South Teton with Emma, dad and mom

South Teton climb with Emma

Dad, Emma and Mom climbed the South Teton in July 1998. As usual life was hectic before the climb and packing was not complete until late the night before we left. We got up at 4 am and drove to the Tetons. The drive was beautiful, even seeing a moose just before Star Valley. We arrived at the Ranger station about 9 am, the day was beautiful, but the Rangers were slow and it took a long time before we got registered. We went back to the car and packed up. About 15 minutes into the hike we realized we had left the camping permit in the car. Dad dropped his pack and went back to the car. Once dad got back we continued to hike, and even though mom is a slow hiker we went made steady progress. We hit the switchbacks and dad reminded us that Chad had called them “the Hill from Heck!” That may be so, but mom hates the bolder field more!! The meadow was very wet, with lots of people in it. We were camping at South Fork so we hiked up the snow to get to the campsite. When we reached the rocks at the top of the snow field we traversed across to our campsite. The site was beautiful, lots of snow and water, but one area was dry. Clouds had moved in so we put our tents up quickly and got inside before the rain came. Emma came into mom and dad’s tent during the storm. It rained, hailed and blew for about 3 hours. When it finally stopped we were really wet. Emma and mom’s sleeping bags were wet, the bottom of both tents were wet. We took everything that we could out of the tent and let it blow in the wind and most of it dried off. Dad got us hot water and the cup o’noodles tasted great.

The next morning we got up at 6 am, a little late for a dad start, but it was just beginning to get light and it was beautiful. We went up the snow and boulder fields. There were still lots of clouds and it rained a little, but we kept going. At one point mom became fatigued and felt like she could not go on. After some rest and water we all continued on. We hiked up the boulders on the side of the last snowfield and then put crampons on and traversed across. We went up the last couloirs and then the last 200 yards to the top. We all made it and it was great!!! Emma was really excited to be on top of the mountain We took many pictures, then began down. We had drunk all the water and we were all very thirsty. There were packets of hail on the snow and rocks and we decided that we could eat them because they had fallen the day before. They tasted so good and were so refreshing, we were all grateful for something wet in our mouths. We slide down many of the snowfields and made it back to camp. It was looking very stormy so even though we were exhausted, we packed up and left camp so as not to get caught in a bad storm. Down the snowfield below camp, toward the meadow Emma and Dad slid, but mom was very cautious and hiked down. Across the boulder field and down the trail, hiking as fast as we could, but Emma and mom were very tired and it was slow going. We went to Wendy’s and then home arriving around 10 pm. Emma used the experience as one of her Young Women 10 hour projects. She gave a talk on it at a Young Women in Excellence. Mom decided that climbing in the Tetons is like labor and childbirth, while you are in the middle of it you hate it, feel that it is very hard and that you will never do it again, but later the memory fades and you do it again!!

The mountains are beautiful and have a draw for mom and dad!

Middle Teton, Dad and Mom July 1995

Middle Teton climb with Steve, Jean

This was the summer that Steve was taking the Teachers in the ward to climb in the Tetons. He wanted to go up early and check it out so we decided that Steve and Jean would climb the Middle a few weeks before. The preparation was intense, with Jean trying to get in shape and get ready for the climb as well as arrange for the kids to be tended. We bought Jean a new pair of boots, an ice ax and crampons!! And she used Christopher’s pack. (Climbing is expensive but mom learned that the equipment is worth it so that the climbers can be safe!) Joshua helped with tending kids, Johanna and Emma spent the time we were gone at Blakeley’s.

We left at 4 am and drove to Jackson, checked in at the Ranger station and began hiking at 9 am. The hike to the meadow was good, except the boulder field for mom. We ate lunch in the meadow and then hiked up to the campsite at South Fork, it was beautiful there with small blue flowers all around. Dad helped mom practice with her ice ax. The wind blew all night, with the tent flapping, so not much sleep, up at 4 am and began hiking up the snow fields with flashlights. Mom would look over her shoulder and wonder how she would get down. It was slow hiking, mostly because mom is so slow. The last coulair was rocks and snow, which was soft. It was hard going. We hiked on the rocks which was easy and hard, more scary, but not as hard as the snow. Once on top the view was breathtaking , however looking over at the Grand mom decided that she would never make it on top of that mountain!! We took a picture on top, setting the camera on a rock and setting a timer. It turned out to be kind of funny, with our faces and clear blue sky, no mountains, rocks, etc!!

