The Grand

I had been hearing GFT (“Grand Fucking Teton”) lore my whole life. Having spent my formative early-20s in awe of the towering spires of the Tetons, the young and juggy granite faces, the steep couloirs, the fields of loose scree, they would always hold some mystical power over me. I find them impossible to leave, too alluring and magnetic and ethereal. Each peak, each face, each ridge, each square inch of that mountain range offers its own challenges, joys, and consciousness. The Tetons suck you in and spit you back out, and you would forgive them every time. I just couldn’t ever leave them. I am in love with them. I always will be. 

Although classic routes like the East Ridge of Disappointment or the CMC on Mount Moran or the Dihedral of Horrors in Death Canyon may be objectively “harder” climbs, the Grand was the ultimate classic, universally known and respected amongst climbers and non-climbers alike: the crown jewel of the popular and tourist-ridden Grand Teton National Park. In all honesty, though, it wasn’t that high on my bucket list. The Tetons are a playground where you can never run out of routes to explore, both established and non-established, with its infinite granite and its diverse canyons, choosing between Granite, Death, Garnet, Avalanche, Cascade, and Hanging Canyon - and that hasn’t even hit as far north as Moran. And if you ever get tired of being in the Tetons, you can admire them while playing in the Gros Ventre Range, or drive by them on your way into the Snake River Range, or peek a glance while heading towards the remote Absaroka Range, or even climb higher than them in the Wind River Range. The options are endless. But unlike the Grand, the peaks of those ranges mean little in the eyes and ears of non-Jacksonians.

Personally, I had more of a thing for underground, locally gate-kept climbing routes. I felt an aversion to crowds, to tagging popular summits just to brag about it at the bar later – a culture of ego and inauthenticity that I despised – that I felt not only intimidated by, but scared of, scared of the mountain sensing your poor intentions and screaming fuck you, mere mortal human. I was always more of a Royal Robbins than a Warren Harding: a purist, a rule follower, someone with a deep respect for the rock, someone who took any and all mountain experiences seriously, almost to a fault, wearing a helmet the second we hit fourth-class terrain, checking the weather constantly, risk averse and a bit of a buzzkill at times, there mostly for the solitude and masochism. Yet still, the Grand, the biggest of the Teton Range, that rugged peak your eye is naturally drawn to, the center piece of that glorious photogenic backdrop – I will admit She had a particular allure.

July of 2024 had been hot and smoky. Typical monsoon season had kicked off just a week or so after the Fourth of July, popularizing the alpine start and convincing climbers to bag summits early in the morning before the unpredictable onslaught of afternoon storms. Despite this, our plan was to haul enough gear into Garnet Canyon to spend the whole weekend in there, to decide once we were in there what routes we wanted to attempt, hoping for decent weather but knowing we could hide in our tent if there wasn’t. But our plan was interrupted by a severe flare in my autoimmune disease, one that left me barely conscious on the bathroom floor, surrounded by my own vomit and a sweat-soaked pillow. I embarrassedly sent the text to my partner, bailing. Time soon let us know, though, that the stomach issues were a blessing in disguise: a violent thunderstorm left verglas and snow on the OS route, as well as triggering massive rock shed right above where we were planning on camping - which could have been deadly.

And so, I dropped the idea of going up the Grand for the time being - going back to letting the mountain decide and seceding to the flow of life, to the timetable of the Tetons that is so unlike that of ours centered around efficiency and productivity and meticulous planning. I would let Her tell me when I should go up, when it was right. If it was meant to be, it would be. Plans would fall into place. I let it go. I gave myself some room to breathe, for my intestines to recover. I ran errands, climbed at the crag, went hiking, read my book.

I was picking up organic produce at Whole Foods when I ran into John Michael. I had seen him around town plenty, Jackson being too small to not bump into people rather frequently, to not know everyone’s business, especially once it was narrowed down to the climbing community, everyone having slept with or dated if not one of your friends, then one of your friend’s friends.

I made small talk, griping about weather windows and crowds on the Grand and work schedules not lining up with climbing partners. He smiled the whole time, saying little except:

“There will be another sunny day. The Grand isn’t going anywhere.”

His comment was a reminder that the mountains were stoic and constants, immortal. I was not. I had no control. Over anything. So I continued to try to let it allll go.

On Tuesday night, I ate a large dinner, hungrier than usual, my intestinal microbiome still repopulating after the devastation my autoimmune flare wreaked. My climbing partner and I both had the next day off, and we exchanged texts about what we should do, eventually settling on skiing the Cave Couloir below the Middle – just to say we had skied in July – agreeing to meet at the trailhead around 8am. I went to bed excited about the plan, happy the weather looked ideal.

