Anyone climb the Grand Teton?

[RustedFox]

Doing this with a buddy come summer. Anyone got any words ?

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[Daiphon]

Haven't done it... just glad to see a non gloom-and-doom thread started.

Have fun & be safe!

-d

 

[WilcoWorld]

One of the most beautiful parks in the US. Enjoy!

 

[bravotwozero]

Let us know of any moose sightings, and post some pictures.


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[TBoneKoko]

Some day I want to run it like these guys. I think the record now is < 3 hours.

 

[The White Coat Investor]

Many times by several different routes. Gotten into trouble once. Unfortunately, that happened to be the trip I did with my 11 year old daughter when we were pinned down at over 13,000 feet on an exposed ridge in a lightning storm at 8:30 in the morning.

Anything in particular you would like to know?

 

[The White Coat Investor]

This was taken shortly after dawn, about an hour and about 4 pitches before the storm hit.

 

[RustedFox]

Data jackpot!

1.) Where does one fly into?
2.) How do you recommend preparing?
3.) Anything you feel might be helpful to know?

 

[DarkHorse22]

coolest father of the year award goes to...

 

[The White Coat Investor]

Data jackpot!

1.) Where does one fly into?
2.) How do you recommend preparing?
3.) Anything you feel might be helpful to know?

1) Jackson Hole is most convenient. Salt Lake City + 5 hour drive is cheapest.
2) I prepare by climbing multi-pitch rock climbs and hiking around the mountains around my house (10-11,000 feet.) The most physically difficult part usually involves lugging a ton of gear up 5000 vertical feet to your high camp. But if you're doing the whole climb in a day, the most difficult part involves 16+ hours of hiking/climbing etc with a light pack. The rock climbing itself is not that hard, you know, unless there is water running down the face of the friction pitch, the holds are covered in hail, and you're worried lightning will blow you off the ridge. What you really need to do is put a 60 lb pack on, walk around your neighborhood, and hike up the biggest hill you can find. Then make sure your pack doesn't weigh 60 lbs for the trip. If you don't know you'll use it, and it's not emergency gear, leave it. 1 pair of pants. 1 shirt. 1 set of underwear etc.
3) If you plan to stay in Garnet Canyon, get an online camping permit the second the permit system opens in January. Otherwise, you may find yourself with a less than ideal permit or none at all. If all you're doing is climbing the Grand, the lower saddle is the best high camp, but it is also the furthest from the trail head. You can climb the Grand in a Day from the Lower Saddle, from the Moraine, from the Caves, from the Meadows, from the Platforms and even from the parking lot. It just means you have to get up earlier and deal with altitude sickness better. The easiest itinerary is to drive up from Salt Lake and hike in to the lower saddle on day 1. Climb and return to the lower saddle on day 2. Hike out and drive back to salt lake on day 3. But I've done it in 30 hours round trip from Salt Lake. If you don't know how you'll react to the altitude, I'd recommend camping as high as you can.

The best route for a first time ascent is the Upper Exum. But the easiest route is the Owen Spalding. The big difference is the Owen Spalding is the descent route for all routes up the mountain, but the climbing is far less interesting and the route gets much less morning sun. That means if you get hammered by a lightning storm on the O.S., you can just turn around and go down. There is actually a period of time on most of the other routes when it is easier to go up than down....i.e. you're committed. Best that doesn't happen in the middle of a hailstorm. But if your team is qualified to do it, I highly recommend the Upper Exum. I've never actually gone up the Owen Spalding in a half dozen or more ascents.

If you have more time, I'd recommend adding a day to the itinerary and climbing the Middle and South Tetons as well. The acclimating does wonders for your summit day on the Grand.

While the climbing isn't that hard, there is a lot of it. 15 or 20 pitches if you pitch out the entire upper exum. The faster and safer you can move quickly over easy fifth class terrain, the shorter your summit day will be.

I'm not sure whether you or your buddy is the more experienced one, but if you're not qualified to lead a trip like this (and by your questions I suspect you're not) you'd better be darn sure he is. I've run into lots of yeahoos up there. It's not a mountain to take lightly. Try to plan your trip sometime between July 20 and Aug 20. Before mid July, you'll need snow gear to reach the lower saddle. By September, you may wake up to 20 degree temps. Although you'll see summit pictures with T shirts, I'm usually wearing 3 layers and a ski cap at some point during the summit day, even on the warmest week of the year.

