[TR] Tetons - Black Ice Couloir to West Face on the Grand; Direct South Buttress to the summit on Moran 06/23/2025

[bedellympian]

Trip: Tetons - Black Ice Couloir to West Face on the Grand; Direct South Buttress to the summit on Moran

Trip Date: 06/23/2025

Trip Report:

 

Dallin and I had gotten skunked by climate change two summers ago in Canada, so this year we decided to book a week together in late June and go wherever the weather looked best, with the goal of climbing long routes to summits. We were just starting to get really excited for Roger's Pass when the weather changed and we bailed to a more southerly range, the Tetons.

 

The week was starting cold so we decided to prioritize ice routes. We had reliable intel that Run Don't Walk was out, but Black Ice had seen a mixed ascent 10 days prior and temps/precip seemed to suggest it would only grow. Wanting to do all the things, we hiked up to the Lower Saddle prepped to link into the West Face. The Black Ice/West Face linkup is George Lowe's pick for the 50 Favorites book. In his topo he cuts left on a snow field to the West Face, missing the crux of BIC. Since BIC is hard to find in condition in this age, we opted to climb BIC through the crux if it looked good and then cut out left higher, if possible.

This strategy worked out well. The crux of BIC was thin ice on slab to neve sticks above a chockstone, very fun. A long, snow covered slab/ledge system allowed us to traverse out onto the West Face, starting with the rock climbing on pitch 4. We only brought a single pair of rock shoes, so Dallin lead everything and I followed in full shank boots, making the old school 5.8 traverse pitch quite exciting. After 5 difficult (for me in boots) and wandery pitches we reached the end of the difficulties on the Lowe topo. At this point the weather came in, snowing and thundering. After dead ending a couple times on the scramble to the summit I downclimbed into a snow filled gully, reattached crampons, and climbed a tenuous verglassed slab to snow only to find it was powder on featureless slab. Luckily, a leaning flake crack provided a good torques and we topped out in a white out. The sun poked out again just in time to allow a quick navigation of the raps. 

After a night at a friend's house in Jackson, we repacked for a sunnier objective. That afternoon we paddle boarded over to Leigh Canyon and bushwhacked up the drainage until we were under the South Buttress of Mt. Moran. We bivied on cleared camp spots in some cottonwoods next to the creek. At 4am we rolled out of bivy bags and headed up through the brush and scree to the Direct South Buttress route. We had heard the first pitch of Blackfin was the preferred first pitch which accessed the second ramp. However, after looking at various options and downclimbing off one horror show of stacked blocks, we just scrambled higher on the first ramp and did the original low 5th start. More route finding difficulties slowed us and ate up time, but we persisted and gained the main line of pitches up nice cracks which appeared to be a lovely white granite in places. The traverse pitch and crux was not too bad, we opted to simply pendulum and aid at this point in the day. We reached the hanging bowl at 3pm and thought maybe we could still do the remaining 3000' to the summit before dark (oh hubris). Wet and vegetated slabs, sandbagged old school climbing, and extremely exposed tower ridge traversing in high winds saw us reach some good bivy sites in the second hanging bowl with a little bit of daylight left. We cut our loses and settled in for a cold and windy bivy.

The next morning we were up and moving by 5am. Many more route finding difficulties lead to an off-route, overhanging, bomb bay chimney that ended with a mantle on to the summit plateau. We tagged the summit at 1:30pm and had a quick snack/water break before descending the CMC route. Neither of us had climbed the CMC or Moran before so this made for some interesting and surprising situations as we down-simuled and rappelled, culminating in realizing we had to rap into the Drizzlepuss notch and climb up the peak on the other side to escape. Once over the annoying DP, we raced down to the lake and paddle boarded leisurely back to the car with a beautiful sunset until hoards of mosquitoes found us. A dunk in the cold water and shivering night drive into Jackson with the windows down let the bloodsuckers escape. We got late night pizza slices and then had to drive 2 hrs around through Alpine to reach Driggs because Teton Pass was closed for construction... always one more problem to surmount! I passed out in the back of my car in Driggs at 2am and drove home the next day. 

Thanks to our families for letting the dads go big for a week!

Double rainbow in Driggs was a good omen.

Dawn on the Valhalla Traverse to reach BIC.

Dallin on Valhalla

Dallin finishing the Valhalla traverse

Dallin's pic of me leading the mixed pitch to access the BIC

Lookind down the BIC before it started getting more icey.

Crux on BIC

Dallin switching to rock shoes on the West Face

Me following on the W Face

Looking down the W Face on the BIC

 Dallin's video on the summit in a whiteout

First rap off the Grand

Enclosure with the clouds blowing off.

Below the DSB on Moran

Dallin's pic of me catching Z's below the DSB, I'm too soft to go with the rope bivy these days.

Myself following one of the better pitches on the DSB

Dallin's pic of me leading the penji to aid crack pitch.

Dallin getting ready to follow the crux/aid pitch

This is the "5.5" exit pitch from the DSB... friction slab feet and a jug rail... 5.9 in Squamish for sure and pretty consistent for the grades on this route.

Endless 4th/low 5th on the upper SB.

Dallin getting water at the second bowl before going looking for a good bivy site.

Dallin cheesing when we thought it was almost over. 

Dallin leading what we thought was the last hard pitch... turned out to be a few more and lots of shenanigans.

Myself following said pitch... quite good.

 Summit of Moran, finally!

 

Gear Notes:
All the toys... really, all of them.

Approach Notes:
Standard beta available on the interwebs.

Edited yesterday at 07:00 PM by bedellympian

[bedellympian]

Anyone know how to make videos work?

Nevermind, they just needed to load a bit.

Edited yesterday at 08:06 PM by bedellympian

[dberdinka]

Very cool.  Thanks for sharing.

[cfire]

Awesome! Looks like you nailed the conditions.

[JasonG]

That is an impressive week for anyone, dads or not! 

I guess SUP vs. canoe rental is one way to force yourself to go light.  

[bedellympian]

2 hours ago, cfire said:

Awesome! Looks like you nailed the conditions.

Yeah, for sure, though summiting the Grand in a whiteout right after several loud thunder strikes was definitely more than I wanted in that moment!

[bedellympian]

1 hour ago, JasonG said:

That is an impressive week for anyone, dads or not! 

I guess SUP vs. canoe rental is one way to force yourself to go light.  

Thanks Jason! Yeah, can't go heavy on a carryover route with 5k' of technical climbing regardless! 😂 Though I definitely would have liked some trekking poles on the descent and warmer bivy kit on night two... oh and more food! You can always have more food!