Climbing The Grand Teton in a Day

  Climbing the Grand Teton had been on my mind after hiking nearby on Table Mountain as a teenager. From the top of Table Mountain, I got an up-close view of the dagger-like summit of the Grand and wanted to be up there. Four years after setting my eyes on the Grand, I finally could plan a trip to the top via the Owen Spalding Route. The Owen Spalding route ascends the West side of the summit block and provides the easiest path to the top with a 5.4 YDS difficulty rating. After a few months of planning and researching the route, I put together a small group of family/friends and set off for the Tetons on August 5th, 2016. 

Entering the double chimneys

    The route takes most groups at least two days but requires a permit if staying overnight. We didn’t want to deal with the permit, so we opted to do the whole 16 miles and 7000 feet of elevation gain in a single day, with a 1AM start time. Our group consisted of my wife Olivia, my brother Kirby, his friend Charlie, and Olivia’s brother Thomas. 

Pointing out our objective

A view of the Grand Teton from Jenny Lake

The first few miles of trail took us through a heavily forested area before leading up to Garnet Canyon. This section became very steep and alternated between a good trail and large boulder fields without a clear trail through them in the dark. By the time the sun started to rise, we were near approaching the Lower Saddle, with views of the Middle Teton Glacier. We climbed a thick rope up the cliffs blocking access to the Lower Saddle and were treated to incredible views from the top of the saddle. 

Kirby climbing the rope to the Lower Saddle

Myself posing on the Lower Saddle with Table Mountain in the background

Kirby heading up towards the Upper Saddle

Starting from the saddle, we encountered the first rock scrambling sections that required some precise route finding to make it to the upper saddle. All the climbing sections felt relatively safe, with about 1500 feet of enjoyable rock scrambling to the Upper Saddle. The 5.4 rock climbing began at the upper saddle with the Belly Roll and the Crawl. With thousands of feet of open air beneath us, we traversed through both features without ropes. I was confident in our group’s ability to free-solo the route and we chose not to rope up like most other groups do. Climbing through the easy, though vertical terrain with a massive drop below was exhilarating like nothing else I had done before. 

Olivia tries not to look down

On "the Crawl"

Olivia started to get very cold as we moved up on the summit block. We had not anticipated how cold it could get up there in August and hadn’t brought warm enough gear. Luckily for us, the climbing got easier and the sun came out as we approached the summit. Standing on top of the Grand I could see a wide expanse of Idaho and Wyoming. The summit was a fairly small area, crowded with people, but it didn’t take away from being on top of that impressive peak.

Thomas near the top

Olivia and I at the summit

Altitude sickness had started to affect me as we made our way down from the summit, and storm clouds started to form in what originally was a perfectly blue sky. We did a 150-foot rappel to avoid downclimbing the hard parts, and it deposited us on the Upper Saddle. At this point, I was really getting sick with nausea and a pounding headache to the point of becoming unstable. A passerby noticed my condition and gave me some Ibuprofen, which reduced my symptoms enough for me to descend all the way to the Lower Saddle. My altitude symptoms gradually disappeared as we moved lower and lower down the mountain. We didn’t reach the bottom until 7PM, making it an 18-hour round trip. 

The Middle Teton Glacier

The Grand Teton was the most brutal mountain I had ever climbed by a long shot. From the Lower Saddle to the summit was pure fun, but the 5000 feet of elevation gain to get there really took it out of me. The 7000 feet of downhill from the top turned my knees to jello and made me wish we had done it in two days instead of one. I felt quite accomplished that I had successfully planned and executed the trip with a fairly inexperienced group. However, we did start too late and ended up being on the summit block during a storm, which has killed people in the past. I would learn a lot from this trip and quickly forget how brutal it was, leading another group to the top in 2019.