Chad_A

Nah, all it takes is to mention what I already have, and climb on currently. Isn't that what everyone else did? QUARK! So, syudla, what do you plan on doing with it?

Ooolalah.

Feel better now? I don't know why I'm posting on this; maybe it's because I've been up all night, and I'm feeling a bit surly. You use the word "judgement" quite a bit. Interesting. As I know it, climbers, by nature, are a self-regulating group. If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. People on this website, from what I've seen, express concern with others' actions, not because they're "judging" them, but because it can raise red flags. I just took a glance at "Who's Online", and there's 74 lurkers...at 5 a.m. So what? Some of them may not be on "our side". There's lots of people and/or groups out there that would love to add ammunition to their arsenal in order to raise fees, increase or initiate rescue costs, etc. The "fuck you, I don't care what you think of what I'm doing" attitude just adds fuel to the fire. That said, I'm sure most people don't give a good Goddamn what you do, what your goals are, or what you climb, as long as you don't end up creating a bad image for the rest of us. In other words, don't shit where climbers eat. Flame away. I'm going to bed.

Sorry 'bout that, Oly. That really sucks. The funny thing is, I saw a cop, here in Portland go down my street (25 mph speed zone) with sirens blazing, at at least 70 mph. Right past a father, pulling two children in a bike trailer, in the bike lane. Nice.

Thanks very much for the responses. Keep 'em coming. Another question or two If anyone cares to mention, how about alcohol useage? And, if so, do you feel it affects your performance the next day? How many days do you take off before an alpine outing that you perceive to be difficult?

Thanks for the nice replies, gents. Knocking em out right and left? Ha! I feel like they're knocking ME out right and left The goal for the trip, namely the Beehive, was the goal to get me some experience on mixed stuff...alas, Stettner had nothing in it like that. Just a few rock moves, which Keith led. I imagine, later in the season, it might hold more ground of that type.

Thanks, Doug. Have you seen a good result from that, or is it just assumed that it works? I tried it for a while, but didn't see anything clear-cut. FYI, I train 3-4 days a week. I do 4-6 hours (used to be more when I could get away to hike. Now, I strapped to my pager. Keeps me closer to home). I do mostly trail running these days, with biking here and there, and supplement it by trashing out the legs once a week with weights. I also use the rock gym as a form of training, but I don't put that time toward the calculated 4-6 hours. I figure it doesn't count that much toward alpine training. I do use Glutamine for recovery, and if I remember in time, I'll supplement with OKG (Orthinine Ketoglutarate) ala Twight before workouts. If I ever get away from this weird work schedule, I'll go back to hiking long distances.

Very cool. Keep us posted!

Typically, it's listed as a February to May route. It's been a reasonably warm spring (very little freeze-thaw) so I'd expect that it's well out of shape by now.

Hopefully things consolidate down there a bit. My pal, Andy C. is down there right now. Thanks for the report.

Sorry you're not interested, Eric. I should've added that this is a cardio-power/cardio-endurance type of poll, intended for alpine training. I'm not to interested with who I train more, or less, than...just getting a feeler. Obviously, it's not a scientific poll, not intended to be put to serious use. Thanks for the input, Ade.

This is, of course, for down-time periods, or bad weather periods, where you're not expecting to head out anytime soon. Trying to see where I'm at in the grand spectrum of things. I do what I can, with the time and energy that I have (I work a weird, on-call night shift that seriously affects my rest, and motivation); somehow, I feel I'm probably in the middle. So, here's the questions. How often do you train? How many hours per week? What methods do you use? Do you use supplemenal nutrition (no, Ivan, not the illegal kind )? Example: Glutamine, Creatnine, Protein shakes...multivitamins need not apply. Anything, say, you might need to get from GNC, or a specialty store.