Going down was scary for mom and slow because she was afraid of sliding and not being able to stop. Once we arrived at camp we packed up and headed down. Everything hurt as we went down the trail, especially mom’s feet. She was very slow but dad is so patient with her that we finally made it to the car. We went to Wendy’s and then home!

Owen - 2009 (Eph's Account)

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.

Moran: Attempts 1, 2, and 3

Chris's memories:

I had always been impressed by the mass of rock that is Mt Moran. The Black dike bulging out of its face is something I remembered from trips to the Tetons as a young child. Finally, it became time to try to climb it.

On our first attempt, the party consisted of Dad, me, Andy, Ryan, and possibly others? The plan was to hike around the lakes for the approach as dad had remembered doing when he was younger. We had not traveled very far when we learned the hard way that no one did this anymore. The trail quickly disappeared into a dense forest with deadfall everywhere. As we hiked along we had to constantly climb over and under fallen trees with full packs on. The mosquitos were thick and there was no avoiding them. What we had expected to be a simple hike became hours of struggling. As we hiked, it began to rain and did not let up. We finally made it around to the base of Mt Moran. We stopped and discussed our plans, many in the party were very wet and did not want to continue so we decided to abandon this attempt. I remember staring up at the mountain, not agreeing with the decision to walk away (although it was the right one). We hiked around the other side of the lake on the way out and this was hard but better, there was a faint trail. We met a park ranger on the way out that told us he did not know of anyone who hiked in to climb Moran.

The second attempt was just me and dad. I think it was later that same year. We canoed across the lake-a much more pleasant way to travel-and hiked up to the base camp. I was impressed by the massive wall of the Skillet glacier above us as we cut up towards the base camp. The next morning we got up early and began the approach in a foggy, dark morning. We reached the top of drizzlepus as it was just becoming light. It was very foggy and we sat on drizzlepus for quite a while hoping the fog would clear but it remained thick. I never saw the actual mountain face which was probably less than 100 feet away. Ultimately, we turned around, packed up, and hiked out.

The third attempt came several years later. The party consisted of me, dad, and Emma. Again, we used a canoe as our transport. We put all 3 of us as well as our gear in the canoe which made it ride low in the water but we made it safely, stowed the canoe in the bushes on the shore, and hiked up to base camp. The weather was beautiful throughout this trip. The next morning we arose early and started our climb. After hiking to the top of drizzlepus we rappelled down and started our climb up the CMC route. I lead the climb with Emma clipped about 30 feet from the end of the rope and dad at the end of the rope climbing simultaneously and cleaning the gear. We moved steadily upward without any real problems. It is a beautiful climb, you don't escape the exposure until you are almost to the summit. We reached the summit around noon or a little before. We ate our lunches on top and enjoyed a sunny summit. We were quite tired and were glad to take advantage of quite a few rappell sites on the way down. This went well but slowly, descending took as long as ascending had. At one point we had all rappelled down a section and I went to pull the rope only to realize I had not untied a knot in the end that was now 30 feet above me. Luckily, I was able to scramble up to it, untie it, and downclimb back to a solid ledge to pull the rope. We finally reached the base of drizzlepuss. I again led this. It consists of a number of ledges angling right then left with no good protection sites. I was tired and ready to get off the mountain and probably didn't put as much effort into placing protection as I could have. Dad noticed this and wanted to be better protected when they followed me up. I think I got a little angry about this but ultimately I got to the top and belayed dad and emma up and we packed up the rope and rack. I was very glad to have the rack off my neck, it had been pulling at my neck for about 10-12 hours that day. We hiked down to our tent, arriving there at about 6 or 7 pm. We considered staying the night but wanted to get home so we packed up and started hiking down. It is a steep decline and full packs with tired legs made us slip and slide a lot but we finally reached our canoe right as it became completely dark. While we had been hiking down, a wind had started to blow. It wasn't a big deal on the firm ground, but once we had all our gear and all 3 of us in the canoe, it became a big deal. Dad and I were paddling. We could not see the far end of the lake in the darkness, the waves were rocking our overloaded canoe more than I liked, and I was imagining having all our gear at the bottom of the Leigh lake and trying to swim a swamped canoe to shore. Luckily, this did not happen. We kept paddling and after what seemed like much too long we came to a shore. Because of the darkness, we weren't really sure where we were in relation to portage site to String lake. We talked for a while and Dad felt we should go to the right so that is what we did. This worked and we found the portage, canoed across Leigh lake, and reached the car around 11 PM. We were very relieved to be off the water. We called mom and told her we were safe (I'm sure she was still awake...I doubt she could go to sleep at that time of night while we were still on a mountain). We drove home, exhausted.

