The Grand Teton, Grand Teton National Park, WY

The Grand Teton, Picture below taken Wednesday, August 20, 2025

The Grand Teton has been on my bucket list for some time after completing the Colorado 14ers 10 years ago with the summit of Capitol Peak. I was looking for something challenging that could incorporate my route finding skills from the 14ers and my rock climbing skills from my years of technical climbing. This created a bit of a conundrum with the Grand Teton because with any technical climb, you need a partner with equal or better skills than you to help belay. After asking around for some time if anyone was interested in joining me, and turning down several who had no idea about the technical nature of what I was seeking, I asked a caving expert from our church, Grace Lutheran in Little Rock, if he had any interest in the Grand Teton. He had already completed a guided hike of Mount Rainier many years ago and continues caving to this day. Shaun Baker quickly got back with me and said, "Yes, that sounds like fun!" He said he had the technical skill but had never done a high alpine climb before and so this started to interest him. Both of our talents started to mesh well as most of my experience was in high alpine environments with route finding capability and his with technical rigging. You need both to climb the Grand Teton.

Our talking slowly morphed into practicing. We rigged some rock climbs at Rattlesnake Ridge in Little Rock and eventually made our way over to the Big Rock Quarry Park in North Little Rock, where we physically laid out several pitches, mimicking what we faced on the Grand Teton. We set up a horizontal traverse with rigging for protection, and practiced as best we could. We found a similar chimney and practiced placing protection. We set up a rappel, practicing clipping in at the top as if we were truly on the Grand Teton, and had the risk of falling 100 feet if we were not careful.

All of the practice lead to the establishment of our final plans to climb the Grand. Shaun and Justine decided to make a two week trip out of the ordeal, spending half a week at Grand Teton National Park before I arrived on Wednesday, August 20.

This way, they could at least acclimate as much as possible at 6,793 feet elevation in the Jenny Lake Campground. Shaun and I one Sunday morning, 6 months prior (in January 2025), sat in the Church Vestry with our computers just before Bible study, ready at 8:00 AM central to jump on Recreation.gov in order to book campsties along with half of America at the same time. We were able to secure the first 6 days at site #35 (has a great view of Teewinot Mountain)

and our last night (Sat.-Sun.) at site #12 (has great access to Jenny Lake).

After flying in Wednesday, August 20, we did the regular tourist run around the park, snapping pictures of the Grand from different angles.

From the Northeast...

From East of the Snake River...

East of Snake River...

Same...

Same...

Same...

We saw a bull elk just off one of the roads, horses, bison, and mule deer in our campground as we prepared our packs for the next day.

Wednesday evening at the campground, we packed our bags, making sure we counted every piece of climbing equipment we needed as it was all essential for our safety!

Shaun cooked us an amzing steak and potato dinner with veggies in his Lodge Dutch Oven. It was delicious...

As the sun set in our camp, the Grand Teton was truly on my mind. Though top picture is actually of Teewinot Mountain from our campsite.

We arrived at the Lupine Meadows Trailhead around 6:15 AM Thursday morning.

30 minutes later, we were on the trail. Justine snapped our picture just before leaving.

We probably should have started earlier given how long it actually took us to hike to the lower saddle, but we didn't! Like most 14ers, the trail starts out in amazing condition as you head south across the mountain toward Garnet Canyon.

You turn west into the canyon and begin hiking up large sweeping switchbacks in the trees. Here you have great views of Taggart Lake and Bradley Lake.

An eventual summit conversation with a guy revealed to us that Taggart was nicknamed "Teddy Bear Lake" because it's shape looks like a Teddy Bear. Go figure. There are two trail junctions in this area that are well marked and difficult to mess up, as long as you keep following the arrows to "Garnet Canyon." Nevertheless, we had at least 3 groups pass us in this area that we had now seen twice, because they took the wrong trail toward Surprise Lake and Amphiteater Lake, because the junction is on the end of a switchback and if you keep following the trail straight, it goes toward the two lakes. You have to switchback in order to head toward Garnet Canyon.

