In 2009, Dad, Chris, Josh and I went to climb Mt. Owen. Josh and Chris had never been up it, and it had been many years for Dad and I. The hike in isn't too bad up to Amphitheater Lake, but after climbing out of the bowl the lake is in, the trail hits the boulder field at the moraine of the Teton Glacier. It is a steep, long boulder field, with little in the way of climber's trails. At the end of a day of hiking, it is a tiring endeavor to work up and down two or three huge waves of rocks formed by the receding glacier. Our camp was right on the edge of the glacier. The rangers had mentioned that they typically set up their tents on the glacier itself, so we pitched our tents right where the glacier met the rock.
The weather had been cold recently--there had been snow and ice a few days back in the Tetons, and we could still see some snow on ledges on Mt. Owen. After setting up camp, the wind started blowing, and the temperature dropped substantially. We all decided to take a little nap before dinner to get out of the cold and rest for the day tomorrow. I crawled in my sleeping bag, and was surprised to find that I was still cold. The wind whipping down across the glacier cut through my three-season tent like it wasn't there. The two hours I spent trying to take a nap that afternoon were some of the coldest hours I had ever spent in the Tetons. I had on my fleece, shell, gloves, stocking hat, gore-tex pants, and smart wool socks, all inside my sleeping bag, and I was still cold. I remember thinking: "Oh man, what are we in for tonight? How cold is it going to get?" The only warm part of me was whatever part was laying on my thermarest, so I tried to get as much surface area on it as I could.
After laying there shivering for an hour or two, we all got up to eat dinner. Everyone had been cold, and I think I wondered how cold it would be at 4:00am when we got up to start our climb the next day. We ate a warm dinner, refilled our water bottles, and wasted very little time before returning to our tents to get warm and go to sleep.
Luckily, the wind died down a little and the night was much warmer than I thought it would be. I was warm, shed some layers during the night, and slept comfortably. We woke up to clear, starry skies at 4:00am and got ready to go. We hiked across the glacier and up to the Koven couloir. The day before I had spent some time looking up at the Koven couloir and had decided that it didn't look as long as I remembered it. The summit block looked like it shouldn't take too long to reach. I was wrong, though. The Koven couloir took much longer than I thought it would. There was verglass and water covering a lot of the rocks, and it was often difficult to tell at a glance if a rock was covered in ice or just wet. The climbing was fourth class, but sustained, and the wet and icy conditions kept our progress to a slow, steady pace. The Koven couloir is broken by a large band of rock about half way up, and the couloir was filled with snow above the band. We put on our crampons and pulled out our ice axes. The snow was solid, providing good purchase, and we made good time up the steep snow before angling off the snow and onto the rocky ledges leading up to the summit block to the west.
We meant to climb the waterfall pitch leading up to the upper snowfield, but a vertical band of steep ice and snow kept us from moving to the base of the traditional start to this pitch. We talked over climbing down to a place where it looked like we could cross the snow band, but eventually decided to climb up from where we were. It looked like one rope-length would lead us to the upper snowfield. We all put on our rock shoes and Chris led the climb. The climbing was steep--I was glad that Chris was leading and not me--but there were good places for protection at the difficult parts of the climb.
We put our crampons back on and started off on the upper snowfield, angling west on the south side of Mt. Owen. The view from here is amazing. The north face of the Grand is close, and the Grand dominates the view to the south. By this time the sun had been up for hours, and the snow was starting to get soft. As we angled up the snowfield towards the summit block, the angle of the slope increased, and the snow became softer still. I started to feel uncomfortable with the idea of retracing this path later in the day when the snow was even softer. I said so, and we talked about it. Dad figured we could easily skirt the snow on the way down, so it wouldn't be an issue. We kept going up towards the summit block and the start of the East ridge. As we got close to the rock, the snow became more difficult--it was steep, soft, and there were breaks between the snow and the rock. I again said I was worried about retracing our steps later in the day. Chris was ahead of us a little, and was having a hard time figuring out how to exit the snowfield and get on the rock. We talked it over, and Chris said he thought maybe we should go down as well. We all decided to turn around there and go down.
When I think about that decision, I think a couple of things. It had been a long time since I'd had a marathon experience in the Tetons, and I think I had forgotten that some climbs take all day to do. I wasn't used to the idea that we might not get back to base camp until nearly dark, and I wasn't mentally ready for such a long day. I also think I'd been uncomfortable more than normal on this trip--the cold afternoon the day before, the long and delicate climb up the Koven couloir, the one roped pitch we had climbed, and the steep, soft snow on the upper snowfield. At some level, I was mentally tired and ready to get off the mountain that day. It had been a busy summer, and in some ways I wasn't fully committed to the Mt. Owen climb. I think if I did the same climb today, I wouldn't have pushed to turn around when we did. I don't think there were any insurmountable obstacles, or highly dangerous situations there. I'm not saying it was a bad decision to turn around, but I don't think we needed to turn around for safety necessarily.
At any rate, we turned around, retracing our steps down the glacier. We rappelled down the pitch we had climbed to reach the snowfield using a fixed sling that another party had left. When we had all descended from the rappel, Chris and I went to pull the rope. It didn't budge. We looked at each other and pulled again. I don't know if it was the wet rope, or something stuck up top, or just friction from the rocks, but with Chris and I pulling with all our weight we could only just barely get the rope to move. Each pull netted us six inches or a foot of rope. After a lot of work, the rope started to move more easily, and we eventually got it down.
We did a few more rappels down the Koven couloir, intermixed with downclimbing. I was happy to hit the glacier when we did. While walking back to camp across the glacier, Josh stepped into a hole in the icy snow and twisted his ankle about 200 yards from camp. Luckily it wasn't a bad twist, and he was able to walk out, carrying the weight of his pack down the boulder field.
I look at this climb on Mt. Owen and think how fun it was to climb with my Dad and brothers. We knew each other well, we all knew climbing and ropework, and it was fun to be together on a tough climb. I was glad to be teamed up with such strong and able men.
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