Rap, chocolate spice trail to top of tallest Teton
Less-than-rad reporter reveals inspiring, though uneventful, climb
This article by Johanna Love was printed in the August 18, 2004 Jackson Hole News & Guide.
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There I was, clinging to the side of the Grand Teton by my fingernails...except I wasn't. I was on the side of the Grand on Thursday morning, but the climbing was rated an easy 5.4, my lungs were trembling more than my hands and we had perfect weather. And I had a simple answer for the stomach-sucking, several-hundred-foot chasm below the famed Crawl move on the Owen-Spalding route: I didn't look down.

Along with Exum Mountain Guide Tom Bennett and fellow client Joe Colella, an optometrist from Bozeman, MT, I ascended from the Lower Saddle to the top of the Tetons' peerless peak in about three and a half hours. This is a tale of how radical I'm not. My family back in Memphis, Tenn., would say I'm an adventurer, but according to Angus Thuermer's "How Hard-Core Are You?" quiz last year, I only scored three points out of 100, and that was because of my affinity for outdoor amour and my skillful use of duct tape.

The entire Grand Teton adventure, from valley floor to alpine accomplishment, was awesome, yet uneventful. Which led me to ponder, on the six-hour return hike from the Lower Saddle, what is a good adventure story? One with misery or barely averted disaster?

The second pair of approach shoes I bought fit so well that I suffered virtually no blisters - fire ants didn't nip at my heels - and after eight years of living at 6,300 feet, the elevation didn't bother me. Bennett agreed that our smooth climb was a success, and said it's his goal to avoid unnecessary excitement. "No risks" is his motto. He thinks mountaineering gets a bad rap - the usual movie or ink about the sport is based on what happens When Things Go Wrong - though most excursions up a known route with an experienced guide are routine.

Perhaps the reason I felt ultimately prepared is that I am a planner by nature. If I want to go on a backpacking trip, I plan the length, meals, start time and pack enough chocolate. I began assembling gear for my Grand Teton trip a week ahead of time. And I began "training" almost four months before. My training programs aren't the sort that lead to Olympic medals or even a top-10 placement in a race. Rather, they are fashioned to help my undisciplined brain work within the parameters of some schedule and maintain a decent level of fitness. Counting back a year ago, my goal was to run the whole Turkey Trot 5-k without walking. I did, albeit in last place. On to training for the Moose Chase, hoping just to finish. I did, but not last. Pole Pedal Paddle preparations took up much of March. On April 26, while putting the finishing touches on a guest Excursion column about Lake Louise, a friend asked me to climb the Grand with her. We got together and plotted increasingly ambitious hikes: Snow King, Shoal Falls, Cream Puff, Rendezvous Mountain, Table Mountain, Sleeping Indian. But two weeks before the climb, Exum instructors recommended that she drop out because of her acrophobia.

Without a partner, I left my fate up to the Exum expertise, and was matched with Bennett and Colella. Bennett's first request was that we dump all our gear out on the picnic table. He nixed just two of my items: a one-pound water filter and a pair of heavy leather rappelling gloves. Poor Colella had packed extra T-shirts, extra shorts, a large wash cloth and more. Gone. As we began the eight-mile approach hike up Garnet Canyon, I was grateful my pack weighed less than 19 pounds, including four pounds each of water and food.

Pecked to death?

There's nothing like a strenuous hike to clear the brain of everyday obsessions and worries. As we trudged upward, I didn't think about work, my marriage, grizzlies or my jeans size. I was only happy that my body was cooperating, powering me up the hill, and ready for the climb. After a rustling in the bushes along the trail, I recalled my fear of being attacked by chicken-like birds. A territorial blue grouse chased me for more than 100 yards last summer in Yellowstone, and the thought of its talons reaching out as its wings tangled in my hair as I run and scream still terrifies me. This is probably connected to a childhood memory of being flogged by a rooster. My climbing partners pledged to keep me safe from all grouse, and I relaxed. I did encounter a gaggle of them on the way back down the trail, but they did not stalk me this time.