A few more photos to wet your appetite:

Looking down Garnet Canyon from the Caves

The summit 2 hours after the hailstorm in perfect August weather. Look what we're still wearing.

Just above the friction pitch is a little overhang, often filled with snow. It is one of the few places on the Exum ridge that offers any protection at all in an electrical storm. I hope I never spend another second there. My daughter and I are under the far space blanket.

Dawn on the Grand Teton. The ledge at the very top left of the picture is Wall Street.

The summit of the Middle Teton, with the Grand in the background. The left peak is the Enclosure, the right peak is the Grand Teton. The upper saddle is between them. The OS climbs the skyline from the upper saddle to the summit of the grand. The UE climbs the main ridge just left of the snow

 

[deleted109597]

Agree that this (and many other peaks) isn't always a walk in the park. The Jenny Lake Rangers save more lives than they should.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/09/0917_030917_tetonrescue.html

 

[d2305]

I saw them driving up to Yellowstone. Lots of hiking there too.

 

[RustedFox]

Hey WhiteCoat, thanks dude !

1.) Neither of us are mountaineers. I was a boy scout, and I "know my knots", but that's as much experience as we have.
2.) We're planning to use a guide-service. There are no mountains in Florida here for me to hike. Planning on a multi-day trek because I sure as hell will need to "acclimatize".
3.) MOAR photos, please (this goes out to anyone/everyone else, as well).

 

[The White Coat Investor]

Agree that this (and many other peaks) isn't always a walk in the park. The Jenny Lake Rangers save more lives than they should.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/09/0917_030917_tetonrescue.html

I knew the surviving husband and I spent two hours under a space blanket 200 feet from where they were struck thinking about that story the whole time. I didn't mention it to the other people with me until we were back to the lower saddle.

 

[The White Coat Investor]

Hey WhiteCoat, thanks dude !

1.) Neither of us are mountaineers. I was a boy scout, and I "know my knots", but that's as much experience as we have.
2.) We're planning to use a guide-service. There are no mountains in Florida here for me to hike. Planning on a multi-day trek because I sure as hell will need to "acclimatize".
3.) MOAR photos, please (this goes out to anyone/everyone else, as well).

Oh, you'll be fine with the Exum guides. They're excellent with clients. Not cheap. But excellent. Plus you won't have to lug the heavy pack to the lower saddle. You'll get to do that 5000 vertical foot hike to the lower saddle with a day pack. That alone is probably worth the $800 or whatever they're charging these days. I'd still try to get them to take you up the Upper Exum if you can, but they might insist on the OS.

 

[WilcoWorld]

Oh, you'll be fine with the Exum guides. They're excellent with clients. Not cheap. But excellent. Plus you won't have to lug the heavy pack to the lower saddle. You'll get to do that 5000 vertical foot hike to the lower saddle with a day pack. That alone is probably worth the $800 or whatever they're charging these days. I'd still try to get them to take you up the Upper Exum if you can, but they might insist on the OS.

If one hires a guide, generally one should do what the guide recommends.

 

[The White Coat Investor]

Here's the same picture as above, showing the Lower Exum route. The guides won't take you up this route. But this picture was taken in June, later in the day so you can see a lot more. Wall Street, at the very top of the picture, is the start of the technical difficulties on the Upper Exum route. You have about 800 feet of air under your feet at the Step Around. Glenn Exum, jumped that gap in 1931...solo...without a rope....wearing football cleats. That's why he gets his name on the route.

More wildflowers in June.

But there's a lot more snow in June. Everything that isn't steep south facing rock is covered in snow starting at 9000 feet.

This is taken from the enclosure and shows the technical difficulties of the OS. If you zoom in, you'll see several parties in the picture. The top left of the picture is the summit of the Grand, the bottom right is the Upper Saddle.

Here's a shot from camp in The Meadows. The lower saddle is in the upper left, 2500 vertical feet and 2-3 hours away from us, at least when carrying a heavy pack. This was an August trip.

 

[The White Coat Investor]

This is what the Friction Pitch looks like in nice weather. Our bivy was 100 feet from where this picture was taken. This is where that other party was struck by lightning.

That rinky dink mountain behind us is the Middle Teton, 12,805'. The South Teton behind it at 12,513'.

