Our plane suddenly descended and banked sharply as we prepared to land in Jackson Hole Airport.  I looked out my window on the right side of the plane and our journey suddenly felt much more real than it had seconds ago.  Out that windows, towering above her sister mountains, was Grand Teton.   Holy shit, it looked huge.       I was almost overwhelmed with emotion as it drifted out of my view.  We were really here.

It all seemed like a fantasy back in December when Dave, Matt and I started talking about coming out to Jackson, WI to climb the 13,770ft Grand Teton.   We had just finished a weekend of multi-pitch climbing and camping at Seneca Rocks, WV and we had bigger peaks on our brains.   We all agreed we should do a trip the next year somewhere more ambitious than West Virginia.

We established some basic criteria for our next adventure.  It had to be in the US, it had to be out west and it had to be something none of us had done before.  We thought about doing Rainer or Whitney, but Matt had already done both of those.  We looked and some of the 14′ers in Colorado, but a lot of those, didn’t involve a lot of roped up climbing that we desired.

Then someone mentioned Grand Teton.  Almost 14,000ft, requires class 5 climbing to summit and it’s got a great little airport and fun town right at the base of it.   Sounded like we had a winner.  Plus just looking at pictures of it, it was just begging to be climbed.  So after a few months of research we finally got our permit and booked our flights for Jackson, WY.

Being from the east coast and living a relatively sheltered first 30 years of my life I’d never been on anything higher than 7000ft.  The prospect of climbing a real mountain was making me wild with excitement.   The whole concept of alpine mountaineering was only something I read and dreamt about.   The altitude, the snow covered slopes in July, standing on top of the clouds… it was all going to be a reality.

***********

The plane touched down and after waiting nervously for our checked bags full of our climbing and camping gear, we managed to find our way to the car rental place. We had about 8 hours before Matt would be flying in from San Fran, so we had a little time to kill.

Downtown Jackson is a weird amalgamation of a town.  In one block you’ll find cheesy souvenir shops that sell trashy t-shirts, a trendy restaurant and a store that sells cowboy boots.  It’s a lot to take in, but it’s got a lot of western charm and the surrounding peaks provide a stunning backdrop.

Dave and I settled in for a lunch at a restaurant we were referred to by a couple of locals called Sweetwater Tavern.  There we enjoyed buffalo sloppy joes and elk melts, along with a couple of nice local IPAs to wash it all down.

Once we were done we crammed ourselves back into the rental Corolla and drove about 30 minutes outside of town to the Jenny Lake Ranger Station to pick up permit and check in at the climber ranch where we’d be staying at that night.

***********

“If you blow it here, you’re gonna take a ride all the way down the Idaho Express.  Don’t blow it man. ”    The bearded climbing ranger was going over the route with us and was warning us of the dangers of making a mistake on the mountain.  He was referring to a particularly exposed part of the climb and a 3000ft cliff that drops almost completely straight down the mountain into neighboring Idaho.   With his sun bleached hair and wild looking beard, he looked like he could just as easily been working at a surf shop as he could be a climbing ranger in a national park.

“Some 19 year old kid blew it at this spot last year.  He was clipped into the accessory loop in his harness.  He didn’t make it”.

The Idaho Express.

3000ft drop.

Don’t blow it.

Hard to forget any of that, right?   We finished reviewing the route with the ranger, he gave us our permit and we were on our way.   I stopped for a moment to look up at the mountain before we jumped back in the car to head back to Jackson.  I looked over at Dave who probably looked as wide eyed as I did.

“Dave, let’s not blow it up there..”

“Yeah, no shit man.”

(TO BE CONTINUED)

View from the bottom

I’ll be posting a full write-up of the adventure this week, in four parts starting tomorrow.  I don’t want to drag it out too much, but there’s a lot to cram into one little post.  For now I’ll leave you with my favorite picture from the trip, taken from the lower saddle of Grand Teton at 12,000ft.

Look at that view!

I’m actually on a plane right now, but using the power of WordPress’s schedule posts, I could write this last night so you could read it this monring.

So you might be asking yourself, what does one pack when they go on a 3 day mountain climb in the middle of Wyoming?  Good question, this my first trip out west to climb, so I was a little unsure myself.  I did a little research on some other sites and have been paying attention to the weather situation out there, and I put together my own list of stuff I’ll be packing for the trip.  Not all of this will be going up the mountain with me, but I like to have options I can pick from depending on how the conditions look.   A lot of this will likely end up staying in the rental car.

Next stop, Jackson Wy.   Happy trails!

