A Grand Ski Trip

Alex rolled into town on Friday, and commented on how good the Tetons had looked as he had driven past. Since we had done all of the route research a few weeks before and then gotten skunked because of new snow and sketchy conditions, we started thinking about how we could pull off a day trip into Wyoming.

After doing some much needed modification to my crampons, waxing skis as warm as possible, and organizing gear, we headed out of Bozeman at 1830. It was a little later than had I hoped, so we had to speed a bit to get through the park in good time. We arrived at the Lupine Meadows trailhead at 2215 on Sunday, and Alex rustled up some last-minute grub while I set out the sleeping bags and repacked the ski packs. We were in bed by 2300, and he conked out right away. I was kept up by excited thoughts of what we would find the next day, and another group rolling in at midnight. I definitely won't forget the earplugs next time!

At 0130 four alarms went off (three were ours, one the party next to us) and we hopped out of bed pretty quick. Hastily stuffing sleeping bags and tarps into the car and loading up skis and boots on the bags got us out of the parking lot at exactly 0200. We walked for about 45 minutes before the second party caught up with us and informed us that there was a ski helmet on the trail near the cars. We had a quick discussion, and then Alex dropped his pack and started back. I guessed it would take him just about an hour to catch up with me, since about half of the trail was spotted with snow, making it treacherous to go too fast. I followed the other party for 20 minutes or so, chatting about conditions and who had the longer drive for this adventure. On the second switchback I dropped my pack and went back for Alex's. He caught up with me at the junction to the switchbacks, almost exactly an hour after we split. From there it was pretty straightforward, though I will say that we should have followed the trail exactly instead of trying to cut shortcuts between switchbacks.

We got into Garnet Canyon proper around 0430 and put skins on shortly after. Man was it nice to get out of our now-soaked hiking shoes! I'm also definitely bringing an extra pair of socks next time. We started seeing the first hints of sun around 0520, and hit the Meadows headwall shortly thereafter, where we nearly caught up with two parties, both whom we had seen in the parking lot.

The first bit of excitement came when, while we were booting up the headwall, we caught up with a pair that were ski-cramponing up (and making it looking pretty tough). As we were passing the forward skier, the rear one gave a yell and pitched backward, bumping over one small rock, steep snow, and then skidding over a much larger rock and down the other side. He was out of sight for me, but Alex called to him when he came to a stop to see how he was. I hopped down to check on him, and he had gotten lucky enough not to fall in the melted hole next to the rock, instead ending up right in between the hole and the steep slope of the lower headwall. Still, it was a solid 15 foot fall! We did some quick WFR assessments, finding only scratches and no head wounds, and then his partner caught up and said he had it handled. We headed on and didn't see them again. Better luck next time, dude!

We stashed skins at the rock ridge below and beside the Tepee Glacier so as to drop as much weight as possible. The boot up the Tepee was warm since it had started getting sun right away, and we were very glad to get around to the Glencoe col where the sun stopped and the wind started. The crossing from the top of the Tepee was certainly where the exposure started: we could see the bottom of the steep slope, and the floor way below that. We decided to boot across instead of ski, since there was already a defined bootpack. From the Glencoe we hopped down 50 feet or so of rock and immediately started up the Stettner. It was definitely a harder melt-freeze, so we were excited about the possibility of it softening up for skiing later. As we neared the first ice bulge, pieces of ice and snow started coming down from the party directly above us.

We roped up under a protected wall on climbers' right, deciding to simul-climb to save time since we were still a bit behind schedule. We were about 50 feet below the ice, so when the icefall from the higher party slowed, I went for it. It was easily some of the most fun ice I've been on yet: only three feet of actual vertical ice, with a fun lip to crawl over, but it was all wet and sticky and confidence building. Once above it I scooted to the anchor climbers' left at the bottom of the Chevy Couloir and rested for a second. Once Alex had moved up and I wasn't pulling tension on the rope, I clipped an alpine draw to the anchor and continued. The Chevy was just like the Stett, but longer. Low angle ice, a five foot vert bulge where I placed a screw, more low angle ice, another screw and another bulge, and then easy ice to the final anchors where the Chevy turned into the Ford.