The trail between the Meadows and the Lower Saddle.

A better picture of the Wall Street ledge.

 

[d2305]

You might want to climb a little one first some weekend in N Georgia or NC. I was amazed to learn for 60K you can climb Everest with no experience, but it may be the last thing you ever do.

 

[The White Coat Investor]

You might want to climb a little one first some weekend in N Georgia or NC. I was amazed to learn for 60K you can climb Everest with no experience, but it may be the last thing you ever do.

Unfortunately, nothing in the South is remotely similar.

And nobody let's you climb Everest with no experience.

But apparently guided clients have also died on the Grand Teton. One in June 2013: http://www.jhnewsandguide.com/news/...cle_348da8ed-3e63-5b53-916f-54c0addec521.html and the previous one in 1986.

 

[d2305]

http://www.news.com.au/sport/sports...s/news-story/961df178f51735e942ffc3e90be9c535

 

[RustedFox]

UPDATE:

Training is coming along nicely. Need to buy gear. Can anyone recommend a set of pants they really like for this purpose?

Also, BuddyClimber told me: "No cotton at 10,000 feet." Can anyone recommend some undies that will work?

 

[?atypical CP]

Merino wool undies FTW

 

[The White Coat Investor]

UPDATE:

Training is coming along nicely. Need to buy gear. Can anyone recommend a set of pants they really like for this purpose?

Also, BuddyClimber told me: "No cotton at 10,000 feet." Can anyone recommend some undies that will work?

I usually wear some running shorts on the hike in during peak months (Augustish). Once I'm in to camp, I'm usually in thermal underwear. The next morning is so cold, you pretty much just wear thermal underwear all day! But if it were really warm, then some polypropylene or capilene briefs would be fine. Here's my current thermals:
http://www.patagonia.com/us/product/mens-capilene-thermal-weight-crew?p=43647-0

I don't wear anything cotton in the Tetons. Ever.

As far as pants, anything non-cotton will be fine. A "climbing pant" would probably be best. Something like this:
http://www.backcountry.com/marmot-arch-rock-pant-mens

Remember you're only taking one set of clothes in there. It's a long way to carry anything and I'd rather use my extra weight for cams than another set of clothes. I MIGHT take an extra set of socks so I had something dry to wear in my sleeping bag. Other than that, I take this on an August trip:
running shorts, maybe
Wool hiking socks x 2
Thermals
Climbing pants
Non-cotton T shirt
Fleece jacket
lightweight rain pants- must be waterPROOF
lightweight rain coat- must be waterPROOF
thin ski hat that fits well under my helmet
helmet
sunglasses
approach shoes
maybe rock shoes (route dependent)
maybe mountain boots (route and season dependent)
maybe crampons and an axe (route and season dependent)
harness
rappel device
rack if needed
rope if needed
backpack
summit pack (a large MULE camelback for me)
food
stove
tent
pad
sleeping bag
route description
reading material and cards for storms

Your guide is probably taking care of 3/4 of that.

 

[RustedFox]

Leaving tomorrow morning, 5 AM to fly to Jackson.

See you all later. Pics as promised.

 

[dchristismi]

Have fun!

 

[The White Coat Investor]

Weather's been great through today. Hope you summitted today! Some typical storms rolling through tomorrow afternoon. Probably still okay, but not the perfect weather they saw up there today.

 

[BAM!]

@The White Coat Investor -- in your opinion, how does the grade at grand teton compare with yosemite? been thinking about doing the great teet for some time now.

 

[The White Coat Investor]

@The White Coat Investor -- in your opinion, how does the grade at grand teton compare with yosemite? been thinking about doing the great teet for some time now.

Hard to compare. Lots of routes in both places. The easiest route in Yosemite is easier than the easiest route up the Grand Teton.

Very different. Yosemite is rock climbing, the Tetons are mountaineering. But if you're competent to lead a 10 or 15 pitch 5.7 in Yosemite you're not going to have trouble with the climbing on the Teton. There is more to alpinism than rock climbing skill though.

 

[RustedFox]

Day one of climbing school was today. Wow. We're filthy, tired, and got our asses kicked. Forest fire has everything smokey. At local mexican restaurant. Check you all later.

 

[RustedFox]

Also want to mention: I brought a portable pulse oximeter. Baseline for me is around 93-94%, HR = 100-110.