We were worried about weather, though the reports continued to look very promising for Thursday and Friday. We spoke with just about every group coming down from the lower Saddle on Thursday and all of them said they either turned around due to exhaustion or because of weather up on the OS route and Exum Ridge. Nobody seemed to have made the summit the day before on Wednesday. Several told us they were sleeted on while on the Exum Ridge. We were becoming a bit more worried about weather up high. 

After the long switchbacks in the trees, you move deeper into the canyon traversing the north side on up through several boulder fields.

They are small but the only parts of the entire trail up to the lower saddle where there simply isn't a defined trail. Unbeknowst to me, there is no such thing as a "rock cairn" on the entire Lupine Meadows Trail to the Lower Saddle and beyond to the upper saddle. I guess Wyoming or Grand Teton National Park likes to keep things natural. The Colorado 14ers have cairns everywhere. As long as you keep moving west in Garnet Canyon, you can't really get too lost going through the lower boulder fields. As you meander through the mellow, near flat trail through the boulder field canyon you pass the Platform Camping area.

Next, you abruptly start going up as the trail heads north and just to the east of Spaulding Falls, which is pictured below.

All the while, you have a great view of the East face of Middle Teton.

Buckle up, the switchbacks are steep and the slope seems like it goes on forever. Certainly in this area around 10,000 feet is where Shaun started to feel the effects of altitude. He wasn't getting altitude sickness but each steep switchback brought him to a micro rest break. Once you reach the top of the switchbacks, the trail turns west again and heads toward the drainage off the Middle Teton Glacier and the lower saddle in between Middle and Grand Teton. Here is your view of the lower saddle.

The northern (right) turn into this area is probably the easiest place to get lost as some people continue too far west into the drainage. The actual trail stays more to the north and takes you above the low point of the drainage so you don't loose much elevation coming into it. You should be popping over the boulder field from the east, right were the Moraines Camping area begins. There is a sign here that says, "Entering Morainal Camping Zone."

This is the last camping area before the lower saddle. The Morainal Camping Zone is around 10,800 feet, and is well above tree line. We contemplated camping here given how long it took us to get there and because of what we had read about wind up on the lower saddle. But, we continued on. 

Follow the pretty decent trail through the Moraines until you hit the next set of steep switchbacks. These swtichbacks are more difficult as they are all above treeline and filled with scree and small rocks. Shaun struggled through these also, taking many breaks. You are now in the Middle Teton Glacier drainage area. 

In this area, we heard a small rock fall occur on the Middle Teton, just south of the Middle Teton Glacier. Thankfully we were on the other side of the drainage, well out of the danger area.

The final obstacle before attaining the lower saddle is the lower saddle headwall. This is a class 4 section of rock scrambling, about 50 feet tall. There is a fixed rope with nots tied in it for gripping about every foot and a half. The climb is pretty easy until just at the top where you have to manuever around a boulder that blocks you from going directly up. This boulder forces you to at least partially rely on the fixed rope to help you around it.

After the headwall, you are almost to the lower saddle. You are greeted by a sign at the lower saddle on the southwest side that warns you about the alpine tundra and how you should use the restroom on the other side of the saddle, because it is away from the water source.

The water source is a hose that is connected up to a spring on the southwest side. Shaun and I joked that this hose is the watering hole where everyone gathers for a drink and discussion on the lower saddle. This is certainly true as I sat there on the way down the mountain and listened to seven Exum guides make fun of two 80 year old women that summited that day with two of their guides, short roping them the entire way. Short roping or not, summiting the Grand at 80 is impressive. The watering hole always had people gathered around and really, what else is there to do at 11,600 in the afternoon after camp is set up. 

Just as we made it to the lower saddle, a guy was coming down that asked us, "You looking for a campstie? I of course said "Yes!" He said, "I just left the best one on the entire saddle. It's right over there." The guy was right, it truly was the best site on the entire saddle. Just look at the view down Garnet Canyon from your tent door!