This is what lies ahead of us in the next few days:

Tomorrow morning we’ll take off out of Dulles and fly to Denver where we’ll get a connecting flight to Jackson.  We’ll pick up our rental car at the airport, grab a quick lunch and drive out to the Ranger station at Jenny Lake to pick up our permit.  Then, we’ll check in at the climbing lodge and drive back to Jackson to pick up some fuel for our Jetboils, grab some last minute supplies and check out the town.

We’ll grab dinner in town and wait around till about 9 when our friend Matt will be flying in from California to meet us.  Once we have him we’ll drive back to the lodge, unload our sleeping bags and crash out.

Wednesday morning (July 4th!) we’ll wake up, make a quick breakfast while sorting out our gear and drive out to the trailhead to start the hike up Teton.   The first day will be about 5 miles of uphill hiking, gaining around 3000ft of elevation.   Luckily we have all day to do this so we can take our time and not get worn out trying to rush up.  We’ll camp the first night at the Meadows campsite, or if we feel strong, we can continue up another couple of miles and setup camp at the Lower Saddle, just below the summit. Either way, we’ll eat our freeze dried dinners and crash out in our tents.

On Thursday, depending on how high we’ve hiked the day before and how the weather looks, we’ll either keep hiking up to the Lower Saddle or we’ll wake up super early and make our summit climb.  We may push this to Friday, but regardless it’ll involve another couple miles of hiking, another 1500ft of elevation gain and then the technical climb.

On the day we start out for the summit, whether it’s Thursday or Friday, it’ll be an early morning.  3-4am is our wake up time which will put us near the start of the technical climbing portion right around sunrise.

We’ll rope up at the base of the Owens-Spaudling route and begin our 1500 vertical feet of climbing.  If all goes well, we’ll summit by 10am, hang out for 30 minutes or so and rappel and hike down to the Lower Saddle by noon.   A quick lunch followed by breaking down of camp and we’ll hopefully be back to the car by 5pm.

For those of you counting, that’s 14 solid hours of hiking and climbing in one day.  We’ll really enjoy those cold beers and pizza that night!

Finally, on Saturday, we’ll wake up, enjoy a nice leisurely breakfast and do a hanging around downtown Jackson until it’s time to head to the airport for the flights home.

I’ll try and upload some pictures from my iPhone using the wordpress app as we go.  I have no idea what the cell phone service is going to be like up there but I’m not counting on it.  Though I’ll have a satellite phone on me, the $4 per minute usage charges will likely keep it in my bag unless there’s an absolutely emergency.

That’s it.  Hope to have lots of good stores, photos and video to share when I come back.  Till then, happy trails!

I did a little research and I found this nifty little video on Youtube on the making of carabiners.  After watching it, you’ll probably feel at least a little bit more confident:

In about a month from now, me and my buddies Dave and Matt will be starting our climb of Grand Teton in Wyoming.

At 13,775ft it’s the second highest mountain in Wyoming and far and away the tallest thing I’ve ever climbed.  It’ll take us about 3 days to get from the base of the mountain at 7000ft all the way to the summit and back down.  In the process we’ll be doing some high altitude camping and hiking, along with several pitches of class-5 climbing at 13,000ft.  All these will be new to me.  Heck, I’ve never even been above 8000ft before!

I know I’ve been slacking on my posting here lately, but over this next month I’m going to try to write a bit more about my preparation for this adventure, about the mountain itself and of course a recap of the whole thing along with lots of pics and video.  We leave the morning of July 3rd.  Stay tuned for more updates and write-ups.

In the meantime, have a great weekend and happy trails!

A send-off climbing trip with Dave, Matt and three of Matt’s co-workers as Matt is moving to California next weekend.

It was bittersweet to have Matt leave but we enjoyed a great weekend of climbing, good food, better friends and maybe a beer or two (or 5).

I came across this obituary completely by accident a few years ago and it had a profound effect on my life.   After reading it I got to thinking that if I’m lucky to die a really old geezer like this guy, I hope I’ve lived a life worth sharing like Capt. Tony.  And it’s what I’ve been doing ever since….

Anthony Tarracino, known to one and all as “Capt. Tony,” spent two years as mayor of Key West, Fla. — and 60 years as one of the most colorful characters in an island city full of them. During his 92 years, he was a bootlegger, gambler, gunrunner, saloonkeeper, fishing boat captain, ladies’ man and peerless raconteur. He died Nov. 1 of heart and lung ailments at Lower Keys Medical Center in Key West.