I'm having a blast, but I want supplemental O2.

 

[sylvanthus]

View attachment 198564

This was taken shortly after dawn, about an hour and about 4 pitches before the storm hit.

Totally awesome. I did the seattle mountaineers mountain climbing course, was a blast. Plan on doing alot of climbing when I get back out to washington state after residency.

 

[sylvanthus]

Day one of climbing school was today. Wow. We're filthy, tired, and got our asses kicked. Forest fire has everything smokey. At local mexican restaurant. Check you all later.

Post pics man, gotta get inspired since Im stuck in this ****hole of new york.

 

[RustedFox]

HR = 122. BP = xxx/xx. RR = 34. SaO2 = 90%.

 

[DissocativFugue]

HR = 122. BP = xxx/xx. RR = 34. SaO2 = 90%.

Somewhere, there's a nurse ordering a sepsis bundle...


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[d2305]

Bring some decadron?

 

[Birdstrike]

Doing this with a buddy come summer. Anyone got any words ?

Never have, but have fun. Looks like you're there now. Latest update?

 

[RustedFox]

Full recap day after tomorrow. Standby.

 

[The White Coat Investor]

Glad you're alive and hope everything went great.

 

[RustedFox]

TRIP RECAP:

DAY 1 (Sunday): Fly from Tampa to Denver, meet TripBuddy in Denver at airport pub. Ask bartender: "Hey; what's a good local beer?" Guy responds with "Coors Light". Lolz. Fly to Jackson, Wyoming. Pick up rental car. TripBuddy wants to upgrade our rental car to his "dream car", which is a red convertible Mustang GT. Boom. Top down, we cruise the highway south into Jackson, which is a cute little town. Check into hotel and drop our gear. Starving, we hit up the "Silver Dollar Bar and Grill" for food. Buffalo burger was tasty. Feeling better, we get in the car and drive the "Teton Pass" around to the other side of the mountain range. Check Idaho off of "list of states that I haven't been in". The country is beautiful. The mountains, the trees... Dear God. I've never seen such beauty. Drive back into town. Hit up "Million Dollar Cowboy Bar" for a drink. What a cool place. The barstools are SADDLES! Enjoy drink, cash it in for the night.

DAY 2 (Monday): Awake around 6AM. Drive to Yellowstone thru south entrance. On the way, we drive right thru a herd of Buffalo. Crazy. Reach Yellowstone. Saw "Old Faithful". Asked park ranger to "push the button that makes the geyser go off". Moved on to Grand Prismatic Spring, Paint Pots, and Yellowstone Grand Canyon, all of which were amazing. Drew dirty looks from parents when I convinced their child to ask the park ranger: "where to buy the bear food". FUN FACT: Yellowstone is home to 30,000 buffalo and 3,000,000,000,000 Chinese tourists, all with obnoxiously large cameras. PROTIP: Your iPad's camera is not as good as your smartphone camera. Put it down and knock it off.

Satisfied with Yellowstone and out of beef jerky, we drive back thru the south entrance. Just after exiting the park, two park ranger vehicles barricade off the highway south to Jackson. "Road's closed" they say. The Berry Creek Fire has jumped the creek (and the highway), and driving south would be entering an inferno. Park ranger tells us that we should "stay here for the night, or drive to Cody, WY". No way. We have climbing school bright and early. I bust out my phone, and TripBuddy and I take a Mustang GT over 30 miles of dusty washboarded mountain road (Grassy Lake Road to Ashton Flagg Road) and pop out just north of Tetonia, Idaho - on the OTHER side of the mountain range. Drive back to Jackson, demolish some food. Goodnight. Road is still closed as of the time of this posting due to the fire.

DAY 3 (Tuesday): Climbing school, day 1. We head to the backcountry with the Exum guides and learn how to rope in, belay, do some bouldering. Fun stuff. Climb some pitches. Guide looks at me and says: "You haven't eaten or drank anything; fix that." I say: "I'm not hungry or thirsty. I'm nauseous and have a headache." This was my first clue that ol' RustedFox doesn't handle altitude well. Do some rappelling at the end of the day. It gets cold quick when the sun hits the other side of the mountain. Finish day one and wonder "where all the oxygen went". Pulse oximeter back at the hotel reads 90% on room air, and I'm tachy at rest. Zofran ODT for the win. Snake River Brewing Company had good food, but marginal beer. Enough with the IPAs, hipsters. Slept hard.

