Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Not Done Yet
Monday, June 18, 2012
Interesting Things I Learned on this Trip
- Wyoming is very friendly, because all of its revenue depends on energy production (lots of buyers, plenty of supply) and tourism (especially in this corner of the state). They are pretty nice to the loads of idiot tourists who stumble through here.
- Wyoming (and South Dakota for that matter) does not care if it names things inappropriately or humorously. Let's recount thus far:
- Crazy Woman's Creek
- Dead Swede Campground
- Many Black Dikes (that's not "Dyke" but it sounds enough like it
- Mary's Nipple (actually, that's in Idaho, but we can count them too)
- Indian Creek (I'm guessing there are several)
- The technology created to allow one to pack one's own feces off a mountain has improved dramatically, even if I avoided having to use said technology.
- LMFAO's "I'm Sexy and I Know It" is not a good song. It is especially not a good song when played 4 times in a row on the car stereo. And it is the very last type of noise/song that I want to hear when driving through Yellowstone.
- Do not EVER let your 10-year old play Katy Perry songs before embarking on an 8-mile hike. Not only are they terrible, they also stick in your head.
- Lastly and most importantly, when trying to urinate outside in 65 mph winds, there is absolutely positively no way that drops of urine will not spray back in your face. Accept it and employ large quantities of hand sanitizer.
Monday, Climb Day 2
Well, the climbing part of Day 2 was mostly downhill, unfortunately. After a night of feeling like the hut would be blown off the mountain, we managed maybe 4 hours of sleep total before waking at 4 AM for breakfast. The wind had not died down.
Paul opted to scrap the summit attempt because he felt gassed from Day 1, so Christian and I took off from the Hut at 6 AM. We climbed maybe 250 feet to the Black Dike on the southern face of the Grand, at which point it became very obvious that a summit attempt would be very dangerous. The wind kept trying blow us off the mountain. When your guide is saying, "Wow, this is windy," I take that to be a bad sign when your guide is intimidated by the weather. So we scrapped the climb, headed back down to the hut, and then picked up Paul and headed down.
And a good thing we did. We made it back to the parking lot just as a storm rolled over the summit. That was about 2 PM, which would have put us at the Hut. Hmm... down climbing tired in a rainstorm. No thanks.
Climbing is all about making it back alive. I'm happy I almost made 12,000 feet and felt strong enough to go the distance if it had been safe. Maybe another time...
Without a doubt, my favorite picture of this trip. I snapped this shot from the Black Dike under the Exum Ridge... aspen glow at 6 AM of the Middle Teton. Amazing, and so crazy to have to climb 5400 vertical feet to get something this perfect at just the right time.
This was as high as we went. The hut is visible from the Black Dike.
Looking out into Idaho from the Saddle. The flat top mountain, Tabletop Mountain, featured a helicopter rescue last year of a climber who broke his ankle. The helicopter was flown by Harrison Ford (of Indiana Jones/Han Solo fame). My guess is that it wasn't quite so windy that day. To the right is a famous peak called (and I am not making this up) Mary's Nipple.
Sunday, Climb Day 1
I actually wrote this post from the Saddle Hut on Sunday night on my iPhone.
Holy crap.
8 miles today, 5000 vertical feet. Which sounds pretty bad by itself, but to be honest, the hike/climb wasn't that awful. What was awful was the 60 mph gusts off the mountain that kept trying to blow us back down the couloir or shower us with pebbles and scree. I'm writing this from the "shelter" of the Lower Saddle hut (actually a canvas structure on iron rods that sounds like the steady 40 mph winds from Idaho will pick it up and throw it down the mountain.
This is much different from Rainier. We can see the Grand's summit from the Saddle. It feels so close, like you could climb it this afternoon and then get back to the hut before night. That's not actually possible, but it feels like it.
The wind is supposed to die down tonight in time for our summit attempt, but if this keeps up it will be in jeopardy. Time for dinner and then bed, at 11,600 feet.
I added the following after getting back
In case you were wondering, here is our route from today:
It was a long hike, to say the least. The first four miles got us to Lupine Meadows, which is where most of the melt from the glacier turns into a strong stream. That was about 2.5 hours. The rest was a slog up the glacier's snowfields in 40 mph winds with 60-65 mph gusts that threatened to knock us over. We had to help a solo climber pin his tent to the ground with rocks (the next day we found out the wind tore one side of his tent off and threw it over the Saddle into Idaho). As our guide noted in guide verbage, it was "nukin'".
Shot of Lupine Meadows from the Middle Teton glacier.
This dark chimney behind Paul and Christian on the Middle Teton is called "The Black Dike." And it won't be the last Black Dike we see, once again proving political correctness has not arrived in Wyoming yet.
The Lower Saddle is in sight here (in front of the sun).
Paul and me at the Lower Saddle Hut. The climbing route is in yellow behind us (I drew it on there, obviously). That black line of Ignatius rock behind us is the other Black Dike.