There is a massive boulder on the south side of the saddle, just northeast of the water hose. The boulder blocks the wind and your view back south of Garnet Canyon is impressive. I snagged it quickly as Shaun was making his way up to the lower saddle. We arrived at the campsite around 3:15 PM. People were still coming off the Grand heading back down to Lupine. Everyone stoppped at the hose to fill up water before leaving the saddle. Shaun and I started re-packing our backpacks for the next day. We were able to drop our tent, sleeping bags, air mattresses and some food. The lower saddle has a community bear box, so we didn't have to haul a personal bear canister up the mountain. Thank God! The bear box is in the bottom left of the following picture I took of Shaun early Friday morning.

The lower saddle has an NPS semi-permanent military style tent anchored to the ground, along with a nearly indentical tent used by Exum guides for climbing. 

They had their own bear box next to the tent. The final structure behind the Exam tent on the north side of the saddle is a makeshift, open air, two stall "rest stop" with two toilet seats on a wood peddastle, to securely put your wag bag on. This is not a pit toilet but just a place to use your wag bag with some privacy. Thankfully, I never had to use this, though the views were impressive off the north side of the saddle while you did your business.

We set up our tent that afternoon, utilizing Shaun's vintage 1990 ultralight tent which was actually very spacious and light. However, I'm not sure it would have withstood high wind or rain. Thankfully, it never rained! The saddle Thursday night was actually quite vacant. There were a few Exum clients up at the big tent, another two guys camping behind the boulder we camped at, and a third group of two Canadians from Alberta that joined the saddle around 7:30 PM that night. Both of the other private groups were heading over to the Exum Ridge in the morning. We appeared to be the only private group heading up the OS in the morning.

We set our alarms for 5:00 AM but were both up by 4:45 and moving. The Exum guides and clients got moving at 4:00 AM and we could see their lights up on the mountain when we started. The lights on the right are the Exum climbers heading over to the ridge. The lights on the left are the Exum guides and clients heading up the OS.

We were afraid of getting up to the Eye of the Needle before light but ended up timing it perfectly. We hiked in the dark up the final strech of the lower saddle to the black dike. The following picture shows the black dike and the beginging of the needle up in front.

There is great trail all the way to the black dike, making it easy to follow with a head lamp. But, once you reach the dike, the climbing turns into class 3 as you traverse around the central rib's needle to the north (left), into the Owen-Spaulding Couloir. The climbing here is not difficult. The first obstacle greets you fairly quickly as you enter the couloir - The Chockstone Chimney. Unbeknowst to us, we actually missed the chockstone chimney going up, traversing left across what the Wyoming Whiskey website lists as "many variations here" over to the "Mini Black Dike." As we traversed higher, I looked to the south and saw I was actually slightly above the Eye of the Needle. Shaun and I traversed back right over to a slab that we climbed over and dropped into the top of the Chockstone Chimney, and took a ledge over to the entrance of the Eye of the Needle.

We were back on track. The Eye of the Needle is just a 10 foot long or so rock tunnel and is very easy to get through. Here is Shaun popping out of the Eye of the Needle with the sun rising in the back.

After this you pop out to the "Belly-Roll Almost." Going up the mountain (right to left), this is actually a bit of a slightly difficult maneuver as you literally roll yourself over this boulder with the exposure of the Chockstone Chimney below you. We did not rope up and managed to traverse it fairly quickly, though both recognized the danger of the move.

After the "Almost Belly Roll," we maneuvered up through the right side of the OS Couloir, close to the Central Rib. We did not take the RV or Black Rock Chimney routes but rather found a better route over by the Upper Western Rib. We moved fairly quickly through the upper, passing the Exum guides and clients several times, as they did the same with us. The upper part of the Grand Teton has no cairns and no real trails. The entire face of the mountain has been trampled by climbers, making climbers trails over everything. You basically pick what works best for you and go with it. We found many different suitable options that did not go above class 3. This section actually turned out to be easier than I anticipated but still very steep.

