Grand Teton 13,770ft (4197m)

Owen-Spalding Route

July 5, 2011

All photos courtesy of the Jeff Witt Collection

Our good friends, Jeff and Tracy Witt, had just returned from a successful expedition to Mt Everest and were throwing a party at their home in Jackson Hole, Wyoming so Kim and I made a road trip out to help celebrate and of course do some climbing in the Tetons.

We’ve had our eyes on doing The Grand Teton, the highest peak in the Teton Range, for a few years now but so far hadn’t gotten to. This year we went for it.

After a carbo-loading with a savory dinner of barbecued chicken, homemade macaroni and cheese casserole, steamed fresh green beans and peanut butter pie at Jeff and Tracy’s, we drove back toward our motel. Being the 4th and also my birthday (woo hoo!), we made a side trip through the historic part of town to catch some of the city of Jackson’s finest fireworks that began at 10:00pm. The evening was balmy and the rich smells of grass and flowers filled the air, just perfect for watching fireworks. Reluctantly, we had to exercise a bit of discipline and continue back to our motel before they were finished in order to try to get at least a couple hours of sleep before waking up at 1:00 am to start the climb activities the next day.

We picked Jeff up at 1:30 am and drove north into the park. The little ranger-manned entrance huts, typical of National Park architecture, were empty. The sky was filled with stars, and the Milky Way looked like a white band of smoke. When we got out of the car and began putting on our packs at the Lupine Meadows trailhead, the only sounds were of a few lonely crickets chirping to each other.

We started hiking up the trail with headlamps. First we trekked over some crumbly old concrete, which Jeff informed us was an old Civilian Conservation Corps project in the 1930s, now nearing complete disintegration.