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Saturday in Teton Village and GTNP
Today we completed the day 2 of the climbing school, which was essentially completing a pair of climbs off one of Teton Village's ski slopes in what is called Laramie Bowl. Christian challenged us with some tougher climbs (and we survived, though the rock managed to take a chunk of my thumb and my knee), and the good news is that nothing we do on the Grand will be nearly as difficult as what we did today. We embark around 10 AM tomorrow for the Lower Saddle and will be climbing the Exum Ridge route... not too hard, but does include a ledge traverse over a 1500-foot drop in early morning. Gulp. We come down on the western slope and drop in with a 200-foot rappel as well. Should be interesting. I'll post pics and video from today later... Paul has all of the shots of me on his camera, and he's already in bed.
Jeana and the boys took the ferry across Jenny Lake and hiked up to Hidden Falls, a short and relatively easy hike of about 1/2 a mile. This is where Paul and I were climbing on Friday. Pics of the crew in front of the falls, a pesky marmot, and Teewinot (left) and Mt.Owen (right) below:
We all got back this evening, and after dinner Paul stayed in while the rest of us went to... the Jackson Saturday Night Rodeo! Ugh. Not my thing. I passed the time by texting, cheering for the animals to win, and being entertained by the Amish family in front of us rocking out to Taio Cruz. No, that last statement was not a joke. Zach also got popcorn salt in his eye. Which reminds me, the most expensive thing on the snack bar menu was jerky for $5, thus explaining what happened to the poor calf that got roped and then stood up lame on the left hind foot (I notice these things).
Won't be updating the blog again until Monday night because, well, tomorrow night I'll be trying to sleep at 11,000 feet at the Lower Saddle. Later!
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Friday, June 15, 2012
Friday... Climbing Begins!
Paul got in late last night, and this morning we woke early and headed to Jenny Lake in GT NP to meet our guide and start our training for our climb. Our guide, Christian, is half-Chilean and has a rather impressive resume. Really nice guy and extremely patient with my inability to learn how to tie any kind of knot.
After a morning of learning knots, steps, rope-handling, and different techniques, we completed a six-pitch climb near Hidden Falls. Beautiful area, fun climb, and supposedly a bit harder than what we will do on the Grand (though did not include 1000-foot drop-off's)...
We finished the day by practicing rappelling off a 100-foot cliff. Really fun, though also kind of freaky scary. Going up, you can go at a pace you feel comfortable with, make sure you have good foot and hand holds, etc. On a rappel, it's all on your rope anchors. And yeah, I know people practice rappelling off this cliff, but that doesn't exactly stay forefront in your mind when you're dangling 100 feet off the ground and the only thing keeping you from certain death is that freaking rope.
Jeana and the boys spent another leisurely day around the condo watching France beat Ukraine and England rally to beat Sweden (wicked goal by Welbeck, by the way). Then they tried their hand at tennis and did some more swimming before meeting Paul and myself in town for dinner and Jackson's long-running main street gunfight.
Tomorrow, more climbing for Paul and me around Teton Village while Jeana and the boys plan to do some hiking (probably up near Jenny Lake where we climbed today). Some of us may hit up a town rodeo tomorrow night, and then it's a good night's rest before the big climb starting Sunday.
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Mellow Thursday
After 3 days in the car, we made a concerted effort to stay out of the car today. Late wake-up, breakfast, then over to the Village to ride the Tram up Rendezvous Mountain (10,927 feet, 4100 foot climb). It was a wee bit colder at the top, and we did a short hike near the summit.
After heading back down (Zach's rather engaging video footage of the descent to be posted when I have a faster connection) we headed into Jackson for lunch (the grass-fed beef out here is so crazy tender it's ridiculous), then came back to the condo and let the boys swim for a few hours. And watched the Irish get pounded into submission. And deal with a few web issues on a slow afternoon.
With little else to report today, I'll just link one of Zach's and Peyton's videos...
Day 3 Part 2
The geysers get all the press at Yellowstone, but one of the park's iconic sites is the Grand Prismatic Hot Spring. There isn't as much pressure building here, so instead of a steam vent or a geyser we get this bubbling lake of clear blue water that spills over on to the surrounding rocks. The micro-organisms in the lake turn it the unreal shade of blue, and then as the water cools over the rocks and combines with the sediment, you get brilliant shades of yellow, red, and orange. It's pretty amazing to see.
The coolest thing about the spring is we pulled up during a mild squall that was rolling through, with the air temp dropping into the low 50's with a wind chill. We were kind of cold walking up to the spring, but once we got to the part of the boardwalk next to the spring, the steam coming off the lake warmed us up. Like an outdoor sauna. Zach even requested we double back so we could go through the steam again (even though his glasses fogged).
Zach participated in a Junior Ranger program. Now, I think it's a good program, as the kid gets a patch at the end and a park ranger holds an impromptu ceremony (in Zach's case, under a dead buffalo's head). But this also was the cause of several meltdowns in the car as Zach struggled to finish the tasks as we drove from site to site. So I personally remain skeptical on the use of the Junior Rangers. They should hand out clipboards with it, at least.
