A Grand Celebration, Teton Style

This coming weekend my brother is getting married in Jackson, and what better way to celebrate the end of his bachelor hood than with an ascent of the Grand Teton via the Upper Exum Ridge. I’ve spent a lot of time in Jackson in the winter, but the summer trips always seem to revolve around family, so I’d never had the chance to get into any of the big peaks in the warmer months. Fortunately that was about to change.

I drove up on Saturday morning and got to town in the afternoon. We packed up and hit the trailhead, hiking towards the Meadows camping area around 6pm. Two hours and five miles later we were at the Meadows, an incredible basin surrounded by some of the Teton’s proudest peaks. There was still a ton of snow, as Jackson received over 600″ this winter, and like Colorado it’s been slow to melt.

Our alarm was set for 4am, but we were concerned the raging creek we were camped next to might drown out the sounds. When I woke up to light in the sky, this suspicion was confirmed, as we had overslept. Not too worried, as the forecast called for great weather all day, we made quick breakfast and started tromping up the firm snow towards the Lower Saddle.

The view from the Lower Saddle was fantastic, the peaks in Idaho still holding an incredible amount of snow. Most of our route looked melted out, with maybe a few lingering snow patches here and there. We made quick progress up the 3rd and 4th class terrain, and crossed one more snowfield before we were on Wall Street where we roped up for the incredibly exposed move getting to the first belay ledge on the Upper Exum.

The route from there on was fantastic, and it was very cool to see how it all came together as it makes its way up a big ridge at a moderate grade. The rock was excellent, and we were wishing some of the more technical pitches would go on longer, as they were just too much fun. They were often followed by fourth class sections, a little snow here and there, and soon we were standing across from the summit block with one final snowfield to cross. We put our boots back on, got out the axes and made for the top.

The summit was surprisingly empty except for one group of three who had just come up the East Ridge. They were out of water, and only stayed a short while before heading down for the Lower Saddle and the water waiting there. So we got to enjoy the summit of the Grand Teton, in July, all by ourselves (did I mention that we also saw no one else on the route?)! The view was incredible, with peaks in every direction, the Winds to the east, many peaks in Idaho to the west, Jackson lake below us. Not a bad spot. After what is always too little time, we decided to make our way back down and began the descent.

Eventually we found ourselves back at our tent at the Meadows. We quickly packed up camp, busted out the last five miles of trail and went straight to Masa Sushi in Teton Village to cap the end of an excellent day in the mountains!