1999 - Exum Ridge and Owen Spaulding

After being rained off of Owen the year before, we decided to reserve campsites on the Grand for two potential dates--that way we had two opportunities to hit a good weather day in the Tetons. The days were two weeks apart. For the first trip, we had a campsite at the Moraine, and Dad, Josh, Ben, and I hiked in. We had decided to try the Owen-Spaulding route. I was interested in trying it, but thought it might be a little underwhelming in comparison to the Exum Ridge or some of the other climbs I'd been on by that time. However, this wasn't the case at all. Maybe it was hearing about and reading about this route for years before climbing it, but I thoroughly enjoyed the Owen-Spaulding route.

We woke up early, hiked to the lower saddle, and scrambled up to the upper saddle. The weather was good, and we roped up to begin climbing. The Owen Spaulding route cuts east from the upper saddle, out on to the North Face of the Grand for a short traverse (the crawl) before cutting up a chimney to a large ledge system. The scrambling up to the upper saddle is pretty easy, and the couloir walls around you and the generally low angle of the climbing make the trip from the lower to the upper saddle quite comfortable, most of the time. The angle flattens out on the upper saddle, and you can see over to Mt. Owen. If you walk to the north edge of the upper saddle, you can peek over the edge down into the Black Ice Couloir, which looks pretty hairy to me. The North Face of the Grand is very steep. When you rope up and edge out onto the face, you can see straight down to the Teton Glacier 1000 feet below you. The wind is typically whipping, and the exposure is exhilarating. You first do a "belly-roll" around a large rock that takes you out away from the saddle. Just past this rock, there is a flake of rock 2-3 feet wide that is directly below an overhang, leaving about 3 feet between the overhang and the flake. This section is called "the crawl", as it can be easily climbed by crawling on the flake, looking down a thousand feet or so to the Teton Glacier. The crawl traverses the face for 50 feet or so, leading to the "double-chimney", which is another short pitch--this time 50 feet or so of easy chimney climbing up to the huge ledge system that contains the rappel point down to the upper saddle--the standard descent route on the Grand.

When we got to this ledge, Dad wasn't feeling well. I think the altitude was getting to him. He told me he was going to stay there and wait for us to climb to the top and back down to him. I took his cams and added them to my rack, and led up the Owen Chimney. This Chimney is a full rope-length of pretty solid rock. The climbing was well-protected and enjoyable. In other years, I have seen this chimney quite icey as we rappelled down it, but we had good weather and it was a nice climb. I set a belay, and belayed first Ben, and then Josh up the chimney. While Ben and I had been climbing, Dad had got his wind back and decided to finish the climb with us. He tied on to Josh's rope, and they simul-climbed the Owen Chimney. From the top of the Chimney, the summit is only a short scramble on 4th class ledges. I remember Ben saying something like: "You know, this was a great mountain--the only thing that I thought was missing was a really hard section--maybe a really tough 5.10 pitch to up the sense of accomplishment."

We had reserved a night on the Saddle for the following week. Dad wasn't feeling up to it, so Josh and I went to climb the Exum ridge together. I don't remember the hike being that bad. We found a decent spot to camp, sheltered from the wind. Unfortunately, it was also quite close to the Exum guides hut. That particular day, the Exum group consisted of a bunch of kids--young teenagers. When Josh and I tried to get to bed early, the kids next door kept us up, playing and laughing only a few feet from our door. I remember thinking that someone should have made them carry full packs up to the Saddle; then they wouldn't have so much energy. We grumpily set our watches for an hour earlier and vowed to hit the trailhead before them so that they wouldn't slow us down in the morning.

