Nez Perce- Chief Joseph Buttress to summit via East Ridge

Travis Kemp and I headed to the Tetons for a few days with hopes of giving the Grand Traverse a go.  Travis was coming from sea level so we both thought it would be good to get in a nice warm up with a bit of elevation.  The plan, which admittedly was mine, was to climb Chief Joseph buttress, scramble up the East Ridge to the summit and descend the Northwest couloirs. Sounds easy enough, we should sleep in. 5 am wake-up at my sister’s place in Jackson put us on the trail just after 6.

Our line, approximately.

Cheif Joseph Buttress. The climb more or less follow the sun/shade line on the prow.

I thought we got off route because the 2nd pitch which was supposed to the be the crux (5.10) felt easy, except for a few very wet 5.8 moves and the 3rd pitch which was supposed to be 5.7 felt much harder to both of us.  Chatting with a very helpful ranger the next day he confirmed that we were on route.  He said that in his opinion the more difficult moves (5.9,5.10) noted on the Ortenburger/Jackson topo were soft and that the easier moves (5.6-5.8) were a bit sandbagged.  We agreed.

Following the 3rd pitch. 5.7 on the topo, felt much harder. Photo: Travis Kemp

Leading the 4th pitch. Photo: Travis Kemp

Travis with his best Warren Harding impersonation, 4th pitch.

The 5th pitch. I know it is hard to get excited about 5.5 pitches but perfect rock...

and some nice exposure make for a classic pitch. As good as 5.5 gets.

I had it in my head, due to quick and poor skim over the East Ridge description in the guidebook, that it was just a quick little hike to the summit.  So we were both quite surprised when we found ourselves on top of East Peak looking way up at the East Summit and even further up at the true summit with a bunch of steep scrambling and some rappels separating us from the summit.  I pulled out all the copies I had made from my guide the night before (thanks Jason!) and carefully read the East Ridge description.  Two raps  take us down to the base of the East Summit.  First rap was a full 100′. At the end of our rope we ended up on a exposed ledge which we followed to the north about 30′ to find the next anchor.  50′ rap took us to solid ground. At the notch between East Peak and East Summit we explored escaping out the East Hourglass couloir to save our legs for traversing. Travis rappelled over extremely loose rubble and out of view. Shortly after dropping out of view I was glad to hear him ask me for a belay.  He climbed back out mumbling something about loose rock deathtraps.  We talked about dropping down into Avalanche canyon via the couloir below us to the south, but we had left a pack and some food in a bearbox in Garnet canyon, plus we got a thumbs up on the weather from our local weather expert, Jason Dunlop, so we decided to stick with the original plan and head to the summit even if it was going to be a bit longer of a day than I had originally thought. We explored the possibility of skirting below the East Summit to the south.  It doesn’t go without some hard climbing or a bunch of raps way too time consuming to save a few hundred feet of vertical.  We ended up climbing up the Southeast face to join the East Ridge to the East Summit.  A bit of downclimbing to the north and 8o’ rap brought us to the notch separating the East Summit from the true summit.

Travis scrambling up the final portion of the East Ridge with the East Summit towering behind.

A quick scramble brought us to a very windy summit.  A brief break on top before the wind drove us down.  We descended the Northwest couloirs into the South fork of Garnet canyon and back to our car.

We hit the Recoverite and drove to my sister’s place where she had an awesome dinner ready for us (thanks Laura!).

Turned out to be a longer day than expected but was pretty much a perfect warm up for the Grand traverse as it involved a lot of route finding, some technical climbing, a bunch of scrambling and finding some hidden rappel anchors.

Gear:

Sterling 9.2 Nano 60 m

Set of  stoppers #4-#12

One of each BD #0.3-#3

Fuel:

4 scoops of Hammer HEED

4 Hammer gels each

12 Hammer Perpetuem Solid tabs each

1 Pro Bar each