With one last day in Salt Lake City, we decided to get one more tour in before making our ~4.5 hour drive out to Jackson, WY. I’m not going to lie, this day wasn’t my favorite on the skin track. I was struggling with all things going uphill, kick turning, and ultimately staying on my feet. Nevertheless, we made it to the top of God’s Lawnmower and stopped up top for a snack before dropping into the open face created by an old avy path. The skiing was alright, but it came down to picking myself up and getting it done.
We made our drive out to Jackson and set our objective for 25 Short, a pretty popular route within Grand Teton National Park. From recommendations from friends and checking out routes online, we made the objective of making it over to Mavericks and Chute the Moon.
Right at the beginning, we made a wrong turn, but were pleasantly surprised by the fact that we were given some gorgeous views of the Grand while crossing over a frozen lake. The tours have definitely been slowed down a bit by the fact that we all are out trying to get some photos and it’s hard not to stop in such beautiful places that we’ve been going. The other thing that’s been slowing us down has been my slow pace on the skins. As much as I want to blame it on my gear, I really think that my lack of speed is coming down to the fact that I don’t have much experience on the skins. So Bjoern stuck along with me while Zach continued up at his pace (probably twice as fast as ours). We didn’t bring walkie talkies on this tour and thankfully we had cell service because we got very separated.
Bjoern and I made it to a false summit that pulled off to a cliff edge with pretty incredible views of the Grand and other peaks in the Teton range. We gave Zach a call and told him we’d hurry up after we got a few pictures of the view. We “hustled” up the hill and made to the ridge where Zach wasn’t waiting for us. Somehow we had taken a different skin track and passed right by him without seeing him. So we took some more pictures and waited for him at the top of 25 Short, named for being 25’ short of 10,000 feet.
This ridge was where we got our first sight of Chute the Moon. From where we were, we needed to traverse south across and up the ridge to make it to the entrance of the chute. As we traversed, we crossed paths with a guide group looking to hit a more North Easterly aspect that the guide predicted would have some good snow. The guide didn’t have any Information on the chute for us so we decided to continue on and check it out for ourselves.
Things were going alright, right up until one of the last faces before the chute entrance. Zach traversed across first and due to the snow condition, we decided to cross going one at a time. About 30 yards below our side-skin line, was a cliff band that we weren’t too sure how far it dropped off, but this was a definite “No Fall Zone.” From across the face, Zach called back to have Bjoern cross which he surely skinned across. I was called across and at the worst possible location, when the snow went to ice, I looked down at my bindings to see that my ski boots had twisted in them and my skis were barely on my feet. My heart rate spiked and Zach talked me through getting my skis off safely without losing them to the cliff. Despite the plan of staying on the face one at a time, Zach boot packed back across the face and helped me with my skis and get across. I kept trying to rack my brain and find a time when I had felt that nervous about something and I couldn’t find a single time when I felt like that. I can’t thank the guys enough for staying patient with me and helping me out across the route.
In the back of my head, I wasn’t sure how much I wanted to attempt the chute, but we continued on and made it to the entrance. What we couldn’t see when we first made laid our eyes on the chute, was the poor snow condition that was left in the chute. It looked as though the face had slid and had filled in with wind and debris. These conditions made our decision pretty easy and we decided to turn back and follow the path of the guide group back down to the parking lot.
In the end, the guide knew what he was looking for and the aspect provided us with some pretty nice snow. Nothing super fresh, but we were definitely on some of the best snow in the area. Stopping for a few pictures along the way, we toured our way down to the parking lot and after 6.5 hours we celebrated with a beer in the parking lot while the sun set and the air got really cold. My longest tour was in the books and despite the ups and downs, it was a pretty awesome day and I’d definitely recommend the route to others.