Mr. Tarracino survived on his wits and cunning long before his arrival in raffish Key West in 1948 with $18 in his pocket. He spent more than three decades as a charter boat captain and for 28 years owned a dank, musty bar that once doubled as the city morgue.

Capt. Tony’s Saloon, an unprepossessing spot on Greene Street, still bears Mr. Tarracino’s name almost 20 years after he sold it. It was the original site of Sloppy Joe’s Saloon, which was the favorite watering hole of Ernest Hemingway when he lived in Key West in the 1930s.

A huge tree grows in the center of the tavern and disappears through the roof. License plates, business cards and countless women’s bras are stapled to the ceiling and walls. In the 1970s, tropical troubadour Jimmy Buffett performed at Capt. Tony’s for tips and beers. He later described his experience in the song “Last Mango in Paris.” Until a few months ago, Mr. Tarracino was a regular presence at Capt. Tony’s, where he greeted visitors, told stories, and signed T-shirts and posters displaying his grizzled likeness.

His most famous slogan, which became part of his successful run for mayor in 1989, was: “All you need in this life is a tremendous sex drive and a great ego. Brains don’t mean (a word we can’t print in the newspaper).”

Mr. Tarracino ran for mayor of Key West in 1985 but lost by 52 votes to a banker named Tom Sawyer. Locals joked that the race was between someone named for a fictional character and someone who was a fictional character.

Four years later, when Mr. Tarracino ran again, some people objected to his frequent use of a certain four-letter word.

He was unapologetic: “I just hope everybody in Key West who uses that word votes for me. If they do, I’ll win in a landslide.”

He won by 32 votes out of more than 6,000 cast.

His goal as mayor was to limit Key West’s growth and to keep its reputation as a refuge for eccentrics and renegades who had found their way to the southernmost point of the continental United States.

“Key West is an insane asylum,” he told the Chicago Tribune, sitting behind his new desk at City Hall.

“We’re just too lazy to put up the walls or fences. I want to retain that mystique.”

Anthony Tarracino was born Aug. 10, 1916, in Elizabeth, N.J., where his immigrant father was a bootlegger during Prohibition. According to Brad Manard’s “Life Lessons of a Legend” — a book about Mr. Tarracino published the week of his death — young Tony dropped out of ninth grade to make and sell illegal whiskey.

During World War II, he left a wife and three children behind in New Jersey and moved to Seattle, where he worked for the Boeing aircraft company.

After the war, he returned to New Jersey and made good money gambling on horse races. But he ran afoul of mobsters and, according to Manard’s book, was beaten and left for dead at the Newark city dump. Mr. Tarracino fled to Florida and hitchhiked to Key West on a milk truck.

For 35 years, he ran fishing boats — always called “Greyhound” — out of Key West. He said he was a gunrunner in the 1950s and ferried arms for the  CIA to Fidel Castro‘s Cuba for agents and mercenaries to Cuba and Haiti.

He ran Capt. Tony’s Saloon from 1961 to 1989, when he was elected mayor. His principal achievement was to preserve Key West’s daily sunset celebration, at which acrobats, buskers and performing animals appear in an impromptu street theater.

Survivors include his fourth wife — of 38 years — Marty Tarracino; 12 children; 13 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

For years, Mr. Tarracino had a diet of pizza and chocolate bars, smoked unfiltered Lucky Strikes and drank 12 cups of coffee a day, chased with the occasional beer or whiskey.

“When I die, an era’s over,” he said in 1990. “But that won’t happen soon. Only the good die young.“

Here’s to you Capt. Tony!

I remember reading about accidents on mountains in books and news articles.  It usually wasn’t one mistake or bad decision that gets you in trouble, but rather a series of them.   I had told Dave before he took off to go looking for the trail again that I didn’t want to keep compounding our situation by making more bad decisions.  We’d already gone off trail and gotten lost in a white out in our rush to get down the mountain, we didn’t need to make the situation even worse.

As I stood there in the waist deep snow watching Dave attempt to traverse across the mountain in an attempt to find the trail we’d lost, I thought back to how the day had progressed up to this point…

———-

We’d gotten a late start.  We’d set all of our gear our the night before. Thinking back, we should have packed up the bags the night before, and only left our clothes out to be put on.  Although we got up at 5:45, by the time we got cleaned up, ate breakfast and got all dressed and packed out, it was already 7am.  For some reason, everything seemed to take forever.

At the trailhead, we discovered that in our rush to pack that morning, we’d forgotten two important things:  Dave’s mittens and our trail map.  Since we were already running late, we decided to make due with what we had brought with us.

