Get your reading glasses on and a cup of coffee. Below is a writing of one of the hardest climbs I've ever done, on many levels. After completing the climb I realize that hard technical routes were do-able.
it was the summer of 1996, I was at my 1st real job since graduating from college. I was able to take my 1st paid vacation. I was taking a week off to visit my buddy Matt in Jackson Hole.
Jackson Hole was fun, but Matt had to work. We did one attempt on the Grand Teton, to only be sent running sliding down the gulley from lightning storm.
I was pretty board sitting on Matt’s couch, watching TV. Matt finally prodded me, I needed to get off the couch and go back up on the Grand. I bought a nylon bivy sack, borrowed his pack and packed up my climbing shoes and Ice gear, but did not pack a rope. My logic was that I could either solo a rock route on the Grand or an Ice gully nearby. If soloing, why would I need a rope, right? Well that logic would come back to haunt me later.
Matt took me to get my permit and dropped me off at Lupin Meadows for a 3 day trip. The 9 mile hike was not too bad as I had already acclimatized earlier the prior trip with him. Along the way I met and chatted with 2 guys from Seattle. They were going up to climb the Exum ridge. That was when I realized my flawed thinking of not bringing a rope, as I could have teamed up with them.
That evening we reached the lower saddle at 11,000 feet. I setup my bivy in a rock cave folks had made on the Idaho side of the lower saddle.
That evening I was with the 2 guys from Seattle at the water spring watching the shadows of the Teton cast below. A guy crested the approach trail carrying a huge pack. What a sight to be seen were his first words, commenting about the Teton shadows as he snapped a few pictures. My name is John (I can’t remember his name, so let’s go with John), I am from Montana where I work as a camp cook and a whitewater videographer. “What are you looking to climb I asked?” My plan is to solo the Black Ice Couloir. “Nice objective was my response”. I had heard about the Black Ice Couloir and it was a worthy objective, let alone to solo it, wow.
The Black Ice Couloir us a steep hanging rock and ice gully on the north west side of the Grand Teton. As you look down from the top, all one sees is thousands of feet down to the valley far, far below. The route is approached by a ledge system called the Valhalla traverse. From the Valhalla, there is a technical rock section of 5.6 to get to the start of the route. It’s then 6 pitches of 50 degree ice, with a 70 degree ice crux near the top. The main hazard of the route is rock fall, as people climb the Owen Spaulding route, knock off rocks at the upper saddle over the edge and down the Black Ice Couloir. A general rule was climb the route fast and get off by noon, before the climbers start rappelling off of the Grand Teton.
(our route started below 5, came up the ledge system below 8 & 9. Finally meeting up with the route below 9)
John finished purifying his water and hefted his massive pack and kept on hiking up and over to the Valhalla traverse.
The next morning I set off to solo the upper Exum ridge on the Grand Teton, thinking that the upper part was only 5.4 and would be casual. I was so wrong, as once I go to the Wall Street, I was met with wind blasting around the corner and a very committing move to get on the route. With no rope, there was no way for me to set a temporary anchor to protect the move. Shut down.
My alternative route was the Owen Spaulding route. It starts at the top of the upper saddle I then continued climbing up to the upper saddle where I could access the easier Owen Spaulding route, which has a technical crux of 5.4. I had climbed the crux with Matt a few days before and knew the moves.
I started the route with the belly traverse, stepped out and when hand over hand to the corner system. The exposure was insane, below me the grand teton fell away and you could see the valley below. I reached the corner and pulled the 5.4 moves pretty fast and made my way to the top. My thought on the decent was to down climb what I had just climbed up. It was not an appealing situation.
But while on the summit, I saw a pair of climbers approaching the summit via the Exum ridge. “How is it going I said” Good, good. “Do you mind if I rappel with you to get down?” Sure, no problem. Whew, I was saved.
Me leading the Owen Spaulding 3yrs later with lots of snow and a rope:
Upper part of the Owen Spaulding a few years later, covered in snow and ice.
The decent was pretty fast and I was back in camp later on that day. I was stoked, I just soloed the Owen Spaulding! I sat cooking my dinner with the 2x guys from Seattle, when John came up. “I need a partner for the Black Ice, I am an ice climber and I hate rock climbing.” I said sure, but my permit runs out tomorrow. “You can talk to the ranger and he can call down to get it extended.”
It sounded like a good idea as I had my ice climbing gear and was there ready to go.
I went over the ranger’s hut and asked about extending my permit. “no problem, but I am hiking out the long way”. I think that was his response, but it was enough for me and I was off with John to go climb the Black Ice Couloir the next day!
I packed up my gear from the cave and headed up the trail towards the upper saddle to then down to the Valhalla traverse where John was camped.
Once you reached a certain rock, you descend down this loose scree slope, down, down we made our way. After an hour our so we made it to John’s camp. I made my bivy and melted a bit of snow for water. Yuck, it was horrid, as snow melt can have a horrid taste. I drank a bit and filled my water bottle for the next day.
I barely slept that night, I kept waking up thinking I was sliding off the Valhalla down the west side.
At around 5am, we were up, eating and setting off. No packs, no food, no headlamps, just ice tools and a water bottle on the harness.
We made our way along the Valhalla and started descending down to where the ledge system just ended. “I traversed across this yesterday, you can see my pick marks.”
He laid out the gear to rack up, which was just an 8mm lead rope, 6 ice screws, 2 pitons, 2x Camalot Jr’s. It was a sparse rack to say the least. “The gear was for me to bail.” But now it was our lead rack.
As he is un-coiling the rope, he spots a fray, “this end it yours”, as he takes the other end to tie in.
