Grand Teton, Direct Exum Route

By: Warren Teissier | Climbers: Warren Teissier, George Bell Jr. |Trip Dates: September 6, 2003

Photo: Joe Catellani

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George and I planned a trip to the Tetons last year hoping to do the complete Exum Ridge of the Grand Teton, but unstable weather forced us to cancel. This year, after only a week's worth of planning, we decided to give it another go. The weather forecast called for 10% chance of Thunderstorms for the weekend of September 6th - perfect weather.

We left Boulder at 4pm on Thursday, stopped for dinner in Rawlings, and cruised on through the night towards the Grand. On the lonesome stretch of road heading north after leaving Interstate 80, George stepped on the gas. We were happy climbers, heading for a happy place, with full bellies and good tunes from Steve Miller; we were young again: "Go on take the money and run…" A lone car goes by, heading in the opposite direction. It's a cop, he makes a U-turn with blue and red lights flashing, we slow down, the tunes stop. We are forty-year old men again, and a Wyoming cop with a thick Eastern European accent is reading us the riot act. George tells him we are heading for the Tetons, hoping to impress him or at least draw some leniency. He looks at George, shrugs his shoulders and issues a $69 ticket. It is 65mph from then on. At midnight we drive up to the Jenny Lake parking lot and crash in the back of the Suburban with the stars out and the weather looking fine.

Our plan is to get a camping permit for Friday night at the Meadows in order to do a Saturday ascent. As the day dawns, clouds move in with remarkable speed and the "perfect weather" deteriorates before our eyes. We can't believe our bad luck! We line up outside the Ranger cottage with only one other person. At 8am sharp, an older looking ranger steps out with a book in his hand and closes the door behind him. He greets us with a smile as he says: "This is your poem for the day." He names the author, a poet from fourth century China, and reads the poem, intermingling climbing jargon in random spots. He then allows us into the cottage and starts the conversation with grim weather news: "Two rainy days with a possible window of good weather on Sunday, followed by a cold front on Monday large enough to sock in the mountain for the season".

After recovering from the initial shock, we decide to get a camping permit for Saturday night to be ready to climb during the Sunday weather window, if it materializes. A younger ranger encourages us to go for it, and shows us various escapes off the route in case of bad weather. It is so cool to be treated right by the rangers. What a contrast with the way rangers deal with climbers in Yosemite…

As we step out of the cottage it is already raining. We can't believe how quickly the weather has deteriorated. After driving to the Climbers' Ranch to book a room for tonight, we discuss climbing Teewinot, but it is late, it will be wet, and 5,000 vertical feet are too far to go to be turned back by wet 4th class moves near the top. We hesitate; to quote our friend Mark Oveson: "The mind is weak but the flesh is weaker," and opt for a warm breakfast in town. After a huge sourdough pancake breakfast at Jedediah's we return to Jenny Lake, hike up Cascade Canyon and picnic in front of Valhalla Canyon where we get a good view of the North Face of the Grand, the Black Ice Couloir (no longer icy) and the Enclosure as they play hide and seek in the clouds. Eventually we head back, completing a 13-mile round trip hike.

During dinner at the Climbing Ranch's communal cooking area, we see a huge feast being prepared for a group. It's the Marmot Equipment sales meeting: 30 Marmot people decked in some of the coolest gear I have seen in a while.

After turning in for the night it starts raining again, and thunder serves as our alarm clock in the morning. The mountains are completely socked in, worse than the day before. Things are looking dismal, and we begin to question whether the weather window will indeed open. After breakfast at Bubba's we stop for an update at the ranger cottage. A young ranger tells us the forecast is the same but he is way negative about our route. He claims that the night before it snowed 6 inches at the top of the mountain with 2 inches in the Lower Saddle. "Expect ice and snow on the lower section of the route, and the starting chimney will be caked in ice." he tells us shaking his head, and starts offering alternatives. We are really bummed out.

We head up Garnett Canyon convinced that we will be climbing some other route, some other peak, but as we reach the Meadows in the afternoon it is really warm, it hadn't rained since early morning, and we see no trace of snow. I am not ready to give up on the Exum. George suggests hiking up to the Moraine to have a look at the bottom of the route. We wind up hiking all the way to the Lower Saddle, and there it is - our route appears dry! Happy times again, we hike back determined to give it a shot the next day. That day we hiked 10 miles and 5,000 vertical feet.

