Wind Rivers: Cirque of the Towers

 

Normally we'd hands down have the smallest and lightest packs for either an overnight or day climb out of any other party on the trail. Because our gear is insanely close to weightless it would allow us to load our packs up with lots and lots of good food. (and some alcohol :)) Getting into the cirque isn't necessarily the shortest approach ever known. It's not that hard, just long with heavy packs. It begins with a relatively flat 6 miles where only about 700ft of vert is gained. After that, you have another 5 or 6 miles to go up and over Jackass Pass and then across the valley until the heart of the cirque is reached. Although it would be a very long and time consumiong approach we headed to the grocery store with big eyes and empty stomachs to get some delicious and decadent grub to bring in on our 5 day adventure. We were going in in style as our cart ( ....yes we are cart people now) was full of Hershey's bars, kit-kats, Granola, seasame sticks, dried bananas, summer sausage, parmesan cheese, and of course peanut butter and nutella. To top off our excitement we bought grilled cheese makings along with wine and Disarono. On nearly every other overnight adventure the one and only thing we crave is grilled cheeses. There is something about having a long streneous day and being able to end it by indulging in a hot, gooey, and crispy grilled cheese sandwich. We literally will spend hours while hiking discussing the lengths we'd go to for one of those bad boys. Now that we'd be filling our desire it was time to head off on the 'ol dusty hiking trail once again.

My lord our packs were heavy! Yes we did it to ourselves but in the end it'd be totally worth it. Sam played the part of a big oxen mule and we musta loaded him up with nearly 50lbs. (the pack weight will eventually give him blood blisters on his hips!) I certainly did not have that much but took as much as I could handle for 11 miles. The first 6 miles went surprisingly fast!! Before we knew it we were heading up the daunting Jackass Pass. Even with our big packs on this was one of the easier passes that we have pushed over. SCORE! The clouds were looking ominous and the smell of rain was in the air. We needed a break anyways so took cover under a big overhung boulder to wait out the storm. The rain wasn't much of anything so in no time we were back at hiking. It was absolutely breathtaking rounding the last corner of the trail and seeing the Cirque of the Towers unfold infront of us. I couldn't believe that this was going to be our paradise for 5 whole days!!

 

We found a spot high in the basin and got our home away form home set up. The next day were were greeted with awfully ugly coulds and werent stoked on getting poured on so it ended up being a lzy day in the tent. (I literlaly lost my mind and nearly went insane laying around for so long) Luckily there were descent sized breaks in the rain which allowed us to sneak out to make grilled cheese and gorge on mike-n-ikes! we knew the weather wasn't supposed to be much better the next day but we couldn't take another day like the previous. We woke up real early and headed up towards Pingora. In about a half hour we had finished the approach and were ready to start climbing. The route was only 3 pitches with one 4th class section at the top so we figured if we moved quickly we could out run the rain. The route was a classic must do up a very well known peak. We quickly scurried up the face and took some pics of the surrounding peaks in the cirque. We also scored a booty nut somewhere on the first pitch of the climb! Just as we made it back to camp the skies opened up and again started pouring.

 

 

 

 

I found myself becoming completely stir crazed once again. It's rather hard to lay sedentary for hours on end while the storm works it's course outside. It was a great reprieve once morning came and we were able to get out and start another climb. Todays objective would be the west ridge of the Wolf's Head. This is one of the busiest routes in the cirque so ideally we wanted to get on it before hoards of other people were there as well. On the approach we could see 2 other parties pitching out the 4th class scramble to the base. This was a clear indication that they'd be much slower than us so we needed to devise a way to scoot around them. Off to the side was a gully that we thought we could give a shot. By choosing this option it meant that we would have to climb another small peak, The Tiger Tower, to access the base of the Wolfs Head. Based on the speed of the other 2 parties we figured that we could accomplish this which would allow us to by-pass them and be the first people en-route of the day. As we were oging up the gully, Sam found a #2 cam that looked relatively new!! This was a fantastic find as those cost around $80!! We finished the gully and summitted the Tiger Tower fairly quickly but then realized that we had to rapell off the peak which drastically slowed our progress. We quite literally ended up being behind both parites by about 35 seconds! SERIOUSLY!? Normally it wouldn't be a huge deal to climb behind slower parites but with the weather being tempermental we didn't want to get stuck up high in an alpine storm. As the first party started up we thought they might actually cruise faster than we thought. Nope-slow. We could already tell that the second party was going to be slower than molasses so we needed to devise a plan to get around the 4 people in front of us. We decided to simul-climb which would let us cruise on past them. All was going well until we hit a large traversing pitch were we got bottled up with everyone again. It was mostly our fault as we more or less had caused the snafu in the line of people. We gracefully had put our tails between our legs and took our place behind the other groups. It actually ended up being a rather fun day and some interesting conversations with teh other guys and gals. The top parts of the route were really neat because you ended up doing alot of traversing along the face, squeezing through body size chimneys and the coolest part was when we pushed through holes that took us through the mountain to the other side. Towards the top we managed to bypass everyone and made a quick summit and an even quicker descent and once again just barely made it back to the tent before the storm gods took over the sky.