Somehow, we slept through our alarms and got started after the Exum group. We never caught up to them--actually, I don't think I've ever kept pace with an Exum-Guided group, in all the years I've climbed. They are a well-oiled machine--even though they are guiding people who are less-experienced in the mountains, they know right where to go and consistently make great time. Our climb went well. We scrambled up past the Needle and onto Wall Street. The weather was nice as we climbed up the Golden Stair and the Windy Tunnel, to the base of the Friction Pitch.

The Friction Pitch is the trickiest section on the Exum Ridge. I remembered watching Dad lead up it the first time we climbed it, years before, and I tried to position myself where he had climbed. There is a long ledge that makes a nice belay point at the base of the bumpy slab of dark granite. The route, as we had done it, climbs up this slab to exit the Windy Tunnel couloir and regain the Exum Ridge. I looked up at the pitch and remembered Dad hanging a sling on a little horn about 10 feet up from the belay ledge. As I looked at the climb, the rock looked easier angling up to the left, but the horn I remembered Dad using would only be useful if I angled up to the right. The guidebook also mentions that the Friction Pitch is climbed by first angling left, then back right, though I have since found that the guidebook assumes a different start to the pitch, from a large boulder about 30 feet left and up from where Josh and I had our belay point.

I distinctly remember thinking that the climbing looked better to the left, but following my memories and what I thought was the suggestion of the guidebook, I started up the pitch angling to the right. I hooked a sling around the small horn--this sling was perhaps more useful psychologically than it would have been in practice--the horn is small, and the sling might have held if I fell straight down, but probably would pop off if I fell out at all. I moved up five or ten feet, still angling right on slabby friction climbing. I made one more friction move up, using downpressure with my hands, and suddenly realized I was stuck. I was balanced on my feet, which were smeared on angled rock. There were no holds for my hands, and I was positioned in a shallow, concave section of rock. While the rock at my feet was angled enough for me to smear on it, the rock in front of my chest and head was vertical, and the rock above my head was slightly overhanging. I looked down at the friction climbing I had done to reach this point, and wasn't sure I could climb back down it. I looked for options, but couldn't move.

At that point, I heard a voice distinctly in my head. It was an angry, mocking voice. It's tone was filled with malice and seemed to be exulting in my predicament. "You're going to fall!" It said. "You're going to fall!" I heard that voice, and immediately said in my heart: "No." I closed my eyes and said a silent, fervent prayer: "Heavenly Father, help me to climb this climb." I opened my eyes, and began looking around again, searching the rock for holds. I glanced up, and my eyes fixed on one section of rock. The thought came to my mind: "maybe there's a hold up there". I couldn't see anything, but I stretched up on the tips of my toes and reached a hand up. I can still remember the feel of the hold that was hidden there, a pocket in the rock just big enough to fit all four of my fingers completely in it. The granite was rough and gave me an excellent grip. I pulled on it, repositioned my feet higher, and lifted myself out of the shallow, concave section and on to the easier, angled slabs above. I think I grunted a little as I made the move, and Josh said something like: "That's not good. You shouldn't be grunting on this." I said that he shouldn't follow me, but should try angling to the left instead. He said that looked easier to him anyway.

I've never had an experience quite like that before or since. I'm convinced that the voice I heard in my head was the voice of Satan or one of his angels. I know the Lord answered my fervent prayer and guided me out of my predicament, even though it was one of my own making. There is no way I would have known about the hold that was hidden in the rock. I couldn't see it from below, and had been looking for any holds to use for some time. I'm thankful for how the Holy Spirit guided me that day.

The rest of the climb was pleasant. We scrambled up to the V-pitch, and across the summit block to the summit of the Grand. It was a fun day on a good climb with my brother.

Mt. Owen - 1998

While I was on my mission, Chris got into real rock climbing. Before I went on my mission, I'd never seen a pair of rock shoes. The closest I'd come was reading about sticky rubber in "Mountaineering: The Freedom of the Hills". Dad and Josh took me out to climb soon after I got home, and I stared up at the 5.9 face of Kentucky Fried Penguin up Logan Canyon and thought: "Can we even climb that?" It seems funny to think that now, but I was used to climbing with heavy boots and a 20-pound pack on my back. While I'd been on my mission, it seemed like the quality of the gear our family was using was rising. Mom says that this was a result of Dad taking her on a trip up the South--she decided that pinching pennies wasn't a good policy in mountaineering.