Dave would wear his liner gloves and my Marmot technical gloves.  Along with some hand warmers, it should be enough to keep his hands warm.  And since we we’d already studied the route and saw that it only required two different trails, we decided to forgo to map.   Besides, we were told there would be so many people (including guides) on the mountain that day, we could easy follow someone else or ask directions.

We double-checked the items we did end up bringing with us and loaded them into my backpack:

• Down jackets
• Ski goggles
• hand warmers
• food (granola bars and shot blocks – 2 of each for both of us)
• 2 nalgene bottles full of water in insulators
• Headlamps
• Mountaineering axes
• Crampons
• Cameras
• Balaclavas and extra hats

This in addition to the clothes I was wearing which included my Arc’teryx base layer, my Patagonia fleece, my REI shell pants, my Arc’teryx Alpha shell jacket, wool hat, wool expedition socks, Vasque mountaineering boots and my Mountain Hardware Masherbrum mittens (Dave had a similar setup, minus the mittens).

We signed into the guestbook at the visitor center,  did one last check of what we had and set off onto the could trail.

On the way up the first part of the route, on the Tuckerman Ravine trail, we saw numerous other hikers out that morning.   Most people we talked to, like us, were planning to head to the summit that day.  By the time we got to the start of the Lion Head trail, we were surrounded by no less than 20 other hikers doing the same thing.

This was a common place to stop for most people to pause, put on crampons, adjust packs and set off for the more treacherous part of the hike/climb to come.    We stopped to do the same and get a quick bite to eat and drink.

I looked at my watch and saw that it was barely 9am.  We were making great time!  The sun was even coming out!  What a great day this was turning out to be!

After we threw on our crampons and started off on the Lionhead trail we noticed the terrain almost immediately got steeper and more difficult.  Within 15 minutes we were going nearly vertical up an extremely steep trail that was a lot of fun.   I had actually wondered earlier if I was even going to need my ice axe for any part of this climb.

By about 11am we reached the top of the Lionhead trail and though the sun was still out we could see a weather system moving in.  Our pace had also slowed considerably.

“Weird” I thought to myself.  ”It’s supposed to be nice up here today.  Hopefully it just passes us by”

The wind had picked up quite a bit and by the time we got to the lip of the Tuckerman Ravine it felt like we were in a hurricane.  Though I could still see the summit off in the distance, visibility was dropping.

By noon, as we trudged slowly up a massive boulder field, I look upwards and saw that the summit was no longer visible.   We should still make out the trail with the kearns and marker wands, but our destination was now obscured.

This is the first time that I felt a little something inside of me.  I don’t know if it was dread or what, but I quickly wrote it off.  I mean, we came here looking for the bad weather experience, right?  And as the wind continued to howl I knew we had found it.  In spades.

Every step was getting tougher.   It wasn’t just the hike up that was wearing me down.  The sub zero temps made my lungs burn and the wind punished me, even when I stood still.   We were in the middle of a full on assault, and we kept hiking into it.

By 1:30pm I noticed an object in the near distance that looked man made.  It was a railing, covered in sideways icicles.  I walked a few more feet and saw a building.  We had made it to the top.

After about 20 minutes of walking around, checking stuff out and taking a couple of pictures next to the summit sign, we were ready to get down.  The wind, gusting up to 80mph, was merciless and we were both really getting tired.  We weren’t getting cold yet, but we knew the longer we stood still the colder we’d get.  Plus, the idea of heading down quickly and getting some beer and pizza sounded really good.

So down we went.   Quick.  Too quick.  The conditions on the mountain had continued to deteriorate and we were now in a full on whiteout.  I could barely make out Dave’s bright green jacket 20ft in front of me.   We just kept heading straight down the field of rocks and boulders until we stopped in the middle of a snow field.  This didn’t look familiar.

We turned east and walked through the snow for a few minutes, looking for some evidence of the trail.  We couldn’t have missed it by that much, right?    And where were the other hikers?  Had the weather turned all them around?

We stopped again.  No luck.  Nothing looked familiar and we couldn’t see any major landmarks. We turned around and saw that our tracks were almost completely washed away by the blowing wind and and snow.

Uh oh.

I looked at Dave and I saw in his eyes a reflection of my own panic.  The weather was deterioating further and every minute that ticked by brought us closer to sunset.

Sunset would be very bad.  Like, never get off the mountain kind of bad.

