4,000 vert of climbing, 14,000 vert of descent- in 2 days- 28,000 vertical feet

12 May 2007: The Grand Teton’s Stettner, Chevy, Ford Couloirs, Climb and Ski

For the past two years, a group of us lady skiers/climbers have been chatting about trying to ski the Grand Teton.

Finally two weeks ago, Karen Kingsley and I, both from Telluride, found our timing to pull the trip together. Karen, a top-three randonnee circuit racer, and I headed up to Jackson, WY on May 10 to attempt the second female ascent/descent of the Grand Teton, after just discovering a few days prior that the first descent had been done by two Jackson local ladies a fews weeks ago. Also on the list was Mt.Moran’s ultra classic- the Skillet.

Karen and I arrived in Jackson on Friday afternoon and began prepping for our 1 a.m. departure.

A fellow top notch randonnee buddy of Karen’s, Chris Kroger, with whom we were staying, decided to join us at the last minute and so the three of us found ourselves hiking up the trail towards Garnet Canyon at about 2 a.m. on Saturday morning.

With packs heavily loaded with ropes, ice and rock gear, med kit, crampons, skis, boots, clothing, food and lots of water, we felt prepared for our guestimate of a 15 hour day.

After 2.5 hours of hiking in darkness, we reached the meadows, where we transitioned into our AT boots and other snow gear.

The snow had already softened significantly, and with a light freeze overnight, we were anxious to beat the sun that was steadily rising as we climbed towards the Teepee Glacier. There was one other party ahead of us but they chose a different route and so that left us alone in our approach to Glencoe Col. Karen led up the glacier and put in a great boot pack/crampon line for us to follow. At the top of the Col, we peered over to the entrance to the Stettner Couloir and the beginning of the technical Stettner-Chevy-Ford route.

At the entrance to the Stettner, I took over. With my mountaineering ax and Divax ice tool, I carefully climbed over the first ice bulge. Karen then followed and joined me at the first anchor. I belayed Chris up to us, and then I headed up the rest of the couloir trailing an 8 mm, 50-meter rope.

I free climbed/free soloed another 200 feet and clipped the next anchor.

Our party was not comfortable simul-climbing and so I moved up another 50 feet to a slung horn, and belayed Karen up to the previous anchor. Once Karen was clipped in, Chris followed up on belay.

Continuing the free climb over two more small ice sections and about 300 more feet, I exited the Stettner couloir on a roughly 55-60 degree wet snow slope to clip into a hanging anchor at the entrance of the Ford gully. I then belayed Karen and Chris simul climbing up to this anchor. From that point, we began our final 1,000 foot climb to the summit up the steep snow of the Ford.

The progress was slow as with each step I began to sink in deeper and deeper as the snow steadily transitioned into isothermal conditions. Karen followed behind with Chris bringing up the rear.

On the final approach, two guides Jackson Hole Mountain Guides and Exum were both descending on skis with clients. We would end up sharing the rappel route with them and working together to descend the couloirs as quickly and safely as possible.

We reached the summit at about 1 p.m. and enjoyed the views along with some quick refueling.

On the summit, we put our skis on and began a very fun, steep slush snow ski into the Ford Couloir. The skiing was fantastic but with each turn, we were creating deeper and deeper runnels.

I skied down to the top anchor into the Chevy connection and Karen and Chris joined me as we waited for the guide/client team to rappel to the next anchor. The rappels went quickly and efficiently, as I was reaching each anchor as the previous group was departing. After three rappels, we then down climbed out of the lower Stettner couloir at about 3 p.m.

From the lower Stettner, we climbed back up to the Glencoe Col and put on our skis for the final and complete ski descent to the Meadows. The turns were fabulous heading over to the Teepee Col and then we arced out fast, big turns down the Teepee Glacier in heavy thick spring snow. At the bottom of the Glacier, we bid farewell to the other group that was resting on the bench, and finished our corn/slush ski down to the Meadows.

Once at the Meadows, we stripped down to our bottom layers and dipped our feet in the creek to cool off before the final four mile hike out to the trailhead. A fantastic day that wrapped up 16 hours and 45 minutes after we began. We were elated with the climb and ski, and that everything had gone smoothly for us in the mountains on this journey.

13 May 2007: Rest

Chris rustled up a canoe from his buddy Bill for our rest day and we paddled down from Moose to Wilson with phenomenal views of the Grand Teton, and our pending ski adventure- Mt.Moran, as well as the entire mountain range along the Snake river.

14 May 2007: Mt. Moran’s The Skillet, Climb and Ski

Another early start- one day after our successful ski of the Grand, Karen and I were eager to try to ski Mt. Moran’s famous ski route- The Skillet for Monday. Chris was supposed to return to work that day but decided at 8 p.m. on Sunday night that he wanted to join us again for the ski.

We headed out of the Jenny Lake trailhead at roughly 3 a.m. The four mile hike around the lake was fairly flat and we reached the end of the trail at daybreak, we braced ourselves for some aggressive bushwacking around and up to the snow line at the bottom of the Skillet. We estimated about 5,000 feet of steady snow climbing.

With our early start, we were half way up before the sun started to bake us and the slopes. The handle of the skillet proved to be the steepest section of the climb, and by about 10:30 a.m., Karen was boot packing a great trail in her crampons up to the summit.

We used our whippets and brought light mountaineering axes as back-up in case the last section proved tricky. It went smoothly enough and we were on top by 11:30 a.m.

The summit was a large open platform with phenomenal views back to the Grand Teton, and down to the lakes below. We relaxed in the sun and cool breeze up top, and then geared up for our descent. Again skiing off the top proved to be fairly straight forward, and the lip into the couloir was quite easy to negotiate. Any cornice that had been there had long since fallen.

We skied steep (45-50 degree) snow off the top, that was quite wet and loose. I jumped in first and with each turn had to move out of the way for the small wet slides that the turns were producing, as the upper layers peeled off and sent sheets of snow sliding down the slope.

Deep runnels began to form as we made our way down this first 2,000 feet off the top. After exiting onto the apron, we followed each section wrapping around each cliff band to keep away from the river we could hear running below us in the snow packed gully.

On the final pitches down, I got a bit carried away by the phenomenal corn sections, and skied down a different route from our initial approach, which committed us to a section that led into a rock band.

We were forced to remove our skis and down climb fifth class rock about 15 feet in our boots before we regained the lower snow field. The remaining turns were joyful and fun and we skied out as far as the snow could take us before transitioning back into our sneakers for the climb and healthy walk back out.

We arrived back to the car about 11 hours after our start- happy, grateful, and fulfilled by a fantastic weekend of ski mountaineering and adventuring in Jackson, WY.