Soon after that, we took a trip down to Salt Lake so I could buy some new mountaineering boots. I looked at some nice boots in REI, then Dad took me to a little shop where I saw a pair of half-shank leather boots in my size for $25. They fit great, so I bought them and used the rest of my money to buy a backpack (an internal frame pack to replace my old scouting pack). Dad, Josh, and I had Mt. Owen in our sites for that summer.

We made the hike up to the camp on the moraine and settled in for the night. When our alarms woke us at 4 in the morning, rain was falling, so we went back to sleep, hoping it would pass. Later, the rain stopped. Dad had a cell phone with him, so we called and got a weather report--possible rain throughout the morning. We decided to try to climb up the ledges on the southwest side of Teewinot, instead of Owen. We didn't have the route book with us, but Dad thought he remembered the broad strokes of the route. We started up a couloir, scrambling up small ledges and an scree. We later found out that we were starting in the wrong spot to climb Teewinot, but it didn't matter. Before we made it very far, the rain returned with a vengeance. We beat a hasty retreat down to base camp, packed up, and packed out.

I think this was my first climb with Josh. It was fun to climb with him, and fun to be back in the mountains.

Mt. Owen - 1993.

Mount Owen is a cool mountain. It was the last of the major Tetons to be climbed, and I think it's the hardest of the Tetons I've climbed. The rock climbing isn't so bad--this first time we climbed it, I think we only roped up for one pitch, but there is a lot of fourth-class scrambling, and it's a long climb--longer than the Grand.

The campsite is up on the moraine between the north face of the Grand Teton and Mount Owen. The first two-thirds of the hike to get there passes through Surprise Lake and Ampitheater Lake, and is a fairly pleasant hike through pine forests. After climbing out of the Ampitheater Lake bowl, however, the trail leads to the moraine, and slogging a 45-lb pack up the mountains of broken boulders is tough. I remember that first year thinking that the moraine went on forever. It was like one of those peaks that you keep thinking is just beyond the next skyline; the glacier must have retreated in waves, as it seemed like each time I would reach the crest of one huge pile of rock, I could see a valley and another huge wave of broken rock ahead still to be climbed.

We eventually reached the topmost edge of the glacier and settled in for the night. It's really a beautiful campsite, nestled between the Grand and Owen, just below the huge glacier. In late summer, the glacier looks imposing as it rises to meet the near-vertical walls leading up to the North Face of the Grand and the Valhalla Traverse. The campsite is close enough to the peaks that the sun sets early, and cold wind blows down across the glacier. I don't remember anything about the night, but I'm sure we retired early.

We woke early and scrambled up towards the Koven couloir. I remember that the rocks were wet, and that the climbing was a little uncomfortable until we reached the ridgeline between Owen and Teewinot to the East. At this point, we roped up and climbed a pitch right next to a waterfall to gain the wide, snowy ledge below the summit block. By this time the sun was up, and it was shaping up to be a nice day. The route crosses the large snowfield on the vast ledge diagonally up and around to the South face of the summit block. The view is amazing--the north face of the Grand is close, and, as always, the Grand looks huge, massive. It towers above all the other peaks surrounding it, and its wide, blocky structure and sheer north walls make it quite a sight from Owen. On Owen, the snowfield we had just gained access to extends from the summit block down to the edge of a large cliff leading down to the glacier below. I think Clinton told us about how he got to this point once in the past, and the snow looked really soft. Before proceeding, he roped up with his partner, and had his partner belay him. As he was traversing the soft snow, the snow he was standing on broke away in a huge slab and slid off the cliff, taking him with it. He ended up dangling from the belay rope. He said they didn't go any further that day.

We angled up the snowfield. I remember this being enjoyable. The feeling is very airy, the snow angle isn't too steep, and the view is amazing. Aaron led up the chockstone chimney on the summit block. He got to the top, looked down, scratched his chin, and said: "Well, maybe we should have belayed that." I was carrying the rope, so there was no choice but to climb it. I don't remember it being too bad, and after a short scramble we were on the summit, basking in the sun.