We talked for a minute or two, and discussed the situation.  No use in panicking, we agreed. It was only going to make things worse.   Though we were both really worn out, we decided to head back up the mountain a little bit and try to see if we could find a trail or some kind of landmark.  And after about 10 minutes, we saw what looked like a sign post sticking up!  We rushed over to it and brushed the snow off

“<- TUCKERMAN RAVINE TRAIL ->”

OK, that helped, but not much.  We were on a trail, but which part? Part of the Tuckerman Ravine trail leads up to the summit, which is not where we wanted to go.  The other side gets closed after heavy snow fall due to avalanche danger.   Somewhere along the trail was a turn off that would take us safely down the mountain.  But where?  Had we gone too far?  Not far enough?  We were already in really deep snow and completely worn out.

Choosing the wrong direction could either put us in an avalanche zone with a 1500 drop off or send us trudging back up the mountain while it got dark.

Dave started walking.  ”I think the trail’s this way” and headed back up the mountain.

I gave him 30 minutes.  If he didn’t find it by then, we’d have to make another decision about what we were going to do.

I looked around and tried to think of what our other options were:

-We could try to work our way down the Tuckerman Ravine.  It was dangerous, but people have done it before.

We could also work our way back up to the summit and start our decent all over again.  We’d be tired, but it would give us a good chance of getting back on track, if we could get back up there and down before dark.

-That last option, one I didn’t want to think about, was digging a whole and in the snow and bivouacking down until the weather broke.  I knew it would get really cold that night, but it would be better than falling down the Tuckerman Ravine in the dark.

Then I started to think of my wife, at home.  Probably watching TV on our couch.  I was supposed to call her this evening when I got off the mountain.  She was already worried about me.  If I didn’t call her tonight, she’d be a complete mess.   I hate it when she worries about me.  Imagine how upset she’d be if…

I stopped myself.  No way that’s happening tonight.  I could not stay up here tonight.  We’d HAVE to find a way down, no matter what.  Even if we had to hike all the way back up to the top 5 times and crawl down at midnight, we were not going to be stranded here!

I had worked my way into quite a pep talk!  Just then I remembered.  I had downloaded a copy of the map on my iPhone to study.  I had brought my phone with me, just in case of an emergency.  I didn’t get service, but I had a copy of that map still on here.  I pulled out my phone and with my liner gloves, I was able to scroll and zoom to the part of the map were on.

I looked around to try to and orient myself to a landmark with little luck.  I thought we were right above the Tuckerman Ravine, but I couldn’t be sure.  And just then, the weather lifted for a few moments and, off in the distance, I could make out the unmistakable shape of the Lionhead.

We couldn’t be that far off course!  Dave had to be headed in the right direction.  I started walking towards him.  I was ready to grab Dave, shake him and yell “we’re going to live!  We’ll make it off….”  What was he waving his arms like that for?

I heard him yell  ”I found the trail!  Its right here.  We were only off by about 100ft!”.

Oh right.  Well, nevermind the speech.  I guess we’ll just walk down then.

And sure enough, the trail was right there.  And just as we got there the weather broke for a few more moments and I could see the rock formations on the Lionhead directly ahead in the distance.  We walked down slowly and got back down to the tree line.  The weather, which had been pounding the summit finally eased.

The setting sun came back out again to greet us as we quickly walked the lower half of the trail and finally dropped below the mountains just as we reached the trailhead and car.

We unloaded the gear into the rental car, turned the heater up to full blast and drank a bottle of slushy water I’d left behind.

“What’d  you think?” I asked Dave.

“That was not as easy as I thought it would be.”

“Me either.”

“Ready for a beer?”

“Dear god yes.  Let’s go”

As we set off down the road to head back to down, we both got quiet in our thoughts.  I thought about calling my wife and how good it would be to hear her voice.  I thought about how different the whole experience was from I pictured it.  But mostly I thought about all the stories I’ve read of people who have died on mountains and how real it all seemed to me now.

Now to our credit, we did stop making bad decisions at a critical juncture.  Though we were only a 100ft or so off-course, we could have easily made the situation far worse if we had continued to make bad decisions.  I stopped our descent, Dave made the sacrifice of heading back up and because of the that we were able to find our way back on-course after losing about an hour or so of time.

But I saw firsthand how easy a serious of seemingly small errors can compound and snowball into disaster.    Coupled with a lack of humility, we were actually pretty lucky to have made it off as easy as we did.

Mountains, especially ones as fierce as Mount Washington, demand your respect.   It doesn’t matter how fancy your shell is, or how good of shape you’re in or how shiny your new crampons are. If you don’t respect that mountain, it can punish you.  Sometimes with severe consequences.

This time, we walked away with a free lesson.