A little more than six hours, eight distance miles and a vertical mile later, we arrived at the Lower Saddle, where views of Idaho and Jackson Hole stretch to the horizon. A lanky middle-aged man introduced himself as Colella and I were filling our water bottles, and asked what time we'd depart in the morning for the summit. We answered vaguely, and I later asked Bennett about the stranger. He said that more and more people with no clue of the routes up the Grand plan to follow Exum guides.

I made a field dispatch home, thanks to Verizon, as the sun sank toward Table Mountain, and readied my pack for the morning. Snake River Grill manager Bob Merriman and a friend invited me to join them in a glass of wine he had hauled from the parking lot, and we chatted for a half hour.

The night before I excused myself to watch the sunset alone, and my mind wandered to my climbing history. My parents found me atop the refrigerator at 2, the roof at 3. I wanted to be a tree surgeon when I grew up, so I could climb high oaks for a living. Upon puberty, my climbing mostly ceased - there aren't many rocky cliffs near Memphis - until I hit the Teton Rock Gym a few times with friends. I took the Women That Rock clinic this summer with the intention of reclaiming my childhood passion.

I drifted off at 9 p.m. in the Exum hut, only to awaken at 10:30 p.m. with an urgent desire to visit the loo. As I relieved myself, three streaks of light whizzed by, part of the Perseids meteor shower. Walking back, I got my headlamp tangled in my Moose Chase hat tassel and it fell on a rock. I dropped to my knees and searched, finding the apparatus and two batteries. In the blackness, my fingers found I was one battery short. At 3 a.m., guides boiled water and lit a lantern, waking us. I fixed my headlamp and tossed back instant coffee and oatmeal. We began hiking shortly after 4 a.m. to the Black Dike, where scrambling started.

What's next?

From the saddle to the top, it's 2,120 vertical feet. A girl's gotta keep her spirits up. I'm going to blame Margie Lynch for starting various rap songs and chants floating through my head on our previous weekend's hike of the Sleeping Indian. Occasionally these things came out my mouth, annoying my companions. After a particularly peppy rendering of the "Rock, rock steady eddy" cheer, Colella responded with a loud, timely fart. This is the difference between male and female adventuring. Women talk and cheer, men grumble monosyllabically from both ends.

After we roped up and climbed our first short pitch, the Briggs Slab, I felt a few minutes of euphoria. The sun was beginning to cloud the lower reaches of the sky, and John Denver's "Rocky Mountain High" echoed in my head. I couldn't stop grinning until a few hundred feet higher, when I began to get cold and realized there were two hours more of climbing ahead.

After the Crawl, more roped pitches and more scrambling, I began to experience a bit of fatigue and a slight leg shake. Bennett told us we were approaching the "false summit," and I almost got angry. Then we summitted, reaching the real top of the second-highest mountain in Wyoming and the pinnacle of the Teton Range, at 7:45 a.m.

The sun warmed my legs and a chocolate espresso-coated granola bar from Jackson Hole Bakery filled my belly as I gazed over Jackson Hole. I was tired of watching the view of Idaho, after seeing that all morning. We hung out for 45 minutes, calling loved ones and basking in our accomplishment. I couldn't help it; I had to sing a chorus of Van Halen's "Top of the World."

Ten steps off the top, my foot slipped on a browned piece of slick gneiss and I sat down hard, earning an eight-inch-wide bruise on my hamstring. I'm grateful for it, because it made me more careful on the remaining descent.

Back at the hut by 11:30 a.m., we changed to shorts and T-shirts and took our time on the hike out. We stopped to eat, dip our feet in the glacial waters of Garnet Creek and enjoy "Exum Social Hour," when descending parties meet ascending ones, usually between 2 and 3 p.m.

Back in the office on Friday, my adrenaline rush gave way to post-event angst. What next? Gannett Peak is higher ... but there are only three weeks left of guaranteed climbing weather. "You still have peak fever?" a co-worker asked. "Climbing the Grand usually cures that." Not for me.