir. The very top was guarded by what looked to be some 5th class climbing and not the best place to be when snow is sluffing into you. We found a good place to switch to ski mode near this and got ready to drop just as it started to clear up. The run was amazing. About 40 degrees the entire way down the couloir and so much fluffy snow that covered us with each turn. It was impossible to not howl our way down this one. Even the apron had great skiing and we continued to get faceshots all the way to the bottom of our run.
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| Brett enjoying the great snow down East Hourglass |
As we got back to camp and started packing up a party passed us that had just got turned around on the Stettner Couloir. We chatted for a bit and I asked about the conditions in the Stettner. Sounds like it's looking pretty good this season, definitely an objective for the next few weeks!
The snow got pretty heavy as we exited Garnet Canyon, and really tested our tired legs which were already supporting heavy backpacks. Eventually we made it back to the trailhead and were offered some beers by the party that skied past us. Hard to resist this, we relaxed in the parking lot and chatted with them for a while before eventually stuffing our gear and making our way to town.
Over pizza we discussed our options for our last morning. We were both psyched to go take a look at the East Face of Teewinot in the morning. Unfortunately this meant a 10:30p.m wake up, just a few hours away. We managed to get a few hours of sleep at the Taggart Lake Trailhead before waking up to a chilly night. Not having bikes, we were forced to walk 4 miles on the road to the Lupine Meadows Trailhead down the closed road. The moon shining down on the Tetons was inspring as we made the walk in about an hour and a half. The entire time my gaze was focused on the North Face of the Grand in all its beauty. A road branching of this main road brings you right to the bottom of the face. From here, 5600 feet verticle to the summit. We slogged up more than half the face with nothing too eventful occuring. Both tired, there really wasn't too much discussion. Shortly after making our way out of the trees the cold air really took over and forced me to fully layer up, and I was still cold. We put in a booter for another thousand feet or so. As we neared the top, somewhere between 500 and 1000 feet away, we started to notice that a few wind pockets were getting more responsive. As the face got narrower and moved it's way through an upper rockband we decided to call it. Even a small slide could have higher consequences up here if it knocked us off our feet and we didn't want to push our luck.
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| Teewinot East Face |
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| Making our way up Teewinot in the freezing cold |
Confident that we made the right decision, we transitioned to ski mode right as the sun started rise to the East. We enjoyed about 5,000 feet of skiing to a magnificent sunrise. The walk back to Taggart Lake was less than ideal, but some breakfast burritos in town made up for it. A quick drive to Salt Lake and I made it back for my 4 o clock class. We were both psyched on the weekend and psyched to come back in just a few weeks for some more steep skiing.
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| Psyched on a sweet weekend |