We finally reached the upper saddle which is actually very tiny. There is literally a 6 foot section of true "saddle" to stand on where you can see both directions. This is the view looking northeast from the Upper Saddle.

This is where we dropped our packs, opened them up, and pulled out all our class 5 climbing gear and put our harnesses on.

By the time we made it up to the upper saddle, a group of three guys and two guides with a client each, had beat us there. There is a short steep section from the upper saddle to the Belly Roll and you can see the climbers ahead of us in this picture.

Even this section is not easy as it has at least one short pitch up a cliff.

The exposure above the upper saddle truly lives up to its fame. This is Shaun getting close to the Belly Roll area.

We were ok with some folks being ahead of us at the Belly Roll as we watched them rig up and go over it. We took mental notes on their anchors and holds on the rocks. After a 15-20 minute wait, it was finally our turn. We stepped up and set up my belay anchors and Shaun decided to go first over the "Belly Roll" as I belayed him. Once he was over, I took down all my anchors and roped up for Shaun to belay me from the other side. I found the "Belly Roll" to actually be quite easy with better holds on it than the "Almost Belly Roll." The only difference is the 2,000 foot plus exposure below the "Belly Roll."

After both of us made it across, we mutually decided to not rope up across the crawl because we determined it was not a huge threat to our safety if we kept ourselves straddled over the ledge or entierely on the right side of the ledge. Shaun went with the latter and I went with the straddle. Both worked. Shaun went first again.

The crawl turned out to be easy but still with 2,000+ exposure. Immediately after the crawl is the double chimney. The total distance from the belly roll to the double chimney is only maybe 75 feet. It's all one after the other. The first chimney is a difficult maneuver to get into. We knew this after reading all the countless trip reports and so we passed by it going to the 2nd chimney. However, by doing this, you have to maneuver another 20 feet over to a short pitch into the 2nd chimney. There are two ways to do this. You can traverse the pitch hanging on with your hands to the lip at the top and hoping to find foot holds, or you can drop down to an easier ledge just below the pitch, and then climb it straight up to the entrance of the 2nd chimney. We opted to drop to the lower ledge. Shaun took a look at the 2nd chimney from the lower ledge and requested we rope up. He set up an anchor to belay from. 

I remained back at the end of the crawl, as there was not much room where he was. All the while, a group of 3 came through the crawl, along with an ultra guy in shorts and a T-shirt. He requested to pass through. We told him to go ahead and he did. Everyone was extremely nice in asking to pass and we tried to be the same way. Shaun finished the anchor before the group of 3 was ready. So, I went down to the lower ledge and tied onto the rope. I then went first, scrambling up the short pitch to the entrance of the chimney. This was probably the most fearful moment on the entire climb. It was not difficult but any slip by my foot on the small hold it was placed on would result in me sliding down the pitch, back toward Shaun, and the 2,000 foot drop. I was able to push up with my foot and grab the lip of rock above. I pulled myself up and made it to the entrance. I continued on up the chimney to a good stopping point where I could anchor in and belay Shaun. While I was setting anchors, the group of 3 came through. As the last climber made it past us, Shaun came up. 

There are two ways you can go through the 2nd Chimney. One way is to the right with a little more exposure and a difficult move into a "V" notch in a rock, like on Mount Sneffels in Colorado, but harder. The other way is to the left which has another tunnel climb, like the Eye of the Needle, but shorter. We chose this option as it had much less exposure. Once we made it through the tunnel, you have a short vertical pitch up a chimney with rock on all four sides of you. This made it pretty easy as you could use whatever side you wanted to push up with your legs for safety. Once out of the double chimney, there is a short scramble up to the bottom of the Owen Spaulding Chimney.

Days before we ever began the Grand Teton climb, I asked Shuan if I could lead the Owen Spaulding chimney. I wanted the responsbility and challenge of placing all the trad gear and ensuring my own safety going up. So, I led the 80 foot pitch. I placed three cams on my way up the 5.5 rated chimney and successfully made it to the top. This was my absolote favorite part of the entire climb. The chimney was not overly difficult but rather some great rock climbing fun. I did not take any falls so the protection was for the "just in case." After coming out of the chimney, I put together a couple of anchors and rigged my belay. I then belayed Shaun from the top of the chimney. We both made it up pretty quickly and were off to Sargent's chimney.