At Mammoth we took in the legendary Travertine Terraces, but first shot the boys sitting in front of apparently tame elk that wander the station, most of them eating while laying down much like my mother's fat dog. Wait, I mean full dog.
The terraces are cool because the hot springs that feed them cause this weird terracing effect (hence their name). So in addition to the cool colors, we get natural landscape architecture.
Our plan for tomorrow... little to no driving. We hope to get in a short hike in Grand Teton NP, let the boys swim some, maybe get back in time to watch a bit of Ireland-Spain (nothing like watching the Irish fight a hopeless battle... pretty much the story of their existence).
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Day 3: We're Done with the Freakin' Car
Today we decided to return to Yellowstone and see most of the rest of the park. "Most" means probably 1/3rd. But we saw a lot of interesting stuff, even though Zach had several near meltdowns. By the way, I'm doing this in two posts so I don't put too many pictures in a single post...
Here we have myself and Peyton demonstrating the gravitational effects of the Continental Divide:
We ticked off a ton of wild game and birds today: bison, elk, grizzlies (yes, grizzlies... more on that in a minute), an osprey, beaver, a bald eagle... all in all, not a bad day. We did not see any wolves, but that part of the park is rather remote and we went south to north today, covering 70 miles within the park (not to mention the 80 between Teton Village and Yellowstone's south entrance).
Nice rack (and Jeana told me to write that):
Jeana had her telephoto lens on for this shot of these grizzlies. They were at about 250 yards off the road, mulling around in the meadow. This is a straight crop of the full image, no downsizing, so that's why it is slightly blurry. Alas, she needs one of those $5000 lens to really nail this photo. But this still isn't awful... not to mention, it's about as close to a grizzly as I ever want to be in the wild.
OK, what do people think of when they think Yellowstone? No, not a super volcano overdue to erupt and and all human civilization. Well, at least not yet. Old Faithful! That's right we joined the masses of about 1000 people to sit around for 20 minutes and watch water shoot out of the ground. Like the Bellagio but without music.
I just want to point out that 3 out of 4 people had a video camera or phone ready to record the geyser. Which is #$&%ing stupid, because if I want to see a video of Old Faithful erupting, I'll just go on YouTube and watch one of the 16,000 videos that people have added of the same stupid thing. But you'll note Zach was recording it with the Flip recorder, so I guess shortly there will be 16,001 videos of it on YouTube. &%#!.
At the very least, if you're going to take some image of Old Faithful, then put yourself in the photo so it has some reasonable sentimental value. I mean really.
Day 2 of the trip... a long slog through eastern Wyoming, followed by a fantastic climb into the Big Horn Mountains, then a wild descent through a huge canyon... then another 80 miles of desolation on the plateau before hitting Cody and ascending into Yellowstone...
As I mentioned earlier, Wyoming is wonderfully politically incorrect. Plenty of anti-Obama stickers ("Change" is all I got left!) and charming places like Dead Swede Campground and Crazy Woman Creek. If we cross the Maimed Mick Ford tomorrow, I will not be surprised.
Cody was essentially Estes Park but with cowboys. Which is OK, that's what it was selling. Peyton was thrilled that the bar of the Irma Hotel was showing the Russia-Poland game and allowed him in to watch the last 5 minutes. So they're not completely anti-progressive if they are showing soccer games in the bars.
Speaking of, 4 of the 5 high school we passed had soccer fields and goals. I always thought Wyoming didn't do any soccer. And by the way, even the rattiest towns filled with junkyards had pristine beautiful schools, brand new buildings with either immaculate grass athletic fields or turf. Then again, I presume that the state takes a majority of its oil money to fund the schools for its sparse population.
Once we hit Yellowstone, we knocked off the southeast part of the park today. A few animal sightings:
Note this buffalo turned his head when we started firing pictures. I think he was eyeballing a charge at the boys. I know I was by this point.
Actually, he was just laying under this tree and Peyton spotted him 30 yards from road. There were people literally walking within 10 yards of him on the other side of the tree that had no idea he was there. Zach was worried about getting charged, but we left the car doors open and I reminded him the first rule of surviving an animal attack was to be faster than somebody else in your party.
We stopped by a few sulfur geysers... Zach was not impressed with the smell but was interested to find out that were actually standing in the caldera of a supervolcano that is due to go off again any day now. There were a lot of questions from him about the last time it happened (650,000 years ago), if anybody was present (possibly one of his Grandmas), and what time it happened (3 PM... I made that answer up too, what was I supposed to say?).
It was a 2-hour drive then south through the southern part of Yellowstone and all of Grand Teton Parks before we are now safely nestled into our condo in Jackson Hole. We are planning on heading back north tomorrow to hit the park's northern meadows, where we hope to see some bison and elk herds and hopefully a grizzly or wolf or two. Will leave you with my favorite of Jeana's shots of the day... the Grand Teton (Paul's and my goal for Sunday/Monday) with a wild elk herd in the foreground.