We wake at 3:20am. During the night it rained a fair amount, in fact we both thought we would have to give up on the climb. But by the time we exit our tent, we are greeted by a cloudless sky. The weather window seems to have opened up just in time. After breakfast and hot tea, we leave camp at 4:00am in cold and wind. As we negotiate the steep trail in the dark we get off track a couple of times, but only for a few moments thanks to yesterday's reconnaissance. At the fixed three-inch rope below the Lower Saddle, we meet a couple of climbers. George greets one of them who smiles but does not answer, but his friend steps in and answers in broken English. They are Russian, very friendly, and seem rather inexperienced. Their gear seems 50 years old, particularly in contrast to the Marmot group the day before at the ranch. They are going for the Upper Exum.

At about 5:45am at the Lower Saddle we stop to filter water in the dark. We are now exposed to a stiff wind from the west, and although we immediately add clothing, we are shivering. We timed the sunrise wrong; it is still pitch dark and we can't see the start of the route. But waiting for the sun is impossible in this cold wind so we slowly inch our way towards the base in an attempt to keep warm. For a while we are on an exposed ridge as the wind from Idaho hammers us, but our movement gives us some warmth. We are both wearing every piece of clothing we brought! Soon we contour off the ridge and out of the wind as our route requires. But it is still dark, and this area appears tricky as the terrain around us steepens, although in daylight it is a simple traverse.

As dawn arrives we are close to the start of the ramp that leads to the first pitch. Scrambling up the ledge, we make a rising traverse left through a small waterfall to the foot of the chimney that marks the start of the first pitch. With anxiety we peer into its interior and are happy to see it is snow-free and dry. At 7:00am we rope up and I start leading. The cracks and blocks right of the chimney prove to be surprisingly steep and rounded, and after a few moves and one piece of gear I am having trouble linking up the moves. My hands are too cold to feel the rock. After what seems like an eternity of moaning and hand warming, I make it to the belay and bring George up. He reaches me and seems surprised with the stiffness of the pitch and complains about the pain in his hands. (Later we realized that we probably did the 5.8 variation in Rossiter's guide.)

George starts pitch two by traversing up and left on easier ground and eventually disappears. The rope keeps feeding through my hands, but it is a long pitch and I am very cold. Finally he reaches the belay and I follow, with my gloves on. Nice pitch, great lead. We move the belay to the base of the third pitch and I mention that I might link it with the 4th pitch. I lead up a left leaning hand crack up to a blocky, bulging section and traverse right. I get confused looking for the V-Dihedral, but realize I am in it after a few moves. It is really a confusing series of two dihedrals. I grunt my way up the second dihedral system on polished rock with very poor protection. This is a very physical pitch made harder by the altitude and cold. I climb past a chock stone and set the belay at the base of the Black Face just as the sun peeks around the Petzoldt Ridge.

In the sunshine we cheer up. The Black Face pitches look great. George leads up the 5th pitch, the first of the Black Face. The wall is nearly vertical, in fact sections are overhanging, and the main challenge on lead is to weave through the bulges while finding the nice positive holds and a series of fixed pins. Happy times, George is now his usual self, commenting, mainly to himself, on the climb as he leads up the face. What an awesome pitch.

Another party is visible to the east climbing the Direct Petzoldt route. It looks quite spectacular as the leader climbs over a large hole/arch and belays atop a tower. This ridge is in the sun earlier and we are envious. We are to see this team later in the day and eventually discover it is extreme skier and Exum Guide Doug Coombs guiding two clients.

I take the last lead of the Direct Exum section. It starts with a rounded, wide, left leaning crack. When that eventually peters out I traverse right to another crack on the right. The starting moves are very thin. George thought this was the hardest pitch of the route. Afterwards, while re-reading the route descriptions in the Fifty Classics book and the Ortenburger guidebook, we realized that the original route traversed left from the end of the first pitch of the Black Face to where Wall Street meets the ridge, thus skipping this last harder pitch. We reach the start of the Upper Exum at 10:30am.

The contrast between the Direct or Lower Exum and the Upper Exum is amazing. The lower section is technical, cold and the features make it feel enclosed at times, while the upper section is much easier, sunny and open. In the lower section we were alone and isolated, in the upper section there are streams of climbers funneling up the Wall Street ledge.

