What I failed to emphasize in Friday’s post about photographing beautiful people in our glorious backyard blooms is how fortunate we are to live in a place where our biggest problem on a weekend is fitting in all the sports we’re going to do.

Last weekend, choices were even more abundant than usual, with Yonder Mountain String Band and the Demolition Derby headlining the annual Teton County Fair. Most of us had at least one corn dog and a ride on the zipper.

While folks celebrated summer at the Watermelon eating contest at the county fair, others spent the sunny days fishing or playing at the river with their pups. Several friends went up The Grand on Saturday, while I marked my first weekend back to Jackson by a scramble up Teewinot, the smallest Teton, with my friend Dylan Taylor. Dylan recently moved to Colorado for a job, but was back for the weekend. The Tetons are addicting in that way.

Teewinot seems easy because it’s short compared to the other mountains; certain people are even rumored to have run it in 45 minutes, while the guidebook recommends 6 - 8. Still, inexperienced and experienced climbers have gotten struck by lightning, hit by rocks and cliffed out while trying to reach the peak’s 12,325 foot summit. Or while descending.

Approaching it as a conditioning climb after several months away from the mountains and the sport, we started around 7:15 a.m. and headed up the trail toward the 18 switchbacks, rock ledges and snow.

While the snow looked abundant from the parking lot, it wasn’t until we were knee-deep kicking steps and plunging ice axes that we realized how much more snow there is up there now than in Julys past. That and a ranger on backcountry patrol told us as much. And the Jenny Lake Climbing Rangers Web site reports “Deepening runnel from summit notch down the east face. Now a mixed rock/snow climb.”

After the snow, which froze our ungloved left hands that we used for balance, we scrambled up some fourth class slabs to reach the summit where we spent an hour taking pictures, wearing funny sunglasses and marveling at the Grand’s grandeur and the speed of a party of three on Mt. Owen’s Koven Couloir (Cloudveil jacket namesake).

The view from the one-person summit monolith is, as Renny Jackson and Leigh Ortenburger describe, “sensational.” The airy summit drops off sharply into deep mountain valleys of rock and snow and one has perfect view of the north and east faces of the Grand.

The way down was made a bit slower by the addition of Joel to our team. He had left his friend below the snowfields and continued up alone. Hailing from Louisiana and inexperienced with exposed scrambling, Joel opted to join our team of two for the down climbing.

Turns out Joel is a US Army employee living in Abu Dhabi teaching local upper class 20-somethings how to fly F-16s. He was hoping to do the entire 10 peak Grand Traverse, or at least sections of it. He settled for the one mountain on Sunday.

(Note: The missing tooth has nothing to do with climbing. Dylan is awaiting an implant. Tried to shoot a portrait of the three of us on the summit.)

Back at the steamy car around 3 p.m., we took off our shoes and chugged warm Gatorade.

Sitting inside on the valley floor today, my calves are burned from ankles to knees. Ice and aloe make sitting barely bearable. Sore quads and sleepy eyes hinder productivity.

But, the cloudless sky, the snow in July and the company of an old friend with a massive collection of Cliff shots make the recovery worth it.

Looking forward to the next burn.

Blog Manager Lauren M. Whaley was out of the country, sitting at sea level, from April 3 through mid July Acclimating is fun, but brutal.