I scoured maps of the Tetons, and found that most of the peaks are pretty technical and difficult. In fact, two climbers died on Grand Teton earlier this summer.
Then, I saw a mountain, still in the Teton Range, on the boundary between Grand Teton National Park and the Jedediah Smith Wilderness n Table Mountain, 11,106 feet high, a mere two miles west of 13,770-foot Grand Teton. I came to call it, “Mediocre Teton.”
I was awfully concerned about the weather this whole trip. Freezing rain, snow, sleet, plagues of frogs, every miserable form of weather on Mother Nature’s docket was forecast by various Web sites I kept visiting. I packed every warm piece of clothing I could manage.
On the drive down to Grand Targhee, I realized I had forgotten one thing. Bear spray. I was headed into primo grizzly country, and I had no bear spray. Dang. Fortunately, in Driggs, there’s a Patagonia store, so I bought myself a can there from an British woman behind the counter. The spray set me back $55, and now, I have two cans of this stuff at home. This is the same way I end up owning 12 pairs of sunglasses.
When I woke up the morning of my climb, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I was lucking out so far. The bear spray was the only thing that had gone wrong so far.
The trail goes along the North Fork of Teton Creek through a beautiful, aspen-filled canyon. The aspens were just beginning to turn golden. In another week or two, the valley was really going to be spectacular. I found out at the top of the mountain that there is a shorter route, on a rougher, steeper trail that isn’t on my Grand Teton topo map. I didn’t take the short cut on the way down because the canyon hike was so pretty. (And, because I have a thing about not taking trails that aren’t on my map. Call me crazy.)
The trail only climbs 1,000 feet over the first three miles. I was a little concerned whether I was going the right way because you couldn’t see Grand Teton or Table Mountain at all.
Finally, you get a glimpse of Table Mountain, soaring 3,000 feet above you at the end of the canyon. Here, the trail gets steep n 3,000 feet of climbing in three miles. It switchbacks up the south side of the canyon to the top of a ridge about 1,500 feet below the peak. On the ridgetop, you finally get a good view of Grand Teton looming spectacularly over Table Mountain. It looked absolutely massive ... and I realized I was still at least four miles away from it.
Along the way, I passed a trio of people, one of whom was a guy climbing the mountain with his arm in a sling. Climbing an 11,000-foot mountain with your arm in a sling? There’s macho. And then there’s just plain dumb. A woman with them was also dressed in a tank top. She was in for some suffering later.
The ridge starts off fairly flat and easy, but it slowly but surely gets steeper as you get closer to the dome-shaped top of Table Mountain. It was like climbing up a parabola. At this point, Grand Teton disappears behind the summit of Table Mountain.
I passed another group of four women on the ridge. I kind of hung back a bit and let this group catch up with me a couple of times, because a couple of the women started looking wobbly and were stumbling all over the plateau. They were definitely going through a “No, Sam, I can’t recall the taste of strawberries” phase in the thin air. We were at about 10,500 feet. The mountain was starting to hurt us all.
I suggested they concentrate on counting their pole strikes. It distracts you from the pain in your lungs and your legs, kind of like how counting sheep helps you fall asleep. I would count up to 50, then stop to catch my breath. Near the end of the mountain, I was only counting to 20 before having to stop. I was having trouble tasting those strawberries myself at this point. Mediocre Teton, my foot!
At about 10,700 feet, the slope really starts to bite . Your lungs aren’t providing a whole lot of oxygen to those cramping muscles. It’s steep, probably a slope over 30 degrees, with really crummy footing on loose rock. It’s a lot like going up the side of Mount Sentinel, only you’re 5,500 feet higher. You really need at least one trekking pole to get up and down that slope - especially down. I wouldn’t want to try it without one.
Finally, I realized the women were doing fine, and I left them behind to make the final climb on my own. After grinding up the loose rock, you reach a chute in the mountain right at the 11,000-foot mark: Essentially it’s a big crack in the rock about 30 feet long. It’s really narrow. Only one person can fit through at a time. I went partway up the crack, then ran into a group coming down, and I had to go back down backward (I couldn’t turn around because the crack was too narrow for me and my pack) to the opening of the chute to let them through. It was a traffic jam up there!
It turns out Table Mountain is a very popular mountain to climb. This was a Friday in which terrible weather was forecast, and I bet I ran into at least 50 people either going up or down. I wouldn’t recommend doing it on a midsummer holiday weekend.
Finally, the chute was clear, and I made the final scramble to the top.
At the top were two women - one of them was the British woman who sold me the bear spray at the Patagonia store!
The four women showed up a few minutes after me, then a guy from West Virginia. The three other people I passed, even the guy with the arm in the sling, also made it, but with the bitterly cold winds howling off Grand Teton, they didn’t stay at the top for more than five minutes in their T-shirts and tank tops. Those winds sure seemed to signal that the weather was turning for good sometime soon.
You can see several of the massive Teton peaks up close and personal from up there. There’s Grand Teton, which I’m told is called “The Grand” by the hip people in Jackson Hole. Calling it Grand Teton gets you labeled as a Montana sheep-huggin’ nerd. And, there’s Middle Teton, South Teton and Mount Owen. They’re all so close, you feel as though you could touch them, but they’re still two full miles away. They look so near because they’re just such enormous mountains.
The eight of us bundled up in all our layers and stayed up there for 45 minutes. The people at the top were from all around the country (and England, of course). I was the only Montanan.
Everyone got tired of the cold and left, and I had 15 minutes alone at the top, just me, the wind and Grand Teton. I had gotten lucky. I had beaten the weather to the top. Freezing rain, sleet and snow hit two days later in Jackson. I’m sure Table Mountain was buried under a foot or two at least of snow two days later.
After a while, I noticed a couple of other groups on the ridge heading toward the top, and I realized it was time to leave the summit of Table Mountain to them.
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