When I was 17, my family took a trip to the Tetons and Yellowstone. As a young rock climber at the time, I was captivated by the Tetons and my parents set me up with an Exum Guide for a day of multi-pitch trad climbing in a canyon near the Grand. It took over 20 years to return on this road trip vacation to the Wind River Range and Tetons for me to get a chance to climb The Grand.
We’d just hiked out of the Winds on Saturday, having spent 5 days back there climbing the gorgeous granite spires and enjoying the Cirque of the Towers area, so we were a little tired, but well acclimated. Dale decided to drive down from Bozeman to meet us and we got together in the Lupine Meadows parking lot at 5am to go for the Upper Exum Ridge, figuring that the Full Exum with Labor Day traffic on the mountain wasn’t a great idea to go for car to car.
We hiked briskly in the dark, then early morning light, which illuminated a significant wildfire smoke haze. In a little over 3 hours, we had made it to the lower saddle, where we took a break to switch from shorts to pants and snag some water from the magical hose there.
Waiting at the Wall Street step
Note: for a detailed topo of the route, check out Wyoming Whiskey.
We quickly headed up the low scramble of the Owen-Spalding and found the low crossover to get to Wall Street. As soon as we went through the notch, we saw at least 5 parties in a bottleneck at the step across. It was blustery and cold in the gully and we were not excited to wait. Dale planned to solo the route, while Colin and I were going to simul-climb quickly next to him. We debated our options and started moving back to go up the Owen-Spalding when we looked back from the crossover to see that most parties had cleared, so we headed back, geared up in a protected alcove, and then waited for one party to finish and another to do the step before pulling across into the daylight and starting our glorious romp up the route.
I wasn’t sure how much 5.5 to expect on the route, but knew many folks soloed it and, after doing it, can understand why. It’s very secure, with good hands and feet nearly everywhere. I placed a cam here and there when things got more exposed, but otherwise climbed along with Dale at a fast pace, thanking parties as we climbed past. Memorable sections were the Golden Stair, the Friction Pitch, the V-Pitch, and a boulder move up high. Everything else was fun, but quite low angle or stepped and unexposed. We made it from the step across at the end of Wall Street to the Summit in 1.5 hours.
The views were unfortunately quite smoky, but we were still happy to have gotten up the Grand and via such a fun route. We soaked in the summit for a while and had lunch before starting down, getting stuck in a long line of rappel beginners for an hour, and then eventually getting our turn before scampering down the rest of the route. The hike out from the lower saddle was uneventful, though a bit painful with long, low-angled switchbacks and a longer section at the bottom than it felt like we’d done in the dark that morning. We made it back to the car in 13.5 hours, then immediately drove to Jenny Lake for a brisk swim and then on to Bradley Lake Trailhead parking lot for chips, pickles, and beers on Dale’s lovely van “terrace.” What a wonderful day with great friends and exceptionally gratifying to climb the mountain after thinking about it for over 20 years.