Climbing Grand Teton – Upper Exum
By Tristan Greszko:
Sorry this one’s a little late! I wrote most of it back in August and then things got hectic, so it’s just going up…
With some free time on my hands, I came back to Jackson in August after two weeks in Arizona on something of a spontaneous whim, with one plan in mind – to climb the Grand. After a few years in the Tetons, it’s something that probably should have happened already, but, you know, there’s never enough time to do everything you wanna do in Wyoming… It would’ve happened last summer, if not for my busted shoulder, but that injury kept me from climbing (and living) regularly until this spring.
Good friend, former co-worker, Exum guide, and crazy man/badass Zahan Billimoria agreed to take me up if he had a spare day when he wasn’t guiding, so when he called me on Sunday night, telling me to get my gear together, I was pretty excited (understatement). My semi-limited window meant that we were making it a car-to-car round trip; I’ve been working all spring to get back into shape – my previous hike, a trip up Half Dome, I managed to turn around in five and a half hours. Not a new land speed record by any means, but not bad by my standards.
We left Lupine Meadows at 4:30 am, made it up to the Lower Saddle by about 8 am at a comfortable pace, stopped for a quick rest, refueling and gearing up for the climb. After that, it was straight up a climber’s trail towards the Upper Saddle, through the Eye, and a right turn and scramble up Wall Street. Z made me promise one thing at the top of Wall Street, where his only rule is that you must look down, before gaining the boulder ledge at the beginning of the Upper Exum Ridge, and of course I happily obliged – just in-cre-di-ble. From there, the climbing was fun and grippy with unbelievable views, up the famous pitches that had for so long been just names. Z put me through a harder little bouldering move near the summit that I thought was going to be the end of me, but I made it though just fine and it was an easy scramble up a knife-edged arete to the summit at 13,770 ft. from there. We left the summit around noon, downclimbed a bit to the rap station, made the 120 ft. free-hanging rappel to the Upper Saddle, and on down, down, down back to the Lower Saddle by about 2:15 pm.
We rested and lounged in the sun at the Lower Saddle for a bit, and then made the long descent back to Lupine Meadows. At 4:30 pm, twelve hours, many miles and thousands of feet after we started, I was in the car driving back home. I couldn’t help but look back up at where we’d been, with a deep sense of satisfaction and something of a new perspective.
A TR like this is a little sub-par these days, as far as pushing the limits goes – it’s funny to think back on it, and know that climbing the Grand isn’t that big a deal by (our exceedingly high) Jackson standards. I was lucky to get perfect weather and was in the hands of one of the best, so it seems like it was easy in retrospect.
That said, I’m sitting at the computer not in Jackson, but in my apartment here in San Francisco, in a world where the only things most people climb are the stairs to their offices, or in and out of their cars to drive up and down the same hilly streets day in and day out, and I know that my trip up the Grand was something special. A new beginning, especially as an aspiring climber, mountaineer, and photographer. And much like, for me as a skier, skiing Central or straightlining Once for the first time. The day was an epic of epics, an adventure of a lifetime, a milestone surpassed, and I can’t wait to do it again.
Here are some shots (all from my Canon G9 point and shoot), and below, a quote from Everest luminary George Mallory about his own adventures in the mountains:
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The first question which you will ask and which I must try to answer is this, “What is the use of climbing Mount Everest?” and my answer must at once be, “It is no use.” There is not the slightest prospect of any gain whatsoever… We shall not bring back a single bit of gold or silver, not a gem, nor any coal or iron. We shall not find a single foot of earth that can be planted with crops to raise food. It’s no use. So, if you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won’t see why we go. What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to enjoy life. That is what life means and what life is for.
George Leigh Mallory, 1922
You can see more of my work on my website, tristangreszko.com. See you back in Jackson this winter amigos, it’s on.
Awesome job!