BOOTEDANDFED.COM

The day started out nice

The summer of work is almost over. It has been a short, tough season. Finally got out yesterday with Jay and Phil to explore some new terrain. I always enjoy re-coning for ski mountaineering in the summer before a winter ascent. We had beautiful yet discouraging views of the shrinking Triple Glaciers and expansive views of Snowshoe Canyon area. A plethora of new ski terrain was being assessed.

Bivouac Peak

We followed game trails up the lower part of the ridge, then arrived on the more alpine feeling upper east ridge. Big exposure to the south, and the highest elevation large boulders I have seen in the park.

Fall flowers

Phil and Jay on the upper ridge

Stunning yet shrinking Triple Glaciers

More alpine colors

Jay works up the ridge

Dudley Lake and Snowshoe Canyon

Phil on the east ridge of Bivouac Peak

After a few route finding blunders we arrived at the east summit of Bivouac in the rain, snow and wind. The book describes passing the east summit on the south by a “exposed 3rd class shelf”. All three of us have climbed and scrambled around the Tetons on plenty of 4th class and easy 5th without incident. This looked down right scary. A sloping slab, a thousand feet of exposure to the south, with very marginal hands and feet. Not sure if that was the way, or if we were off route. If that was the route it was definitely 3.14x climbing. Add on the slick nature of the rock and the impending storm we decided to pull the plug.

Jay embraces the misery

We turned around the from east summit in the rain and snow. There aren’t many sustained rain storms in the Tetons. Today was different. It just kept raining and blowing for 4 hours. This made the descent scary on the upper ridge with extremely slippery and loose, large boulders, and downright misery in the thick wet shrubbery on the lower sections. We all laughed, clawed and slid our way down the 4000 ft ridge in the pouring rain. I have never been that wet in my life and we still had a windy, rainy 4 mile boat ride across the lake.  You have to train your brain as well as your muscles in the mountains. What fun.