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Grand Teton Summit via Upper Exum  August 29 2024


Three short stories:


The Step Across
---------------

I botched my very first pitch (the Step Across) on the 
technical climb.  Or did I?

The exposure on that pitch is enormous -- you're clinging
to the rock face above thousands of feet of .. read more




The pictures below were found on the Net.  I didn't carry
a camera on this climb.

This is the top of Wall Street, which is the highest point
to which my nephew and I got in 1980.  My nephew and I were 
alone on the mountain.

A climber about to lower himself down to the lower version
of the Step Across:





We did the lower version of the Step Across, which is very
similar to doing the upper version, several feet higher up.

A climber who has just completed the upper version of the
Step Across and is beginning the climb of the upper Exum ridge:





A pitch above the wind tunnel:





The climb begins at the 11,700' saddle (bottom of yellow line
in the photo below) to which we had hiked up early in the 
morning (3:15 to 6:45).  The trail-head is at 6700'.

It's class 3 climbing up the bottom portion of the yellow line,
followed by more class 3 climbing along the bold orange line
over to the red line.

The red line is our Upper Exum ridge route, which is 
class 5 climbing (rope and hardware) all the way to the 
summit ridge.



Morgan (Exum guide) had told me the day before -- 
after our rock-climbing -- that I was "going to crush it".
I said, "I won't crush it, but I'll be fine".  My summit guide 
Gavin and I passed what few climbing parties there were on 
the Upper Exum ridge who had started hours ahead of us (they
had all spent the night in the hut on the saddle after hiking
up to it the previous day), and we arrived at the summit long 
before any of the other climbers.  Morgan was perhaps right.
But all I had to do was follow the mountain goat Gavin.

(If you don't live in the mountains, make your climb a fun
one by training during the summer before heading to the
climb.  The training is part of the fun.)

There are about a dozen pitches on the upper Exum ridge.

Three of those pitches are covered in my --> stories.

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