 

 

 

This time the storm was unrelentless and wouldn't give us a break. It continued to rain until about 8AM the next day. There was a general "I'm sick of the rain" feeling amongst everyone in the cirque that morning as nearly everyone, including us, was ready to pack up and get out of there. There was undoubtably more climbing to be had but we were ready to bounce. After a long 11 mile hike out we treated ourselves to a hotel and a beer at the brewery in Pinedale. The next night was awesome because we were able to use our new camp oven. Started out by making double chocolate fudge brownies followed by some hot biscuits in the morning!

 

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Grand Teton National Park

As much as we thoroughly enjoyed our visit back home we were itchin to get back on the road. We have adapted and really grown to like this little gypsy life of ours. Our tenative plan when we wrap up the trip is to move to Whitefish for my job. With that, our frequenting Bozeman and Chico Hot Springs will be limited to about zilch due to the long drive. We figured that we should spend a day pokin around Bozo and finish it off with a nice soak at Chico! To get to Tetons we went through Yellowstone National Park where we did another hotspring soak in the Boiling River. This is a great spot where the hot sulfer pots pour into the chilly river melding into a perfect and serene soaking temp. After a relaxing morning in the river we made our way to Old Faithful where we sat on the deck of the old lodge drinking coffee and watched it erupt. That evening we camped outside the Teton park and plotted our following days. Our next objective was the Taminah Arete on the Matternought Peak. Permits were obtained to camp in the backcountry and we were off once again. For a few miles of the approach we were to follow the National park trail and then venture up canyon on a "good" climbers trail. The climbers trail disappeared and we found ourselves struggling up and over tedious boulder fields. We spent many hours traversing up and over boulder after boulder until we saw an easy point to drop down to the meadow next to the river. We both happened to be in a seriously weird funk and couldn't pull ourselves together or get in the hiking groove. Once we hit the meadow, the very well used climbers trail magically showed up and it was smooth sailing for a few minutes. Not 10 minutes after regaining the trail we rounded a corner and 15 feet infront of me was a huge mooses butt. It was a moma moose with it's baby and this wasn't anything to mess around with. We made a circum-navigation of the two moose and made lots of racket in hopes that they wouldn't stomp us to death. We were in the clear and took a huge breath of relief....well for a moment. Just as we avoided one threat we darn near walked into the daddy moose a tiny bit further up the trail. He was a bit more skiddish than the mom and the baby and quickly ran off the trail down to the right. Phew! My heart was thumpin and a bit flustered but we were on our way up trail again. Moose seem like big magestic creatures from far away but get too close and your as good as dead. This time we continued to make a serious amount of noise to ensure that we'd scared them all away. We aren't entirely sure what we saw next but there was another brown creature that made a rapid movement up ahead behind a large rock. At this point we had seriously had enough of this and at almost a running pace took off into the upper boulder fields to clear all the danger. Finally all the animal spooks had stopped! After we reached our destination, camp was set up, dinner consumed and we assesed our route endeavor for the following day. For a handful of reasons we were having doubt on doing it. The Tetons already are pretty stiff on their climbing grades and this route was going at 5.9 which would probably feel like a 5.10 to us. We decided the prudent decision would be to sleep in and hop in the alpine lake the next day.