We were a little unsure about Sargent's Chimney as the actual chimney looked nothing like the pictures, at least to us. We started up what we thought was the chimney and I located what I thought was the hidden exit on the left side. A climber was repelling the chimney at the same time and I confirmed with him that this was truly the hidden exit. He concurred. So, Shaun and I scrambled up the hidden exit. At the top of the hidden exit is a short scramble that is fairly exposed. To be safe, we decided to rope up again. I set anchors and Shaun climbed first. He then belayed me from the top. The section was only 20 feet tall or so and we both did it quickly. All of Sargent's Chimney is about the same height of 80 feet as the OS Chimney. 

Once above Sargent's Chimney, I noticed the "Three Stooges" rocks and knew we needed to traverse left of them as we were now getting close to the top. One little surprise we didn't read much about was a short 15 foot pitch just below the summit. We did not rope up as their was not tremendous exposure below it and the holds were very good. We popped out on top of this pitch and the summit was 20 feet in front of us. We finally made it!

We spent probably 30 minutes on the summit as the weather was still perfect all around. We arrived around 2:00 PM. Not a single cloud in the sky but much later than you should ever be on a 13er or 14er summit! The views were absolutely incredible all around. We took our summit photo together standing on top of the tallest rock on the summit. We then took individual photos. There were 3-4 other guys on top with us. 

After looking closer at the USGS marker on the tallest summit rock, I noticed several inscriptions in the rock. The first one is directly next ot the USGS marker. This one says "1898 W. O. Owen." William (Billy) O. Owen, Franklin Spalding, and Frank Petersen, and John Shive, were the first people to ever step foot on top of the Grand Teton on August 11, 1898. Two days later, they returned to the summit of the Grand Teton and chiseled their names into the summit block of rock. These names are still there today. 

But what fascinated me even more was the name chisiled on the rock just north of the summit block. On July 25, 1924, 16 year old Paul Petzoldt and his buddy Ralph Herron successfully climbed the Grand Teton, only the fourth known party to do so. He climbed it wearing cowboy boots. Petzoldt went on to form the Petzoldt School of American Mountaineering — now Exum Mountain Guides, named after his partner, Glenn Exum. People paid him up to $100 in 1930 to guide them up the Grand Teton. Not only was Petzoldt famous as the first paid mountain guide in America, he also became Staff Sergeant Paul Petzoldt, Medic, 85th Mountain Infantry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division in World War II. He trained at Camp Hale, Colorado.

Thus, the summit of the Grand Teton is still a little museum at 13,775 feet. Shaun and I got all the pictures we wanted and started heading down. Notice the stated elevation of the Grand Teton is 13,775 today. Well, in 1898, it was 13,770 feet. This is because the Grand Teton continues to grow and geologists believe it has grown 5 feet since 1898.

The 15 foot pitch just off the summit scared us more going down than up. We noticed that people had left two nuts in a crack at the top of the pitch. We thought for a second about sacrificing a carabiner and attaching it to the nuts and running our shorter rope through the biner for a rappel. However, we decided against it after I was able to slowly downclimb it and Shaun followed. We then traversed our way across and down the mountain toward Sargent's Rappel. We had no trouble finding it and quickly started setting up our rope on the fixed sling already in place around a rock. There is a nice flat platoform to stand on while fixing your rope in the rappel ring. We used our 80m rope which gave us tremendous leverage to rappel down even further than most people.

