Winter Attempts of Grand Teton
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Looking for any information people can give on a winter attempt on Grand Teton. Route? Weather? double boots or not? or if any one has a good source of information for these questions? |
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Easiest would be the stetner/ford/Chevy to the top. It's the most common ski line on the mountain, but lots of other routes have been climbed and attempted on the mountain in the winter. |
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www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcsQG3HZkYU |
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Obviously, the weather -- both during your climb and the week or so before -- is key. There's really no substitute for living locally to be able to strike during good conditions. |
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The easiest route like Jon said is the Stener/Ford/Chevy which is a amazing route. Any route going to the top will put you into serious avalanche paths so be on top of that. Although I have not done the OS in winter it seams about as hard as the ski route (probably more rock but less steep snow). I think double boots seam a little overkill for most days up there although I have had to bail due to cold feet in January on the Setner before, although that was with lightweight ski boots. If your not skiing I would probably use a 1&1/2 boot like the La Sportivia Batura. I have had good success on the Grand Teton in April before. It seams like that might be the best month to hit it with the combination of good weather and consistent snowpack to the valley floor. |
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What is the status of the park roads in April/early May? |
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Interested. following |
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Obviously the Bridger-Teton avalanche forecast ( Jhavalanche.org ) will be extremely helpful as well as just calling the ranger station and Exum guides office for info. A better option would be to know or meet some locals and/or guides up there personally. They maintain a high camp in winter for skiing and mountaineering. A more important question than double boots is how do you plan to go up there? Any approach is long and crosses under or through significant amounts of avalanche terrain just to reach the base of the Grand. It seems the guides prefer the OS route in the winter too, as well. I guess it depends if you want to just climb it or ski too. Most winter/spring info in the Tetons is somewhat guarded and requires talking to people who have done stuff and just putting in time and effort in the range to gain experience. |
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Chris NH wrote:What is the status of the park roads in April/early May? Ie where do you park to access Garnet Canyon? Is Lupine Meadows TH open?You park at Taggart Lake and go from there. |
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Went to do it years ago...way too cold for us (-20F as a high). |
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Brian in SLC wrote: I think if you timed it right, a sunny ascent of the Exum would be pretty reasonable. A friend climbed it in the winter on a calm day in rock shoes. Said it was a snap.Odds are low for this, but totaly possible for a few magic days each year. It would be a dream to hit the Exum Complete in one full sunny day, in Jan. You'd just have to watch for a high pressure system with 'high' temps. It's quite normal for the area to experience an inversion where the 'cold' air sinks down into the valley bottoms occasionally producing Katabatic winds. The result is 'warmer' air up high. This was the case a few years ago when the first Grand Traverse was accomplished in the winter. (Hat's off to those guys!) climbing.com/news/grand-tra… "According to a story in the Jackson Hole News & Guide, Newcomb said completing the traverse was harder than climbing the Cassin Ridge on Denali." Also on my bucket list. The Cassin, not the Traverse in Winter. [why'd I put 'quotes' around the temps? It's all relative. 25 degrees could be 'warm' for Jan] |
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kevinhansen wrote: Odds are low for this, but totaly possible for a few magic days each year. It would be a dream to hit the Exum Complete in one full sunny day, in Jan.Years ago my friend Mike Vanderbeek and I managed to do the complete Exum from the valley floor in a day. It was not a winter ascent as it was the first weekend in April. It was a warm sunny day. In fact we did the whole route in about 4 hours starting at about 1pm. Mike lead the Lower Exum as he brought rock shoes as he skied up on rando gear. I skied and climbed in leather tele boots. We did the lower part in two blocks. We soled after Wall Street. The friction pitch was interesting being all covered in about 6"-8" of snow. Because of storm coming in we did not go to the true summit but to the summit ridge before rapping down the OS. We bivied in the meadows as the storm blew. Another friend was up there one winter when the winds blew the old Exum quonset hut down. He said it was terrifying. Not because of the winds but because of the flying sheet metal. Fred's slides of the event were great. |
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Thank You all for the great advice. I am still hopping to attempt Grand Teton this winter but it will be highly dependent on conditions as the winter progresses, as well as some my own level of physical fitness as the approach sound to be quite long. Thank you again and good luck on your own winter goals. |
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Why go up if you can't ski down? Personal opinion, I know, but its way more fun. |
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I was planning on skinning in so skiing down would make sense. However my skis are only 100mm at the waist and I am no pro-skier. It will depend on how I feel come the day and conditions. |
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100mm is more than wide enough. my ski mountaineering skis are 95 underfoot, and only 176cm long. |
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following. Im trying to get a winter ascent this season but cant talk any of my rope partners from casper into it. If anyone needs a partner please let me know. |
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I made an attempt on the North Face in March of 2015. Done a fair bit of alpine climbing and it was not easy. Baffled that Alex Lowe soloed it in a day. If you are interested in more details let me know. |
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Was a strong rumor that Dwight Bishop (rip) from Butte had soloed the NF and NR of the Grand in winter...and maybe a number of times. Tough guy. |
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Hard men for sure....Still gives me goosebumps to think about the two parties who climbed and skied the Hossack Macgowan on the North face of the grand years ago. Makes me wonder how much this new gear really matters. Carrying two sets of boots up along with much heavier gear seams so stout. Now we have 1000g A/T boots that climb and ski so much better and modern day ice and rock pro. |
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Ty Falk wrote:Hard men for sure....Still gives me goosebumps to think about the two parties who climbed and skied the Hossack Macgowan on the North face of the grand years ago. Makes me wonder how much this new gear really matters. Carrying two sets of boots up along with much heavier gear seams so stout. Now we have 1000g A/T boots that climb and ski so much better and modern day ice and rock pro.Makes you realize that the best gear in the world doesn't make an alpinist. |