Cool...go get it, Alan! http://www.bdel.com/php/specials.php?id=375

Hey, Squirrel- Thanks for the compliment! I understand the ice never came in this year; Pete seemed to indicate that it's always iffy, but this year, it never came in. Yes, by the way, we did it in a day. It was a long one, but it was made longer by the fact that a slower party was below us on the descent. It's hard to tell when the ice will start forming up on the Enclosure- soon, the Jenny Lake climbing rangers will be there, and I'm sure they'll have good info on that.

Anyone have any good Mt. Hunter eye candy? Any and all high resolution pics, please. Thanks in advance!

Oh, and I should add...the ice climbs actually come around later in the year. They're all snow climbs right now, although Stettner has ice in it. I'm told that most of the ice routes on the Enclosure come around in July. Maybe a bit earlier nowadays, with global warming 'n all.

There's just about everything that you could possibly hope for on the Grand. Everything from good rock climbing, to ice; the Enclosure, a sub-peak of the Grand, has the Black Ice Couloir, which will probably come in this year, with the snowpack that they have. Also, a harder variation of that, with (what I'm told) reasonably difficult mixed climbing, Albrechts Alley, is right there, as well as the VisionQuest Couloir. The Black Ice is supposed to be the most straight forward steep snow and ice, followed by VisionQuest, and then the hardest rated is Albrechts. The only thing I can see missing from the mountain is the usual snow slog; not such a bad thing. It's not a bad idea, from what I gather, to have climbed the Owen-Spaulding (5.4) route, so you'll know the descent. It's kind of a lengthy traverse from the Upper Saddle (the spot between the Enclosure and the Grand) from the west side of the mountain, to the south side of the mountain. Once you're at the Upper Saddle, it's a scramble downwards, via scree covered ledges (and, this time of year, post holing snow slopes) to get down. I understand that it's much less pleasant of a descent once the snow is gone...and it wasn't that great with the snow present! Bleech!

Beer has a bad aspect? Impossible. Though beer is a good medium to compare the different types of alpine climbing. There's quite a selection. Some days I feel like having a Stout, most days I feel like having an IPA. Most days, I prefer ice, just like most days I prefer an IPA. Like a Titan IPA. It has an ice climber on the bottle.

Thanks, Oleg! We didn't have much rock climbing; just the part that bypassed the ice pitch. The couloir itself was a riot...fun, soloable ice.

Very cool. Nice TR, and great pics!

Hey, Steve- No, I haven't done This House of Sky, yet, but from what you describe, I'll bet that it isn't that far off, in general. I wish that the finishing pitch of WI would have gone, but it was prudent not to climb it. Maybe a week earlier and it could have been golden!

