I've been reading this book for the past week or so - very easy as it is all short stories and most are very entertaining and some bordering on outrageous. I have learned a lot about one of the most important figures in outdoor leadership. How was is that I never knew anything of Paul aside from Petzl climbing gear? Teton Tales was a great complement to Murie's Wapit Wilderness - it presented a contemporary and contrasting account of Jackson Hole and GTNP. I was most impressed at the impact a climber/guide could have and the great extent that his impact carried to. Although this books is Paul's stories, it can't help but to reflect his personal sentiments and reveal some of the history behind his experiences and ethics that led to LNT and NOLS among other things.

Cascade Canyon

Today we took Erica's parents on the hike around the south side of Jenny and about halfway up Cascade. It was a beautiful day, but surprisingly we didn't see much wildlife. Only a couple ducks along the shore, a few small trout going in and out of hiding in the trees that had fallen into the lake, the usual pika farther up the canyon and a pair of woodpeckers. I guess I should say not much by teton standards... Earlier in the year we had seen a family of marmots just below inspiration point, and heard that there were moose farther up along the creek. Michael was hoping to see the moose in the same places he had last time he did this hike about 25 years ago. It was interesting to hear that it hadn't changed much in that time.

Teton Boulder Project

Big night - Jack Tackle, Conrad Anker, Steve House are talking at the Arts Center to raise money for a boulder park. AND... Don, Dawn, and Zach are coming into town for the weekend.

Don ran the geo-tech drill rig that I worked with for a while in St. George. We became close friends working long hours on 100+ degree days. Oddly enough about 4 months after he moved to SLC so did I. Zach is his 15 year old son and my adopted little bro who Erica and I taought to climb last winter in the SLC gym. He loves it and now Don is figuring out how to do it so that they can hang out together.

The plan was to sneak Zach into the show, and Don and Dawn came in late and caught Steve's talk too. Then out to climb the Hoeback Shield tomorrow. We ended up geting them a rope in the silent auction, so now they are almost al geared up and ready to go. We just have to make sure they have all their systems down.

At the shield we start with a warm up that Erica leads and everyone takes a lap on - including Dawn - who has never climbed before. From there we go to some harder routes that we all take turns playing on.

It is a beautiful warm fall day and we are all enjoying being outside. The aspen leaves are in full color after a few cold nights last week, but still holding to the trees. I don't know how many more days we'll be climbing outside this season - snow is in the forecast for next week.

Symmetry Spire

Today we headed up Symmetry Spire - supposed to be one of the starter peaks in the Teton Range. I don't think that means much though because it was a full 11 hour day. Our day started off at 0800, we got to the boat dock for the first boat at 0900 only to find out that now the first boat is at 1000. So we decided to hike around and stay moving even though we only beat the boat by about 5 minutes by the time we got around Jenny Lake. From there it was up the Horse Trail to a gully and faint trail that goes up and up and up... That turned out to be a decent trail most of the way, a few little scrambles and some very loose sections, but we made the base of the wall by 1230. I was surprised to see another party already on the route. I took the first lead and used all 70m of rope to get to a nice ledge about 20' below the other group. Erica came up and we decided that I would keep the lead. I caught the second climber of the other group a few minutes later and followed him through a fun section of thin face climbing to another ledge. After Erica climbed up we all decided that I would take a varation to the right and keep climbing rather than continue following behind. On that pitch we pulled through a couple fun overhangs and ended up on a ledge system about 20' right of our new friends Rob and Jeffery. It had been a beautiful day up until the last bit of my last lead when we began to hear thunder and not far enough away to be comfortable. I quickly took the rack and started up the next pitch of our variation. Maybe because I was in a hurry I found myself getting into a tricky unprotectable spot and had to make a little traverse farther right into a blocky corner. The corner was still tricky climbing, not completely solid and requiring delicate moves, but at least there were some cracks that would provide some measure of protection from a fall. After the corner came easier climbing for another 50' to a big ledge just below the end of our route. One more quick scramble to the top, a few quick photos, and we were off to rappel into the gully that would take us back to the base of the climb, then on down to the truck, hot pizza, and cold beer.

No Perches Necessary

Finally - stepping off the gound and onto one of these big rocks. Its been tough staring at them for the whole crest trail hike and not being able to play on them. This is just a little taste, but it feels good to be off the ground. About half way up it looked like it might storm a bit, but blew over quick and didn't get the rock wet. And lucky that it didn't because we saw a pair of osprey(?) that had a pika or something caught that was making some horrible screeching sounds. The top of the route was a perfect vantage point to watch the birds trying to carry off their prey while it was doing its best to get away. At one point it either managed to wiggle loose or the bird was tired of fighting it because the prey got dropped and then snatched out of mid-air. The osprey were eventually able to haul their catch home and we had to rappell back to the trail and head home for our dinner.