The Grand Teton

So we left Jackson the afternoon of the 25th and headed towards Grand Teton National Park. This was our first destination of the trip and the goal was to summit the Grand Teton. It is the highest peak in the Teton range at around 13, 770 feet. We hoped that the two days in Salt Lake would be enough to begin our acclimitization process.
We arrived at the ranger station in Jenny Lake and the plan was to get our permits for the next few days. Once we arrived, based on the great weather and plenty of daylight left, we decided to head out early and begin our trek in to the mountain that afternoon. With our permit in hand, we headed to the trailhead, sorted out all of our gear, packed up and hit the trail, beginning at 6000 feet, at about 5:30pm.
Our destination for the night was the meadows at the top of Garnet Caynon. It was the most beautiful campsite we had ever been in. Hopefully the pictures will show you what we mean. It was all uphill from the parking lot, with more switchbacks than I would like to recall, but we made it to camp at the meadows around 7:45pm. We went from 6000 feet at the trailhead to 9200 feet in just over 2 hours.
We arrived at the meadows, saw some wildlife in the form of a pika and set up camp. I took a Bear Grylls style shower in the 33 degree water, man was it cold. Next we made dinner which consisted of Ramen and Mashed Potatoes. We watched the sunset and crawled into the tent for bed.
The next morning we awoke just as the sun was coming up and witnessed and wonderfull sunrise with the light bouncing off the caynon walls. We cooked a breakfast of pancakes and coffee, packed up and hit the trail. We climbed and climbed all morning until we reached our high camp at the lower saddle which resides around 11,600 feet. We were ready for a break by the time we got there.
For the rest of the afternoon we rested up, soaked in the sun and the scenery, and prepared ourselves for the climb ahead. That night we set out our gear for the summit bid, watched the sun go down (amazing) and went to bed early because we were waking at 4:30am to begin our climb.
Morning came quick thanks to some PM Ibuprofen and we made oatmeal and coffee in the dark, put on our harnesses and helmets and gradually made our way up the mountain. We spent the early hours of the morning climbing and scrambling our way up a very steep caynon all in the dark. It was exhilarating and adrenaline pumping for sure, but we were all excitied and enjoying the views as the sun slowly began to shed its light.
We arrived at the upper saddle which sits at 13,120 feet around 7am. We took a quick rest, took in the scenery, stared at the monstrous climb ahead, an almost vertical 600 foot face with a long long fall, and read the guide book once more. We next made our way over to the base of the summit pillar and began to work our way towards the top. We had to traverse sections called the belly crawl, and the crawl at over 13,200 feet with nothingness below us. These few sections gave us all a bit of a reality check and at that moment we decided we had a long trip ahead of us and felt more comfortable with going back rather than attempting the last and most difficult section of the climb.
We made short work of the way back down to high camp and arrived just after 10am. We took a moment to rest and then we packed up camp for the long haul all the way back to the car. Descending over 7000 feet in one day was certainly a work out on the feet, knees, and thighs. We stampered into the parking lot around 2:30pm, unpacked our packs, and re-packed the car. Next we made our way to Colter Bay so we could take showers, which were desperatly needed, washed our clothes and found a great place to eat pizza at the shores of Lake Jackson.