A veteran of two previous ascents of the upper Exum, George takes the lead and makes quick work of the Golden Stairs pitch. We were expecting to simul-climb, but the terrain proves to be too easy, so we unrope above the Golden Stairs. As we solo the Wind Tunnel pitches, we pass three folks from Salt Lake. We rope up for a short pitch below the Friction Pitch and bump into the rest of the Salt Lake party. At the base of the Friction Pitch we queue up behind the Russians. After chatting with us for a while, the Salt Lake folks avoid the Friction Pitch by going right, and we follow the Russians.

George sets a belay well past the Russian belay but they start climbing before I can reach him and cross over our rope. As we unrope and untangle, their leader, who seems intent on passing us, runs out the rope and tries to pull his belayer along. Still attached to the anchor, the belayer can't move. While we coil our rope, they scream at each other in Russian as the leader keeps pulling on the rope. We try to tell him what's going on but he doesn't speak English. Using signs we finally get the leader to give some slack. As we pass them in the step called the Notch, the one who does not speak English asks me "You going down?" I reply: "No, going up". He nods.

After a bit of scrambling we rope up again and George leads the V-pitch - a beautiful, awesomely exposed dihedral pitch that, although easy, is probably one of the best pitches of the climb. As I get ready to follow George, the Russian setting a belay behind me asks me again if I am going down. I respond that we are heading for the summit and plan to go down the Owens-Spalding route. He smiles and nods with a stare that tells me he didn't understand anything I said. I point up and say "UP". He nods happily. I think they were trying to decide whether they should follow us to the summit or not. As I reach George at the top of the V-pitch he suggests we put on our approach shoes, as we are going to the west side of the ridge and there is snow everywhere.

The next pitch is called the Petzoldt Lieback. In dry conditions would probably be two moves of 5.3 climbing. But today it is all iced up. It is my lead and as I approach it, I am getting really nervous. George offers to lead and I am quick to accept. I set up the belay in the dripping cave under the lieback and put on my jacket, tossing my pack in the cave. George places a piece and balances precariously on small indentations on the ice. He places a second piece, and then miraculously makes two more balancy moves on the verglas before disappearing above me. Soon enough I am on belay and following. The rock is 100% covered in verglas, and small traces of snow provide the best footholds, I am amazed at his lead. The "Iceman" has come through again.

I take off on the nearly horizontal ridge, pass a short boulder crack, and run the rope out. George joins me and runs out another rope length, and then we unrope for the final 20 yards of easy scrambling to the summit. Just then I realize I do not have my pack with me. I must have left it at one of the belays… I run back two pitches and can't find it. I ask a party coming up the ice pitch and they confirm the pack is at the bottom of that pitch, in the cave. I climb back to George and we decide to summit and deal with the pack later.

We summit at 1:51pm. We are pretty happy but I am worrying about my pack and George is worrying about the descent. There is a lot of ice and snow on the summit slabs and two parties are slowly belaying their way down the Owens-Spalding. George has done the descent before and is concerned about the conditions, as we assume they will be similar to the ice pitch we just did. We discuss this a bit and decide to go down the Exum Ridge to Wall Street. Along the way we can pick up my pack.

We reverse the two easy pitches and down-lead the boulder move, passing Doug Coombs and his two clients on their way up, to the top of the ice pitch where George had spotted some rap anchors. A short rap puts us back in the cave where I retrieve my pack. Just then I notice tracks on the snow on a ledge below us. Further exploration shows us that the ledge leads to the lower raps of the Owens-Spalding. At the end of the tracks we find the Salt Lake folks doing a double rope rap to the Upper Saddle. We kid around for a while and they offer to let us use their ropes. Two single rope raps would have been unpleasant here as the intermediate anchor, a wedged chockstone, is encased in several inches of ice. In a short time we are hiking down the easy gully and through the Needle's Eye, reaching the lower saddle at 4pm.

We hike back the three miles and 2,500 vertical ft to our camp, take it down and head for the car. On the way down we meet several teams heading up with full packs that intend to camp tonight and climb the mountain the next day. I look at George and ask "Don't these people know about the window?" I guess they are hoping like we were, 24 hrs before, that this might be their chance to climb the Grand. We reach the car at 8pm after being on the move for some 16 hrs.

We spent the night at the Climber's Ranch and at 4am we were awakened by rain. Heavy rains pound the roof and by morning the Tetons are socked in again. Through the drifting clouds we see that the top half of the Grand is covered in snow. The window is now shut; we were lucky to be there at the right time. What a great route but most of all, what a great mountain.