DAY 4 (Wednesday): Climbing school, day 2. More technical work. Climbed several class 5.7 to 5.9 pitches; but did not do it very well. Headache is back. Now wheezing. Pulse ox in the mid-80 range, HR in the 130s. Fell twice. Carpopedal spasm while clinging to vertical rock face was not cool. If it weren't for the ropes, I would not be typing this right now... that exposure. Scared as $hit. Made it to top of pitch and rolled onto my back for 30 seconds and pant/wheeze before having a near-syncopal episode. Absolutely "saw stars" two or three times - but did not lose postural tone or consciousness. Now I'm scared. Turbo scared. Decided then and there that summitting the Grand is "not a good idea for me". Still had fun with climbing school and all. Mountain guide says to me: "You can do it, man. You climbed the technical stuff... But do you want to ?" Answer: Thanks, amigo - but I'm sleeping in tomorrow and not summitting. TripBuddy is unaffected by the altitude (lives at elevation) and will summit. Return to base camp/offices where I politely tell them I will not climb tomorrow. Owner gal looks at me and asks where I'm from. "Florida." What elevation? "Six feet above sea level." Gal looks at me like she's seen a ghost. Six feet to seven thousand feet in 3 days is apparently not a good idea.

Head back to town, do some laundry, get dinner. Asked TripBuddy how his plate of pasta/meatballs tasted at the "Town Square Tavern". The response that I got was: "You could pile dog**** in front of me right now, and I'd tell you it was delicious." I decided that "mountaineering" belongs on the list of things that RustedFox is not good at, somewhere between "basketball", "Calculus" and "real-time strategy games".

DAY 5 (Thursday): Drove TripBuddy to the Exum Mountain Guide office for his ascent. Hug him in case he doesn't come back. I've known this guy since sixth grade. He looks nervous. Drive back to town. Eat a monster lunch. Nap for 3 hours. Wake up, still tired. Drive around and see various sights and other wildlife. Took several "small hikes" and did touristy stuff. Exhausted. Think about TripBuddy in the "lower saddle" while sipping on a margarita at "Hatch" (decent mexican food; not great). Still tachycardic with pulse ox in the low 90s at rest. Read the comment above about nurse ordering a sepsis bundle on me. Hardest I've laughed all year, in all seriousness.

DAY 6 (Friday): More touristy stuff and small hikes. I still can't believe the beauty. TripBuddy comes back in the late afternoon/early evening. "How was it?", I ask. TripBuddy gives mixed response. Sure, the view was incredible from the top - he says - but the hike wasn't fun. "All I saw was the tops of my feet and all I could hear was the guide telling us that we needed to MOVE MOVE MOVE." He shows me pics from summit (cool), and says "I'm retired from mountaineering." Says that the climbing itself wasn't as hard as day 2 of climbing school... but the expsoure was amazingly scary. TripBuddy says to me: "You could handle the climbing, Fox - but you can't force more red cells out of your marrow overnight." TripBuddy passes the hell out after I buy him a congratulatory steak at the "Snake River Grill" (AMAZING FOOD!).

DAY 7 (Saturday): Awake with TripBuddy, who says that he needs breakfast, now. Watched as TripBuddy consumed at least 4,000 calories at breakfast while I sipped my coffee. Drove south along the Snake and Hoback rivers (beautiful!) to Granite Falls and Granite Hot Springs. Soaked our aging bones in the warm mineral springs, which felt amazing. Get out of hot springs and sit with TripBuddy on the deck for a bit. Feels like someone is shaking the deck. Wait.... EARTHQUAKE! - No joke! Magnitude 4.8 quake lasted about 15-20 seconds. Looked up to see if any of those big rocks on the hillside were a-gonna come rolling down. They didn't. Back in the mustang, top down. Drive back to Jackson, see actual forest fire up 'yonder in the trees somewhere on the south bank of the Hoback river. Wondered if Smokey the Bear was on the telephone already about it. Last night in town, so we hit up the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar again for drinks and the best country music I've ever heard; proper live fiddle and harmonica and all.


