Climbing and Skiing Middle Teton

It's about 5 15. Just left the trail ahead in Grand Teton National Park. It didn't get very cold last night, so not sure what I'll find up there, but it is the first week of June, so hopefully the snow is pretty consolidated and I can find something fun to ski. Heading through the trees here. Got quite a ways to go. Doesn't look like snow at all down here, but I'm pretty sure it's up there as you see it from the highway. Just walking through bear territory here. Usually a couple bears, a mammon or cub from the last couple years, so they're probably getting pretty big by now, but they usually mind their own business and just make a lot of noise, make sure they know you're coming. Probably about four and a half, five hours to the summit, so I've got a long way to go. Made it into Garnet Canyon down in the meadows here. Still quite a bit of snow. It's actually pretty hard, so still walking in my tennis shoes. See how far I can do that because it is faster than skimming or walking in ski boots, but normally I would go up the route I'm going to ski, but it's already in full sun and if it gets too soft you have to bail and turn around halfway, so I'm going to go up the back. That way I can still summit and if the snow is too soft I can always go back down that way, so we'll see how it goes. Driving here this morning I realized I left my ski socks at home, but it wasn't really worth turning around, so we'll see how it goes with these things. Hopefully it doesn't cause me too many blisters, but there's Middle Teton up there. I'm going to head around the south side of it and up the west coulard, so snow looks pretty bad down here, but it should be better on the steep stuff. So even though we got a ton of snow this winter, I'm up at about 10,000 feet walking on rocks because it got really warm in the spring, April, May, and it hasn't been freezing at night, so the snow just melts off even faster during the day, but hopefully I won't have to walk too far on dirt. So even though it only hit about 37 up here based on the forecast last night, this snow is already consolidated and even has a little bit of a freeze on top, so nice thing with the snow. It kind of creates a nice box effect where it cools down, the air flows over the rest of the snowpack, and it gives it a slight freeze. The problem with that is it doesn't last very long, so as soon as the sun hits it heats up really quick, and as you can see, although it's hard on top, you can punch through it and that's what you got to worry about pretty big wet slides. So looks like we're doing pretty good on time, probably about an hour from the summit. Yeah, I've done 4,300 feet and it's about 5,500 if I remember right. So keep heading up. Snow is, yeah, pretty frozen, so decided to put the crampons on and, yeah, I'll boot up from here. I got my axe if it gets any sketchier, but usually it's not too bad. You can walk right up it. About halfway up the back side you can see the summit, only about a couple hundred more feet, so going pretty good. The snow is pretty frozen hard, so really hoping I can ski down the other side. I'm going to have to wait like three or four hours to ski this, but pretty epic views. Made it to the top of Middle Teton just about four hours and like one minute, so that's kind of annoying, but not too bad for 5,800 vert. The line I want to ski is way too warm. The east face is already mostly wet slid. This top section is just snow on top of slick rock, so not worth trying to get down to the entrance of the run. Even the entrance looks like it's pretty trashed, super isothermic looking, and yeah, most of it is already slid. So unfortunately I'm going to have to ski down what I came up, which is pretty rock hard, and the sun probably won't hit it for another hour, so probably be hanging out up here for quite a while. Had a downclimb from the summit the way I went up because it was still rocks, but traversed over here, found a patch of snow that hopefully connects to the couloir that goes out the bottom. Not super stoked on it. I was really hoping to ski the other side. This is still pretty frozen. Even tried to take a nap for a little while, but kind of tricky up here, so waited about two hours maybe up here on the summit for it to soften, and I'm just bored, so I'm going to ski this. It's probably going to be pretty bad, but once I get around the corner hopefully have some better corn, so oh well. Made it back down to the trail. Took off my ski boots, took off my pants, brought some shorts, and now I got a couple miles back to the car, but pretty fun ski. A little disappointed I didn't get to ski the east face of Middle Teton. Even though I've done it a bunch, it's just a really fun run, and the snow would have gone all the way down. Instead I had to kind of downclimb and then piece together some snow, and the couloir that I booted up was still pretty hard, so still fun skiing down. Definitely easier than just walking. Not sure it's worth coming up for another, but still pretty good. A little pro tip here, if you have to carry your boots down in your skis, you want to slide your heel in first, just push it back, and then it automatically lines up the toe, and you just snap it down. Now just a couple miles back to the car, and then head back to town. Let me know if you like watching these longer videos, and don't forget to subscribe if you want to see more this summer and next winter as well. I decided to fill my pack up with what I was carrying on the way, like water and food, and see how much it weighed. Came in at 37 pounds.