We had a couple of other options as to which climb we'd attempt next. A few years ago we climbed the Grand so we decided to look around at other peaks in the area. We ended up choosing the South West Ridge of the Enclosure. this peak lies directly behind the Grand Teton and is only about 500ft shorter and gets summited far less than it's asthetic neighbor. It's tucked away at such an angle that really no matter your persepctive it isn't necassarily a summit that would catch your eye. With it's summit at 13,400 and 12 pitches of 5.7 we were beyond stoked to give it a shot! Ideally we wanted a camping permit for the lower saddle ( which is the best and most logical place to start when climbing the Grand) but with it being a weekend in the middle of August we were going to have to settle for a bivy farther up the mountain at the col below our climb. To get to our camp destination we had to reach the lower saddle and then continue on up the mountain. When we finally finished the ugly slog up to the lower saddle we were beat. Knowing that our campsite would by dry of water we needed to filter some H20 and get some dinner into us before continuing on. It took some major motivation to push forward but we rallied and made it across the scree slope and the 5th class traverse on the side of the granite walls to our destined spot. Once there we were beyond stoked at our position on the mountain. We were higher up so that meant we got an extra hour of warm daylight before the sun dipped below the hills in the distance. Watching the sun set over the valley gave us some sick photo op's!

view of the Grand Teton from the Lower Saddle

lower saddle between the Middle and the Grand

Thats our peak! (Enclosure)

 

 

By camping only minutes from the base of our route it also allowed us to sleep into the very civilized time of 7AM. yes please!! Sam owned the route like a beast, I on the other hand had a strangely hard time with this climb. The rock quality was immaculate but very very slippery! In comparison, imagine taking your granite counter tops, turning them vertical and added a few slopey bumps to try and cling on to. This is what I felt like I was doing for hours. As stated before, the grades are sandbagged a bit here in the park. Even though this route went at 5.7 it was certainly a challenge. All the pitches were long and good except for one horrendusly bad traverse in the middle. I cried, and cried alot. Not because it was strenously difficult but it was awkward and towards the end if I were to fall I'd either bash my head in or shatter my feet, neither seemed like situations I wanted to deal with. Sam gave some very kind words of encouragement to get me through it...**cough..NOT. Alas we summited and watched the debauchery of people herding off of the Grand Teton next to us. In total, there were 7 people on top of our peak (including ourselves). During the half hour that we spent on the summit we counted 63 people coming off the Grand and that didn't include the 30+ that had already descended or the few that hadn't summited yet. YIKES! It took us less than an hour to get off our summit back to the lower saddle. We chose to spend one more night up in the alpine before leaving towards the van. Between the two of us, we both managed to take zero pictures of either the climb or the summit of this route.

 

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Rogers Pass

Before we crossed the border up north into Canada we decided that it was time to splurge and get a hotel room in Bellingham, Washington. We took the afternoon and perused the downtown where I ended up purchasing not 1, but 2 new pairs of climbing shoes. One pair of La Sportiva TC Pro's and La Sportiva Tarantulas. I had blown a hole in my beloved shoes and there wasn't going to be a convenient time frame to get them repaired. Climbing shoes aren't something that can just be replaced. It's a long term relationship that is formed between you and the shoe. It takes months before you can begin to allow another pair to be "ok" but usually never as good as the beloved pair you've climbed hundreds of routes in.

Showers and television kept us busy for the next few hours until we ventured out and found a brewery downtown where we had some very tasty salads and listened to a live band. The next morning we finished our errands and headed towards the border. Typically the Canadians make it as painful and difficult as possible to enter their country, but to our surprise the border patrol gentleman asked us relatively few questions and motioned us on our way. We took a day or so to get to Revelstoke where we gassed up at the pretty penny of about $6 per gallon. Once we left this town we had to push the turtle 45 miles up a gruesome pass to where we would spend the next few days climbing.

The weather wasn't looking stellar so to avoid the next day's afternoon thunderstorms we decided on a very early hike in to our camp. We began our hike at about 5AM and the plan was to scurry up the trail, set up camp and get some climbing done before the weather turned sour.