All things considered... I still had an amazing trip, even though I didn't summit. I'd do it again in a heartbeat, although I'd stay for a few more days to acclimatize and I would certainly start acetazolamide prior to landing in Jackson. Someone needs to spin this off into a thread about how to anticipate and treat altitude sickness/HAPE/HACE/etc. I am absolutely going back and bringing my wife to Yellowstone, so at the very least - I want to know how/when I should start the Diamox.

 

[dchristismi]

Dude.

Awesome trip report. Makes me contemplate a trip report of all the distilleries on Islay, but not gonna interrupt on this epic thread.

Glad you don't feel bad making the call you made. That's a tough one - kind of like the surgeon who knows when *not* to operate.

I am very cautious about altitude since developing what may have been HAPE on a Pike's Peak ascent in med school. I wheezed hard, had no idea how hypoxic I was, and was apparently still wheezing when I returned to my 4th year rotations where the CC PICU attending casually announced that it was probably HAPE. Hadn't even crossed my mind, but I felt like crap. Hurt to breathe, hurt to laugh, just generally miserable. (And yes, stopped to rest q 50 ft on the last mile of the ascent.) And yes, I was taking diamox, but went from 700ft to 7000 ft and 3 days later to 14.2. Now, I didn't spend the night at 14K altitude, so it's really anyone's guess, but I've been gun shy with altitude since. Which is sort of putting a damper on the Machu Picchu daydreaming.

But I digress. I'm glad you had a kick ass time.
FWIW, I didn't have any problems at Mauna Kea, but a) I didn't hike it, and b) I didn't stay up there for long.

 

[Birdstrike]

TRIP RECAP:

DAY 1 (Sunday): Fly from Tampa to Denver, meet TripBuddy in Denver at airport pub. Ask bartender: "Hey; what's a good local beer?" Guy responds with "Coors Light". Lolz. Fly to Jackson, Wyoming. Pick up rental car. TripBuddy wants to upgrade our rental car to his "dream car", which is a red convertible Mustang GT. Boom. Top down, we cruise the highway south into Jackson, which is a cute little town. Check into hotel and drop our gear. Starving, we hit up the "Silver Dollar Bar and Grill" for food. Buffalo burger was tasty. Feeling better, we get in the car and drive the "Teton Pass" around to the other side of the mountain range. Check Idaho off of "list of states that I haven't been in". The country is beautiful. The mountains, the trees... Dear God. I've never seen such beauty. Drive back into town. Hit up "Million Dollar Cowboy Bar" for a drink. What a cool place. The barstools are SADDLES! Enjoy drink, cash it in for the night.

DAY 2 (Monday): Awake around 6AM. Drive to Yellowstone thru south entrance. On the way, we drive right thru a herd of Buffalo. Crazy. Reach Yellowstone. Saw "Old Faithful". Asked park ranger to "push the button that makes the geyser go off". Moved on to Grand Prismatic Spring, Paint Pots, and Yellowstone Grand Canyon, all of which were amazing. Drew dirty looks from parents when I convinced their child to ask the park ranger: "where to buy the bear food". FUN FACT: Yellowstone is home to 30,000 buffalo and 3,000,000,000,000 Chinese tourists, all with obnoxiously large cameras. PROTIP: Your iPad's camera is not as good as your smartphone camera. Put it down and knock it off.

Satisfied with Yellowstone and out of beef jerky, we drive back thru the south entrance. Just after exiting the park, two park ranger vehicles barricade off the highway south to Jackson. "Road's closed" they say. The Berry Creek Fire has jumped the creek (and the highway), and driving south would be entering an inferno. Park ranger tells us that we should "stay here for the night, or drive to Cody, WY". No way. We have climbing school bright and early. I bust out my phone, and TripBuddy and I take a Mustang GT over 30 miles of dusty washboarded mountain road (Grassy Lake Road to Ashton Flagg Road) and pop out just north of Tetonia, Idaho - on the OTHER side of the mountain range. Drive back to Jackson, demolish some food. Goodnight. Road is still closed as of the time of this posting due to the fire.

DAY 3 (Tuesday): Climbing school, day 1. We head to the backcountry with the Exum guides and learn how to rope in, belay, do some bouldering. Fun stuff. Climb some pitches. Guide looks at me and says: "You haven't eaten or drank anything; fix that." I say: "I'm not hungry or thirsty. I'm nauseous and have a headache." This was my first clue that ol' RustedFox doesn't handle altitude well. Do some rappelling at the end of the day. It gets cold quick when the sun hits the other side of the mountain. Finish day one and wonder "where all the oxygen went". Pulse oximeter back at the hotel reads 90% on room air, and I'm tachy at rest. Zofran ODT for the win. Snake River Brewing Company had good food, but marginal beer. Enough with the IPAs, hipsters. Slept hard.

