Duking It Out With The Grand
Success on Mt. Moran and the North Ridge of the Grand Teton
The crowd. The Duke Brothers.
Friday, July 31st: Boulder to Somewhere in Wyoming
The Loobster
Saturday and Sunday, August 1st & 2nd: First Attempt on North Ridge of the Grand Teton
6700 vertical feet. Wet, miserable.
The weather report as we headed in was for an 80-100% chance of afternoon thundershowers. What were we thinking?
Monday and Tuesday, August 3rd & 4th: CMC Route on Mt. Moran
Getting permits. The silly game. Apparently the rangers know this and don't mind the smaller impact.
9770 vertical feet.
Canoe. 3000 vertical in an hour and 15 minutes. Recon. Unsoeld's Needle, West Hornlette, West Horn, Moran
Wednesday thru Friday, August 5th - 7th: Success on the North Ridge
9000 vertical feet. 23 pitches: 12 up to the Grandstand:
3 pitches of ice, one of rock, 5 more pitches of ice, 3 more of rock
North Ridge: 11 total pitches
It took us 5 hours from the Lower Saddle to get to the Grandstand.
Four hours to do the route to the summit (noon to 4 p.m.)
We spent an hour on the summit and descended to the Lower Saddle in just over an hour where I took a duke on the world's greatest duke station.
There was a search going on for a couple of missing climbers on the East Ridge. We had spotted them approaching the summit and reported this to ranger Dave Bywater.
Back at our Meadows camp we were relieved to still find everyone there.