 After both of us were down, we pulled the rope down. Next, we started looking for the main rappel. The main rappel is hidden so you have to find the rock that is commonly known as the "rappel overlook." Once you identify this, you hike down to the left of it and the main rappel is hidden behind some rocks. There is a pretty small platform at the top of the main rappel, with barely enough room for two of us to stand on it together. So, we each pulled out a sling and clipped ourselves into the anchor before attempting to throw our 80m rope down. At the main rappel, there are two bolts in the rock and also a second anchor which is a thick 3 inch tow strap rapped around a rock with a rope running underneath it. We decided to use this one because it was a shorter rappel. If you use the bolts, the ground at the bottom slopes downward from where you land using the tow strap and rope around the rock. Shaun went first on rappel. The rock outcropping you throw the rope over slants out and then under, so you can't see the bottom or the end of the rope when you start the rappel. Shaun ran into a knot in the middle of his rappel rope, that he had to tie off for in order to get it out. I followed after he yelled up, "Off Rappel!" The rappel is very exciting as you dangle in thin air, touching no rock, because of the outcropping at the top. The entire rappel is around 120 feet which is quite a distance going down in thin air.

Once we made the upper saddle on rappel, we were quickly heading down as the time was getting pretty late in the day. Route finding turned out to be easier going down than up, as is usually the case. We made it all the way down to the Belly Roll Almost, and decided that since we had made it safely this far, we should probably rope up going back over this roll given the exposure. So, Shaun anchored in as belayer and I climbed first over the Belly Roll Almost. We found it was actually easier going back over because you could see all the hand and foot holds below it. We went back through the eye of the needle and now faced the Chockstone Chimney. Since we avoided it going up, and assessed that it was potentially a difficult downclimb, we decided to climb back up to just below the eye of the needle, and traverse over to the side and avoid the chimney. This acatually turned out to be a great decision as the traverse was very easy and brought us down quickly below the Chockstone Chimney with no danger. We did ascertain the idea of slinging a rock with webbing and sacrificing it along with a carabiner to set up a rappel but ultimately decided against it.

We were now well on our way to the lower saddle. We hiked back down through the black dike and found the trail that led to the lower saddle. The time was now 4:00 PM and we knew we were running late as we still had to take down our camp at the lower saddle. We arrived back around 4:30 and quickly started rolling up sleeping bags and mattresses, grabbing our extra food in the community bear box, and filling our water bottles at the spring hose. I used my Sawyer water filter to make sure the water was clean, even though others were drinking directly from it without filtering. We finally were ready to head back out around 5:00 PM. We had one last difficult obstacle, the fixed rope headwall just below the lower saddle. We both held onto the rope as we maneuvered down it and quickly made our way below it. We found the Morainal Camping Zone sign, which was our place to head diagonally left and up over the boulders, making sure we didn't miss the correct exit out of this area. We used Gaia GPS to make sure we were on the general path we needed to be, utilizing two different GPX files I had downloaded and saved for use offline on the mountain. After this, we found the trail again and proceeded on the long death slog of 6 miles out.

On the way out while in the long extended switchbacks in the trees, we ran into a bull elk on the trail and yelled for him to move off. We arrived back at the trailhead around 9:15 PM, in the dark. We switched on our headlamps for about 1 hour from 8:15 PM to 9:15 PM. Justine had set up a tailgate welcoming station for us with hamburgers, bison burgers, and gatorade. She had strung some camp string lights down the tailgate. This was a really sweet gesture on her part as we sat down to eat a fine meal for our late dinner. I had eaten through all my food as the extended time coming down passed through two meals. We drove back to the campsite and quickly went to bed after what proved to be a very long, but successful day on the Grand Teton!

Picture taken from the North on the Jenny Lake Scenic Loop drive.

Picture taken from the same spot that Ansel Adams took his famous 1942 photo of the Grand Teton

The next day on Saturday we drove over to Moose, WY and stopped at the same place that Mark and I hit after completing the Teton Crest Trail. There is a restaurant/bar called Dornan's Pizza Pasta Company that has an outside patio on the top of the restaurant with amazing views of the Grand Teton. We drank bear and ate pizza for dinner.

After coming back from Dornan's, I hiked the short hike over to Jenny Lake from our campsite and sat up on a big boulder, enjoying the breeze over the lake. What a great way to finish out the trip. Thanks be to God!