Climb: Grand Teton- Stettner Couloir Date of Climb: 5/26/06 Trip Report: I'd been contacted by Keith, who was also interested in the Canadian Rockies, for fall climbs. We'd decided to get together before that, and climb something on the Beehive in Montana, to get me some mileage on some mixed climbing. This past week, upon talking to a local in Montana, we had changed plans to the Tetons abruptly; turns out, the season has been a complete wash for climbing on the Beehive this year. Keith mentioned Stettner Couloir on the Grand, and so we set our sights on that. It sounded fun, but I didn't know much about the Teton(s) in general. With an hour of sleep after working, I made the drive to Jackson, and met Keith at the Jenny Lake campground. The view of Teewinot was beautiful from our camp. The weather was forecasted to change Saturday, so we only had Friday to climb. We prepared the gear, and hit the sleeping bags for a wink or two of sleep before heading up. I was pretty beat. At dusk, we were near the Lower Saddle. Here's the Middle Teton, and Keith, in the growing light. We got separated on the scree field for a bit, but found each other soon enough, and climbed up to the col, where you downclimb and traverse to the base of the Couloir. I was feeling pretty miserable; the lack of sleep and the altitude was having it's way with me. Keith moved along without effort; I vowed to continue until we had a real reason not to. Here's a pic of the lower couloir. The couloir was interspersed with steep snow and WI2. Or, AI2, whatever you would call it. It was blue, and refrozen water, in the alpine. After 700 ft of simul-solo vertical gain, we were near top of the couloir. Here's a pic of what lay ahead. I had stayed a bit below Keith, and off to the side, to dodge the falling ice; later, I found out it wasn't his ice falling, but another party's, that was falling from a "bypass" pitch of ice (WI2) to get past the head of the couloir. I got up to him, and he had the anchor set. We got out the ropes, and he was ready to tackle the ominous pitch of ice. Here's a pic of the ice, and of the belay position, which was spectacular. After getting halfway up it, the ice turned out to be very wet, and the pillar wasn't as well attached at the top as he'd have liked, so he downclimbed and pulled the screws. He found a squeeze hole underneath a huge chockstone; this is the most interesting climbing I've ever seen. I wish I'd gotten a picture of it. He protected it with a #3 Camalot, and a red Alien. After some grunting and shoving his pack through the hole above him, he popped through, set up an anchor, and I cursed and groaned my way through it after him. After this was an hour long suffer-fest to the summit; I've never postholed up to my ass at 13,000 feet before. Quite the workout. I didn't have the energy left to take a summit pic; I only wanted to get down before the weather came in. If Keith took a summit photo, I'll post it as soon as I have it. We followed another party down snowy ledges to the Owen-Spaulding descent. After two rappels (one single, one double) we were at the upper saddle. Thankfully, Keith knew the descent down scree and postholing snow slopes, to traverse back around the mountain to get back to the lower saddle, and where we'd started. I can see someone getting lost, or off route here, if one weren't familiar. I felt bad that I hadn't had time to look into the descent info, but he didn't mind finding the way down. In hindsight, I could have figured it out; it simply a traverse to where you stared from. The hard part might be knowing where the rap stations are, if you haven't been there before. On the way down the trail, there was one more treat to be had. As our minds were filled with thoughts of beer and pizza, a black bear stood in our way. Eventually, it meandered away, but none too soon. Hooray! The next day, we were to climb on the Guide Wall to get in some rock, but the forecasted weather decided to come in. Even with weather over them, the Tetons are beautiful. My initial impression of the Grand is that it's similiar to Stuart, in that there's something on it for every type of climber. I'll be looking forward to going back! Thanks to Keith for being patient with a Cascadian climber's first time out there. Approach Notes: The Lupine Meadows Trail is mostly melted out in the lower portions; the upper part is still under snow. Gear Notes:Two tools, pons, some screws (almost used), small rack of cams and stoppers (used), half ropes.

Good job, Jaime. Looks like you had a great time! -Chad

Thanks for sharing, Josh. Very scary for sure. Also, sorry to hear about Larry; I guess that stuff can happen to experienced folks at any time. This thread reminds me of my first trip to Stuart a couple years ago. Stewart and I were heading in to do the Ice Cliff Glacier; unfortunately, instead of following Nelson's approach description, we ended up following tape markers on tree branches. This lead us high onto the granite boulderfield, way too high. Rather than go back, we decided to stick it out. Scrambling along the boulders wasn't bad at first, but then we ended up jumping and hopping across car sized granite blocks. I fell once; mostly frustrating, and some cursing. The second time I fell, a rock hold on a slope pulled off, as I was scrambling up a steep section to get on top of another granite block. I fell, somersaulted 30-40 feet down this steep slope, lost most of my pack contents all over the place, and ended up with my head downhill, mere feet away from another rock that would've crushed my skull. I brushed it off as best as I could, but wore my helmet the rest of the way. I still have a nasty scar on my right wrist from the fall. A year later, I did that approach again, and followed the trail next to the stream. Lesson learned- don't blindly follow taped trees, and follow a guidebook description!

Here's some of Nate's pics; just received them yesterday. Why does this not look so bad now? It felt a helluva lot steeper than this...but maybe that's because of the runout below, and the sugar collapsing beneath my feet.