 

We got to camp around 7AM and much to our surprise every other single group up there was frantically packing their things and heading to the trailhead. Hmmm...odd? Just as we finished throwing up our tent, a big dark ominious cloud moved in. We sat around for about a half hour to see how the weather was going to play out. The thunder started booming and terrential rain set in. So much for us getting an early start to avoid "PM" showers! Hunkered deep in the tent we both fell fast asleep for many hours as the storm did its thang. Around 11, we pulled ourselves from the tent and figured it was nice enough to climbing. Being lazy and relaxing seemed so much better than putting effort into much of anything. The rest of the day purely consisted of napping and whishing we had more foor to gorge on :) We couldn't stay lethargic forever so we planned a very large and involved route for the morning. As per usual, the AM was frigid and full of crankiness but off we went. The Route we were aiming to do is called the Swiss Peaks Traverse which encompasses 5 prominent peaks of the area.

Peaks of the Swiss Traverse

 

 

We slogged over the Rogers glacier and then up the scree slope to gain its ridge. Once at the base of the mountain we threw on our gear and pitched out 2 easy 5th class sections. This may be coldest I have been yet on any of our climbs this trip. My hands were brutally fragile that even after the warmth returned to them they remained extremely painful for a good hour. The reach the top of our first peak, Rogers, it involved some mixed rock scrambling with snow ridge climbing. The absolute neatest thing we have done on the trip was the descent from this peak. There is a snow arete that forms the summit block and to get down you have to walk along an exposed knife edge snow ridge.

Once we had reached the col of Rogers and Grant we stopped for a cup of coffee and a snack in the sun! The weather wasn't looking awesome and we still had 4 peaks to go. for the sake of speed we decided to start simul-climbing. Towards the end of the 3rd peak my foot slipped while down climbing and had mild heart failure as I peeled off the mountain. Luckily, my right leg got caught between a snow patch and the rock catching my fall but leaving me dangling upside down. From what could have been a bad accident for the both of us, I walked away a little shaken up and a scraped ankle.

In the mountains, judgement calls have to be made based on many factors. At the moment we needed to decide if the weather was going to hold for us to push through the last 2 peaks of head back to camp now. Below us at the time was a very low angle snow coulair that we could easily retreat on. We opted to call it a day and begin our trek back to camp. The coulair descent began with 2 rappells with lots of elevation to still descend. Much to our surprise, the "low angle" coulair ended up being the steepest snow that we have encountered yet on the trip! Some 2 hours after downclimbing steep snow and ice we had reached the start of the glacier.

It turns out that the weather actually ended up being rather nice but no regrets to come off the traverse as the descent was an adventure in itself! Back to the van and on to the next climb.

 

We yet again had grand ambitions of doing another 3 peak traverse the next day. This one would logistically be more challenging as it started and ended in different locations which means carrying all our climbing plus overnight camping gear with us over the 3 peaks. To reduce pack weight we chose not to bring a tent as the weather looked perfect for the following days. For our first night there were 2 camping options: In the basin below the peaks or directly in the saddle between two large mountains. We chose the second option for the asthetic-ness of the camp site and in the morning we'd literally be able to wake up and climb with no approach! Clearly this was the less popular option as we were the only ones camped here vs 5 or 6 parites in the lower sites.

We found a great bivy site that was nestled up next to a large boulder with a nice wind wall on the other side. We carefully arranged our beds to maximize the warmth with the gear we brought. Next to our site was a bear box to store our food but I thought better of that and instead decided it would double as an emergency shelter.

Just as we were settling in for the evening and headlamps were being turned off, I spotted something move above our heads. Greeting us was a big furry tailed rat! Immedietly I became very very concerned that he was going to eat my nose off during the night. To top off my terror, his fury friend came out to join him. Great, not only am i panicked about one, but now I have 2 to battle. Meanwhile Sam was working his way to deep slumber completely un-bothered in the least. Literally every half hour I'd violently burst awake, turn on my headlamp and sit on rat patrol for a few minutes. Of course I'd wake unintentionally wake Sam up and he'd angirly curse be and demand that I quit being so paranoid. Again, trying to drift off into a light sleep and forget that they might eat my face off, Sam suddenly gave a voilent jerk and squirmed around. Quickly turning on my headlamp, low and behold, there was a rat sitting on his face!! This certainly did not put me to ease and throughout the whole night I'd periodically patrol for rats so we could contine a life with our rat eaten noses.

In the morning our motivation to do a 3 peak traverse wasn't there so instead we decided that we'd climb one of the peaks straight out of our campsite called Uto. The whole climb was easy 5th class so we solo'd the whole thing as well as soloing and rapping on the descent.

 

 

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