Above use we see 2 pitches up what looks like a ledge. That must be the rock part, getting from this ice tongue to the ledge above, easy no problem.
Pitch 1, John , traverses out and up the ice tongue and runs out the rope a full length to a snow ledge of sorts. My 1st few hits into the ice were terrible, I fumbled to get clean hits into the ice. “For traversing, set your pick picks closer together.” It works and I get into my rhythm and am at the belay in no time.
Pitch2, my lead. I take all of the gear and set of to the ramp and a short 5 foot headwall. My picks sink into the ice, perfect conditions for me. I place 1 screw below the headwall. I get up the headwall and carve out a pocket in the rock for a small cam. With that set I top over the headwall. To my horror I see that there it no ledge , rather it’s a ice covered ramp. Even worse, I can’t get an ice screw in. Above me I see a left facing rock corner and thin ice on the wall, not enough for a screw, nor for a pick to sink in. “There is NO ledge here, what do I do,” I told John. “Just keep going”, was his response. With that I put the heavy Ice axe on my right hand and my more nimble Ice axe in the left. I proceeded up the icey corner ramp, right foot into the icy corner, heavy ice axe into the icy corner, right foot onto a rock edge and the left ice axe hooking on a rock edge. I repeated the sequence, over and over for the next 50ft. Eventually, I reached a snow/ ice patch and sank in 2x ice screws and my tools, off belay.
John quickly followed me up the pitch. When he reached me all he could say was “Damn, Damn that was crazy”.
Pitch 3, John set off on the next pitch of thin ice, maybe 1” tick, hooking his tools as he went. He made short work of the pitch. As I followed, I would have to hook with my tools as each strike would shatter off the ice.
Pitch 4, I can remember encountering a nice ledge with old webbing wrapped around a rock, Ha, someone had been here before. I sank in a piton, which went in half-way and I clipped if anyway. I could see above me a wide crack and higher up what looked like a ledge. I followed up the crack, climbing the crack with my stiff plastic ice boots. At one point I saw an old fixed slung nut, but it was out of my reach. I used my ice axe to hook the sling and pull up on it. I was just enough to get me past the steep part and onto the ledge. I was finally at the Black Ice Couloir. One went the crampons, and I finished my lead against the wall, off-belay! John followed up, again all he could say was “Damn, Damn that was amazing. What a lead.”
Pitch 5, It’s late in the day. For some reason it has taken us what seems like all day to finally get onto the climb its self. John sets off on the 50-60 degree ice pitch. As I belayed him, I kept getting hit by ice chunks, bang, band the rocks and ice chunks keep hitting my helmet. I quickly learn to keep my head against the wall. At one point I saw a squirrel, just tumbling down.
Pitch 6, I lead off, with the same motions as the prior pitch. Hammer in picks, step up and kick in my crampons into the ice. Get 80ft out, place an ice screw.
Pitch 7 John starts up the pitch, but it’s getting darker and darker. “I can’t see, I can’t see. John starts freaking out. When I come up to him he looks worried. “It’s getting late, we are screwed.” No problem, I am from Yosemite, where we sleep on walls. I used the ice axe to hack out a small bench for our bivy platform. We place ice screws on either side to then clipping off the lead rope to hold us to the wall. Sitting on the bench we huddle together through the night shivering. I can feel water leaking on my butt (I had torn holes in my pants on the earlier trip with Matt.) and down into my toes. It’s so cold, but we switch positions from one person huddling over the other person. Slowly, I can see daylight creeping into the valley below. Finally we can see where we are and ironically a few fixed anchors that were next to us, ugh.
Pitch 8, John leads off the next pitch of steep ice to setup a belay just below the crux steep section.
Pitch 9, John tell me “you lead this section it’s the crux of the route”. As I move up, I can feel the steepness, I feel more weight on my front points. I place a few screws, and cruise on through the steep section to the belay. I remember as I placed the anchor screw it ground against the rock, but I did not care, I was almost done.
Pitch 10, John lead up the pitch to the upper saddle, the top of the route. He snapped a few pictures of me as a topped out. We did it, we were done!.
We didn’t continue up the Owen Spaulding, but rather made a hasty decent down from the lower saddle to the Valhalla traverse. I had realized that I was to have been on a flight BACK home and my dad was to be picking me up at the airport. Which descending we saw a white helicopter circle around the area and land at the lower saddle. We waved to them as the passed by and laned below. “I hope they are not looking for me”, was my comment.
We got back to our bivy on the Valhalla, packed up. Not even enough time to cook a mean. John had to be back to work the next day by 5am. We slogged up the scree slop to the trail that lead back to the lower saddle. Down we stumbled to the lower saddle and to the water spring, as we were thirsty.
As we walked into the lower saddle camp, everyone was looking at us, like well something was up. Out from the ranger’s hut a guy stepped out “Is either of you Erik? Folks are worried about you”. It was Renny Jackson, the head climbing ranger for the Tetons. What I didn’t know, was that Matt’s girlfriend who worked with Matt at the local newspaper knew Renny and had called him when I did not show up the day before (while I was climbing).
You guys will have to have a short debriefing before you can head down (we still had 9miles to hike out to the car. “Show me where you guys were”. We showed Renny the route we took and explained why it took so long. “That’s a hard variation you guys did.” The ranger I had asked to extend my permit had not radioed the information, nor was he back down at Jenny lake yet.
With our chat with Renny over, we got some water and started our hike out to the car 9 miles away. John would give me a ride into town and then he had to still drive to his work.
It was 4pm and we finally started our hike out.....to be continued