DAY 4 (Wednesday): Climbing school, day 2. More technical work. Climbed several class 5.7 to 5.9 pitches; but did not do it very well. Headache is back. Now wheezing. Pulse ox in the mid-80 range, HR in the 130s. Fell twice. Carpopedal spasm while clinging to vertical rock face was not cool. If it weren't for the ropes, I would not be typing this right now... that exposure. Scared as $hit. Made it to top of pitch and rolled onto my back for 30 seconds and pant/wheeze before having a near-syncopal episode. Absolutely "saw stars" two or three times - but did not lose postural tone or consciousness. Now I'm scared. Turbo scared. Decided then and there that summitting the Grand is "not a good idea for me". Still had fun with climbing school and all. Mountain guide says to me: "You can do it, man. You climbed the technical stuff... But do you want to ?" Answer: Thanks, amigo - but I'm sleeping in tomorrow and not summitting. TripBuddy is unaffected by the altitude (lives at elevation) and will summit. Return to base camp/offices where I politely tell them I will not climb tomorrow. Owner gal looks at me and asks where I'm from. "Florida." What elevation? "Six feet above sea level." Gal looks at me like she's seen a ghost. Six feet to seven thousand feet in 3 days is apparently not a good idea.

Head back to town, do some laundry, get dinner. Asked TripBuddy how his plate of pasta/meatballs tasted at the "Town Square Tavern". The response that I got was: "You could pile dog**** in front of me right now, and I'd tell you it was delicious." I decided that "mountaineering" belongs on the list of things that RustedFox is not good at, somewhere between "basketball", "Calculus" and "real-time strategy games".

DAY 5 (Thursday): Drove TripBuddy to the Exum Mountain Guide office for his ascent. Hug him in case he doesn't come back. I've known this guy since sixth grade. He looks nervous. Drive back to town. Eat a monster lunch. Nap for 3 hours. Wake up, still tired. Drive around and see various sights and other wildlife. Took several "small hikes" and did touristy stuff. Exhausted. Think about TripBuddy in the "lower saddle" while sipping on a margarita at "Hatch" (decent mexican food; not great). Still tachycardic with pulse ox in the low 90s at rest. Read the comment above about nurse ordering a sepsis bundle on me. Hardest I've laughed all year, in all seriousness.

DAY 6 (Friday): More touristy stuff and small hikes. I still can't believe the beauty. TripBuddy comes back in the late afternoon/early evening. "How was it?", I ask. TripBuddy gives mixed response. Sure, the view was incredible from the top - he says - but the hike wasn't fun. "All I saw was the tops of my feet and all I could hear was the guide telling us that we needed to MOVE MOVE MOVE." He shows me pics from summit (cool), and says "I'm retired from mountaineering." Says that the climbing itself wasn't as hard as day 2 of climbing school... but the expsoure was amazingly scary. TripBuddy says to me: "You could handle the climbing, Fox - but you can't force more red cells out of your marrow overnight." TripBuddy passes the hell out after I buy him a congratulatory steak at the "Snake River Grill" (AMAZING FOOD!).

DAY 7 (Saturday): Awake with TripBuddy, who says that he needs breakfast, now. Watched as TripBuddy consumed at least 4,000 calories at breakfast while I sipped my coffee. Drove south along the Snake and Hoback rivers (beautiful!) to Granite Falls and Granite Hot Springs. Soaked our aging bones in the warm mineral springs, which felt amazing. Get out of hot springs and sit with TripBuddy on the deck for a bit. Feels like someone is shaking the deck. Wait.... EARTHQUAKE! - No joke! Magnitude 4.8 quake lasted about 15-20 seconds. Looked up to see if any of those big rocks on the hillside were a-gonna come rolling down. They didn't. Back in the mustang, top down. Drive back to Jackson, see actual forest fire up 'yonder in the trees somewhere on the south bank of the Hoback river. Wondered if Smokey the Bear was on the telephone already about it. Last night in town, so we hit up the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar again for drinks and the best country music I've ever heard; proper live fiddle and harmonica and all.


