Tetons conditions, early June, Cathedral Traverse
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I'll be in the Tetons in early June and will be attempting the Cathedral Traverse north-to-south sometime June 7 to 9 (dates are already set due to other circumstances). What can I expect for conditions on Teewinot, Owen, and the Grand? Specifically, I'd love to know: |
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There will be a late spring storm a week before your climb that will dump 12-15 inches above 9,500 feet with heavy wet snow below totaling 9-11 inches with up to 6 inches at the valley floor. It will then move to a high pressure system that will melt all of the snow on the southern faces exposing warm dry rock for the rest of the summer and create perfect ice conditions on the north facing aspects of only the cathedral peaks. |
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Derek DeBruin wrote:Bring climbing shoes or can the North Ridge of the Grand be done reasonably in approach shoes?It all depends on your ability & comfort level. If your name's Rolando the answer might be yes, but ordinary mortals might be happier in rock shoes (and will probably climb faster that way, especially if loaded down with bivvy gear). If you're not sure, go out and do a trial run. See how you feel on trad 5.7/8 with approach shoes and whatever size pack you think you'll be using. To make it more realistic, find a climb that's a bit damp or icy, and try to imagine that you're up at 13,000', you're not sure if you're on route, the wind's blowing, it's getting late and you've got 6 pitches ahead of you. |
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Thanks for the replies. |
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Derek DeBruin wrote:...slabs up to 5.7/5.8 fell pretty reasonable to me in approach shoes since you actually have more rubber on the rock anyway. Vertical but blocky/juggy 5.8s are also good to go. However, a 5.8 thin crack or more technical face doesn't go quite so well. That's the more the kind of beta I was after to see if the N. Ridge is "reasonable" in approach shoes.Sorry if my reply came across as snarky, I didn't know anything about your background. The N Ridge (Italian Cracks) is more thin crack/technical face than slabby or juggy. FWIW I climbed it last year in approach shoes, but it wasn't much fun and I wouldn't do it that way again. It didn't help that I was also carrying bivvy gear and food for a couple of days. A partner who's a solid 5.10+ leader felt the same way. We had another guy with us who wore rock shoes, and he seemed a lot happier and was climbing much faster. |
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This is what the cathedral group looked like on June 24th, 2012: |
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Early June at those elevation= tail end of prime ski mountaineering season. Guaranteed you will be on snow/ice/wet/mixed through a great deal of the technical portions. |
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Not a Tetons expert but ive been there in early June and it felt more like winter than spring. |
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Just wear mtn boots. You're on more snow than anything else; it's early June, fer pete's sake, just do it as an alpine climb. |
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Martin le Roux wrote: It all depends on your .... comfort level.I can *imagine* doing the technical pitches of the N Ridge in approach shoes, but I wouldn't *want* to. Carrying a pair of moccasins for that would be totally worth the weight to me. But like Jon, Nick, and Andrew say, the rest will be snow. |
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Thanks, all. I appreciate it. Full-on snow, ice, wet rock, etc. I'm actually pretty psyched about it. I've done a good bit of alpine rock climbing and I'm a lot more excited about some cold and wet alpine climbing. |