The Grand Traverse
After a week of sport climbing around Wyoming, I drove out to Grand Teton National Park and met up with Chris Farrah for some much needed alpine suffering. I showed up last Tuesday afternoon and after a quick stop at the ranger station to snag route beta from our new ranger friend Jack, we set the alarms for 3am Wednesday morn and set off to attempt an onsight of the Grand Traverse. We summited, Teewinot, Mt. Owen, Grand Teton, Middle Teton, South Teton, Nez Perce, and all the sub-peaks in between for a total gain of over 12k vertical feet and 20 miles of mostly technical rock and steep snow. We were on the go for almost 20 hours (19:57 exactly) and stopped for only one 8ish minute break on top of the Grand. We were hoping to go a lot faster but the ice and snow slowed us quite a bit, forcing us to complete the last 8 hours of the traverse in soaked shoes and socks. We were completely worked but after a rest day we decided to set the alarms early again and canoe across Leigh Lake at sunrise to attempt the South Buttress of Mt. Moran (per recommendation by Jack). After a long paddle, extensive bushwhacking, and a brutal uphill slog, we were rewarded with high quality climbing on good rock... an anomaly for the Tetons. Jack mentioned this route was a triathlon of canoeing, rock climbing, and bug swatting. He was right on and after finally making it back out of the bushwhack with completely drenched clothes from wading through hip deep water, we jumped into the lake and canoed back to the car in our underwear.