All things considered... I still had an amazing trip, even though I didn't summit. I'd do it again in a heartbeat, although I'd stay for a few more days to acclimatize and I would certainly start acetazolamide prior to landing in Jackson. Someone needs to spin this off into a thread about how to anticipate and treat altitude sickness/HAPE/HACE/etc. I am absolutely going back and bringing my wife to Yellowstone, so at the very least - I want to know how/when I should start the Diamox.

Awesome dude. I'm happy for you. Sounds like a good time.

 

[DeadCactus]

I would have started acetazolamide 2 or 3 days before you left. Unlike the ondansetron, it doesn't just cure symptoms but rather actually expedites your acclimatization. It takes a few weeks to start bumping your Hct, your early acclimatization is fixing your acid-base status. As much as it dampers the vacation, I would have put off alcohol until after you were done with the climb. Your actual ascent profile doesn't seem to bad to me, but I'm not an expert.

 

[bravotwozero]

Earthquake sounded scary. Glad you're ok though.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[The White Coat Investor]

More water, less alcohol, a bit more physical preparation for an intensely physically demanding trip, and one more night at 7000 feet is probably all you needed.

One more night at altitude is worth way more than any dose of diamox. You can't rush acclimatization.

Dehydration + altitude sickness will kick the snot out of anyone.

Where'd they take you for your climbing school, Guide's Wall?

 

[smq123]

More water, less alcohol, a bit more physical preparation for an intensely physically demanding trip, and one more night at 7000 feet is probably all you needed.

One more night at altitude is worth way more than any dose of diamox. You can't rush acclimatization.

Dehydration + altitude sickness will kick the snot out of anyone.

Where'd they take you for your climbing school, Guide's Wall?

I agree with the more water. I went from Tampa to Quito and then Cusco - granted, I didn't do anything terribly physically demanding, but I drank a ton of water, and I felt pretty good the whole trip. A little tired and an occasional mild headache, but nothing that a few Advil couldn't fix.

Of course, the Peruvians keep pushing coca tea as a way to acclimatize fast.

 

[deleted109597]

More water, less alcohol, a bit more physical preparation for an intensely physically demanding trip, and one more night at 7000 feet is probably all you needed.

One more night at altitude is worth way more than any dose of diamox. You can't rush acclimatization.

Dehydration + altitude sickness will kick the snot out of anyone.

Where'd they take you for your climbing school, Guide's Wall?

Coming from a fellow sea level person, it might not. I didn't climb at Jackson, but both there, Yellowstone, and Big Sky, I had periodic breathing for the entire week I was at each. Make me feel ****ing exhausted. Was able to hike pretty well though.

 

[RustedFox]

Thanks all,

Just so people don't get the wrong idea; I'm wasn't out boozing every night. I limited myself to one beer per night, with the lone exceptions of day 1 (beer + irish coffee to pick me up) and last night (throwdown at Million Dollar Cowboy Bar! Whoo!)

Climbing school... hmm - not sure. We went to the Exum offices, then rode a boat across Jenny Lake to a trailhead and hiked up into the backcountry. It was no joke, this climbing school. Climbed several vertical walls with multiple pitches. Scary stuff. If the rope failed (or something else went wrong) during school - it was game over for old Fox.

 

[The White Coat Investor]

Thanks all,

Just so people don't get the wrong idea; I'm wasn't out boozing every night. I limited myself to one beer per night, with the lone exceptions of day 1 (beer + irish coffee to pick me up) and last night (throwdown at Million Dollar Cowboy Bar! Whoo!)

Climbing school... hmm - not sure. We went to the Exum offices, then rode a boat across Jenny Lake to a trailhead and hiked up into the backcountry. It was no joke, this climbing school. Climbed several vertical walls with multiple pitches. Scary stuff. If the rope failed (or something else went wrong) during school - it was game over for old Fox.

Yup, that's Guide's Wall. The climbing there is definitely more difficult than what you would have seen up on the Owen Spalding or even Upper Exum route on the Grand. A fun route, but probably used by the guides because they figure if you can get up that you can handle the exposure and climbing difficulty on The Grand. Doesn't mean you have the necessary fitness or are adequately acclimated of course.

https://www.mountainproject.com/v/guides-wall/105804246

 

[d2305]

This is why so many die climbing Everest.