At 2am, I awoke from a strange dream where I was climbing the Grand. I thought about driving over to my partner’s house to wake him up for an alpine start, but instead quickly drifted back off to a deep slumber until my 7am alarm, trying to emulate the secession and surrender that John Michael had inspired.

In the morning, I checked the weather again. It was still forecasted to be clear skies all day, no wind - a rarity for the Tetons in mid-July.

Cole was late to Lupine Meadows; this was also a rarity. I stood in the dirt parking lot, staring at my skis. There was nothing to do but start packing while I was waiting for him, but I just couldn’t bring myself to strap the skis to my pack. It just didn’t feel right. Instead, I started organizing my trad rack. He was confused when he pulled up next to me and saw me clipping two #.75s, two #1s, one #2, and one #3 onto a sling.

“Hey,” I said before he had even opened his trunk. “Crazy idea. Do you wanna climb the Grand?”

He looks at his watch. We both knew it was already 8:30am, and most people begin their attempt around 2am.

Cole, a perpetual yes-man, never one to turn down a challenge, responded, “Hell yeah. I’ll pack my harness.”

I had studied the route in detail before, in preparation for last weekend. I wasn’t sure, however, what cams to bring up, considering the regularity with which locals casually free solo’ed the Grand. Looking back, I got so lucky to have found bomber placements at each belay ledge for the minimal pieces I chose to carry. One of the first strokes of something so coincidental it felt more like fate: the first of many synchronicities.

I remained detached for the 4-mile hike into the canyon, reminding myself that we could always turn around if conditions changed, that it was a privilege and a joy just to be in the mountains, that I didn’t need to prove anything to anyone. I was letting the mountains call the shots. Cole carried the rope, I the rack.

At the platforms, where we began scrambling and boulder-hopping, we saw Nancy. All of a sudden, Cole’s being-late was something I was grateful for, something that allowed the alignment and crossing of Nancy’s and our paths. Nancy, a well-known and highly respected Exum Guide, was my long-time climbing mentor. She was the one who had taught me everything I knew about technical rope skills, everything I knew about the Tetons. But she was more than that, too: she was my role model, someone I idolized and worshipped, who provided guidance in both the mountains and in other areas of my life. She had given me the beta for even the most covert and isolated routes, but she had also been an anchor of emotional safety for years. I hadn’t seen her all summer, and I missed her immensely.

When she asked, I told her I wasn’t sure where we were going, which was the truth. We reserved the right to turn around at any point, if the mountains told us to, and I honestly wasn’t sure we would make it to the top. We had heard horror stories of our other novice climber friends getting lost for hours on the many routes up the Grand. Just last week, Cole’s roommates had taken 17 hours on the Upper Exum route. Nancy’s expression was a mixture of pride and concern, the line between pushing me and protecting me always a fine one for her to walk.

We continued making our way up to the Lower Saddle. I silently set a turnaround time of 1pm, meaning that if we weren’t there by then, we would turn around and return to the valley, having taken all of our climbing gear for a nice, long walk (as Cole likes to say). But the slow slog through the steep scree deposited us at the Exum huts at 12:35pm. We re-filled our waters and kept walking, knowing the real route-finding would begin just past the Black Dyke and right below the Needle.

It’s amazing how my energy always seems to shift once we hit the alpine. Adrenaline and excitement and anticipation flooded my system. I picked up my pace, the pain in my quads dissipating, the heaviness in my lungs lifting, feeling overall revitalized and refreshed. Cole noticed it, my giddy hopping through the couloirs to the Upper Saddle a stark contrast to my slow trudging in the moraine. He always notices it: the change in my mood the moment we get on rock, even during training hikes at the resort.

At the Upper Saddle, I sat down and stared at the blue sky. There wasn’t a cloud in sight. I looked down a couple thousand feet below at the Lower Saddle, the huts now just little specks far, far away. I looked around at the magical mountain range, at the snow fields and couloirs and lakes and basins, thinking about the remarkable dimensionality of it all- how what you saw from the valley below was so different from what it was like once you were in it. Then my smile faded, and I went silent. Cole knew me well enough to not let me linger in my anxious thoughts, but I wouldn’t snap out of it.

A fight was taking place in my brain, between two polarized parts. A logical part combatted my desire to continue to the exposed climbing, screaming NO, there is no reason to do this, to take this much risk. Yet, the other voice wondered what the reason to do anything was; what compels us to make any of the strange choices we make every day? Just do it.

“Ellie, just so you know, we can go down right now. I’m totally fine and so happy doing that.”

The air between us sat there, heavy and undecided, until a light breeze blew the uncertainty away.

“But I’m NOT!” I screamed. “I’m NOT fine and happy doing that.”

