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Our good friend John Gallen adds another mountain to his list…

…if you all recall, he suggested I join him in the Grand Tetons for a few days of climbing.  I declined due to scheduling concerns, but the 150′ rappel to get down kinda’ had me a bit worried too.

From John’s notes:

We had two fantastic days of hiking and climbing.  We went from 6,700′ to 13,400′  just 370′ shy of the summit.  Almost 1.5 miles of elevation gain.

We camped in the moraine and then climbed to the lower saddle and then up to a ledge called Wall Street.  From there we rock climbed several pitches up the upper Exum Ridge.  We had only two pitches to go but decided that at 3:30 PM there was a chance we would be the last ones on the summit and not know exactly how to descend.  We were on the same route as the climbers on Wednesday that got struck by lightning, but we had great weather.

We did a 150′ rappel down to the upper saddle and then hiked down the Owens Spaulding Route to our camp at 10,500′.  Dan Jopp and I had a fast fun ride glissading down the snow field using our ice axes as a brake.  We dropped several hundred feet sliding on our butts in our rain pants.

Notice the ropes and helmets in the two photos below.  Ropes and helmets mean “don’t fall”.  I may not be ready for “don’t fall” hiking and climbing…

John celebrating victory –

Am I the only one to notice the clothing requirements in July?

John nails another one…

…maybe next year for me.