As you know, Jackson WY is located at the base of Teton National Park. Nearly 3 million people visit the park each year. You can see most of them pulled over on the side of the road, standing on their car door step sticking a digital camera about 6 inches from their face and snapping a photo. Other instances you can see these people (locals here call them gapers) staring at a moose or elk, getting dangerously close to get a shot for their photo albums. Making all of us late for work.
I mention the gapers because the only way to get away from them is to get up at the crack of dawn and get far into the back country. Thats exactly what my roommate and I did on July 3rd. We had the idea to climb the Middle Teton. We began our ascent at 6 a.m. And was at the base of the south-west gully, our route up the Middle Teton by 10 a.m.
The gully was steep and littered with loose rock but we made it up by 11:30 a.m. and took in the view. We got a magnificent view of the south face of the Grand Teton. This image is pictured here, with the summit of the Middle in the foreground. We each basked in the moment of a summit, then descended back to the saddle.
We were at the saddle by 1 p.m. and had a snack. This view is quite amazing as well. On either side are the Middle and South Tetons and down below off a cliff is Ice Flow Lake. Taking in the view we decided to make an assault on the South Teton. Well that payed off too. That climb was very easy and we were able to bag 2 peaks in one day. Needless to say my legs were sore for 2 days.
Two major peaks in the Tetons in 12 hours with a good buddy on your birthday. It doesn't get much better.
Oh yeah. No Gapers. Much better.
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