My intuition had spoken up.

So we put on our harnesses, and I racked up, and we continued climbing, across the Belly Roll and the Crawl and up the Chimneys and across the Catwalk. It was a short couple of pitches, but I was scared, petrified, 13,000 feet up, an overhanging rappel and hours of difficult scrambling from my car. But it felt right.

This feeling of rightness, however, didn’t prevent my nervousness from making me aggressive, short, and tense. I built anchors to belay Cole with swiftness and speed, fueled by my cortisol-induced focus. The exposure during the Belly Roll made my stomach drop, had me questioning the stickiness of my approach shoes on the granite. Once we found the main rap station, though, relief rushed through my veins. We calmly finished the final pitch up a steep chimney, followed by a brief, unroped scramble to the top.

The OS route of the Grand is notoriously busy, congested with tourists and guides and first-time climbers and visiting climbers and trail runners and mountaineers from the beginning of July through the end of August. Yet we hadn’t seen another soul the entire route. And there we were, on the summit of the Grand Teton in the middle of July, alone. It was just after 5pm. It was unheard of.

A snack break and a few minutes of celebration were all we needed before we returned our concentration to the descent. Clouds began rolling in, innocuous at first, but slowly increasing in darkness as we got lower. The wind picked up ever so slightly, cooling us off, drying our sweaty sun-hoodies, but warning us to keep going down.

After the spicy rappel from the Catwalk to the Upper Saddle, I practically skipped my way amongst the rocks and boulders to the Lower Saddle, occasionally slipping on the loose dirt and scree, but too over-the-moon to slow down. I could feel Cole behind me, grinning at my happy dancing in between moves. I even managed to somehow guide us back down through the Eye of the Needle.

And there was Nancy at the Lower Saddle, almost like she was waiting for our return. When she saw me, she was beaming with pride, mirroring my stoke and joy. She congratulated me, and I told her I couldn’t have done it without her, without everything she had taught me, about gear placement and anchor building and rappelling and belaying with my ATC guide. Her smile was big and genuine, but I couldn’t help but feel there was also something bittersweet in her facial expression. A feeling not unlike a teacher watching her student graduate. I felt it, too, from the student’s perspective: an underlying sadness and nostalgia, knowing I would always miss my first climbing partner, that I would miss the safety she provided, the way she let me learn from her and lean on her. That I would feel both grateful and indebted to my teacher forever, always hear her voice in the back of my head, never stop trying to earn her approval.

John Michael watched the interaction, a twinkle of knowingness in his eyes. He grinned at Cole, someone he used to work with. His eyes said, funny seeing you up here, old friend. And it felt like we were encapsulating the essence of the Teton climbing community. The mentorship, the niche- and tight-knit-ness, the passing of beta through generations of climbers, the love and fulfillment we share, reveling in one another’s successes while also competing and pushing one another to do better. The way we all get trapped in this valley. How we choose to come here and then cannot leave, despite the shitty wages and the overpriced housing and the expensive cost of food and living. And the cyclical moments like this that make it all worth it, that remind me why I started climbing in the first place.

We continued making our way down, descending the fixed line, being cautious in the scree fields of the moraine. I texted my parents once I got service. It got dark right as we hit the main trail. I tightened my headlamp to my forehead and started singing at the top of my lungs, anything to release the fear and anxiety the complete and utter darkness built up in my body, never knowing if the slight rustling in the bushes was a bear or the breeze.  

Two miles from the car, we caught up with two women, both our age. We chatted with them for the last 30-40 minutes, thankful to be in a bigger group in the pitch blackness of the dense trees of the subalpine terrain. We exchanged stories about our days, and although they weren’t from Jackson, we bonded over the uniqueness of this range, its zest and unpredictability and its ethos of sandbagging. I was watching the Teton climbing community expand, just as it once had for me; I was witnessing the lore grow and spread.

We all arrived at the parking lot around 10:30pm. It took Cole and I exactly 14 hours car-to-car, worth every minute.

Despite having led harder routes, my clueless and non-climber-educated parents were starstruck, jaws on the floor, when I returned home to tell them I had summited the GFT. They bragged about their daughter climbing a peak even our Midwestern cousins had heard of. But that external recognition wasn’t why I did it.

I don’t know why I go into the mountains, why I love them so much. All I know was that the day I summited the Grand was a special day. A serendipitous day. Just like every day - every moment - in the Tetons is. The Tetons do something to a person. I cannot get out of their magnetic aura, nor do I want to. I will love them every day, forever and ever. Thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, from the deepest depths of my soul to the dark recesses of my brain. I owe you everything. And it’s you who’s responsible for that big ol’ grin Cole says he only sees on my face in the alpine.