This is where we found the climber bottleneck. At the bottom of the Ford we were passed by a party of 4 on their way down. Above them we could see three going up, three coming down, and two more on the ridge about to descend. Boy, was it a shitshow. As we ascended, the group of 4 miscommunicated and dropped a rope down the wrong side of the Ford and presumably onto the Lower Saddle; then, a skier above got caught in a deep runnel in the Ford and had to take five minutes or so removing skis and handing them to a partner. If you're not a confident skier of steeps, I would recommend leaving your skis at the top of the Tepee: one fall here and, if you're lucky, you can stop yourself before you slide through the Ford, the Chevy, and the Stettner, and end up many thousand feet below in the valley. If you're unlucky, you pitch off the Otterbody or the wrong side of the bottom of the Ford and end up in the same place, just... flatter.

Luckily we avoided any "objective" danger from other climbers and ascended the Ford through sun, shade, mashed potatoes and melt-freeze. I was really feeling the altitude, so Alex took the lead and went hard all the way to the top. I'm attributing his apparent lack of being winded from living at altitude most of his life, but I've been in Bozeman for four years, so I really should have no excuse. Either way, props to him for leading the final pitch. We reached the upper Ford ridge, booted along, got under the summit block and scooted past the last group of three who were just starting a descent. We topped out at exactly 1159, one whole minute before our agreed-upon turn-around time! Boy, did that summit beer taste great. We goofed around for about half an hour taking pictures, fueling up on Hammer gel and Snickers, and giving the groups below some time to get out of the way. At one minute before 1230, Alex clipped into his Dukes and started hop turning down the summit pyramid's southeast face.

The first few turns were a little mushy, and we only got 4 or so in before a small rock hop took us on to the upper southeast face. The turns down this pitch and onto the ridge between the southeast face and the Ford were pretty sweet, due to the exposure: you could look down either side and see the valley floor many thousand feet below.

Finally, though, we got to the money pitch. The north side of the Ford hadn't seen sun until we had gotten on the summit, and it had just freshened up enough that it held the perfect edge. We did so much whooping coming down this section, I'm sure people below thought that we'd fallen or something.

Alas, the awesome turns had to end eventually. We pulled up to the first anchor, popped our skis off and onto our bags, attached crampons, and waited for the previous party to pull their rope. When they did, we set up and rapped down to the end of the Ford, where we could see the line of descent through the Chevy.

We ended up teaming up with another pair so that we had more rappel power, and we were able to get two of the four of us down the first rappel before the first flush of slough from the upper Ford came through. It lasted about a minute, and we quickly got back to work when it finished so as to minimize our exposure to the next one. We only had to deal with one more short flush, and after two more rappels, we were back in the bottom of the Stettner, under the now-slushy ice pitches and ready to pop skis on and head back home.

We followed our rappel partners through the Glencoe col and down the Tepee, which had accumulated some interesting flutes during the day. We figured that these were from near-liquid snow coming down off of the Otterbody. Whatever they were, they were a fun obstacle to negotiate with already burning legs.

After that we cruised down the slushy Meadows headwall, trying to keep as much speed as possible to get through the canyon without having to skate. We were able to ski out onto the switchback face and get a few final turns before we had to step back into our soggy shoes. From there, we had a mindless two mile walk back to the car, where we quickly shedded bags and clothes and got warm and dry. With only a short stop in West Yellowstone for some Dairy Queen, we cruised back to Bozeman by 2230, and were asleep shortly thereafter.

Gear List (shared):
2 pair technical tools
2 pair glacier crampons
1 60m 8.1 rope
2 30m 8.1 rope (should have been another 60)
2 16cm ice screws
1 Spectre ice piton
6-8 assorted nuts (unused)
2 ATCs w/ lockers
2 single-length slings w/ wiregates (wanted more)
1 double-length sling w /wiregates
6 extra wiregates
2 extra lockers
Summit packs, with:
2L water
Hammer gel
Voke tabs
Snickers bars
Clif bars
   and, to nobody's great surprise...
Summit Beer.