January….. (pic intensive)

…..but first, a little bit of December.

I found my camera in Washington the last day before departure. These are from Stevens.

snoslut and jimjar skinning

Scoping an acid drop – nope, won’t go

Cruising out of a chute

And back to January….

p420 on Teton Pass

p420 with the super back-seat wheelie while wysplit barrels towards him. Matt looks on.

Wysplit

Serenity on the top of Edelweiss

Gradient

Cruising

The Sphinx with the Sphinxter cutting through the rocky face

Cedar Mountain. One of my trips taken as a professional skinner.

Kyle and I training in Hyalite

Sometimes without skis

There may be nearly no snow in SW Montana (except Cooke), but at least it looks pretty. Mt. Cowan in the distance.

Blackmore

And, finally, it was time for the Grand on Sunday. I hadn’t been above 10k all year (or 11k, 12k, or 13k for that matter), so we started early. Unfortunately, Kyle had to ski patrol, so it was just Steve and I. I think you all probably remember my Grand fiasco from last year, and this jaunt went significantly better.

As dawn arrived, I could tell that Steve was hurting. I was too, but it was manageable. I sure was glad that Steve Romeo had broken trail 5 days beforehand. Thanks Steve! You’re an animal!

Booting up the Teepe Glacier

In the Stettner, we found 2 other groups in front of us. This significantly slowed us down and provided a nice shower of ice and snow while climbing. Luckily, they were friendly and sympathetic.

Middle Teton from the Stettner.

Steve following the upper Stettner. Right below him is an ice bulge that he took a small spill on. The bulge itself was fine, but one had to mantel off of it into steep snow without any tool placements (even rock), hoping that the feet would stick. It was especially sketchy with my previous ice screw being in semi-hollow ice. Twas fun though, and the rest of the climbing was quite easy. It was Steve’s first time ice climbing! Go Steve!

Alas, for many reasons, the hour became too late (2:30), and I had to turn around approximately 1-200 feet from the summit, at the top of the Ford Couloir. I felt good about calling it at this point. The dude right below me was some random guy that half-soloed the ascent because his partner was sick down in the meadows. Strange circumstance, but he seemed nice enough and allowed us to do longer raps with 2 ropes.

This photo cracks me up. Steve managed to get photos of me only when I had stopped, and this one just seems strange (not that mine were great). For reference, I made it approximately 150 feet past the dude behind me, and the summit is in the background.

View from the top

Resting in the Ford couloir.

Steve ripping it.

The snow and temperatures were actually the most pleasant near the summit. Once we were near the meadows, the snow turned into a 35 degree ice skating rink, definitely the crux.

As usual, we had a shitty time finding our way out from Bradley Lake, and arrived at the car well into the dark and cold night. When we started, the temp was -15 F, when we finished it was -11 F. Jackson inversions suck!

Pray for snow, because there isn’t even enough around Bozeman for them to groom the trails.

Stay tuned for February…..