Former football players, wrestlers, and swimmers are probably familiar with the concept of "Hell Week". My teaching position tends to tie me to my desk/classroom towards the end of the school year, so I tend to start out the summer in horrible shape. Only one cure for that - Hell Week.
Day 1: Drove through the night to make it to the ranger station to get my backcountry permit (available no more than 24 hours in advance). Checked in at the AAC's Teton Climbers Ranch.

Day 2: Packed for a solo ascent of the Upper Exum Ridge. Small rack of wires, tri-cams, slings, biners, 60m of 7.7mm ice floss (in case I felt the need to protect my self, but mainly to make the rappels on the descent), ice axe and crampons. I hit the trail to Garnet Meadows at noon from the Climbers Ranch (a much better place to leave your vehicle than at the trailhead). About a mile down the trail, as I'm expecting to see a grizzly at any moment, my cell phone starts going off.

Enter Collin! We had talked about hooking up for some routes, but he had just gotten off an ascent of Mt. Moran the day before. His partner had bailed a couple hours in to the approach, but Collin went to the summit solo. "That's a good sign", I thought to myself . . . Sounded like he was up for it after all.
Awesome, now we could go for the complete Exum ( adding 6 pitches of "5.6 - 5.7" to the Upper Exum Ridge). I told Collin to bring the other ice floss and some cams to beef up the rack already in my pack, plus my rock shoes. He came through!

Even with a 90 min. head start, Collin caught up to me just as I got to Garnet Meadows, a 5 mile hike (ah, youth).

Day 3: 3:00 AM wake-up. I hate alpine starts, so I let Collin sleep a little. We started up at 4:30. One minor detail: Collin had forgot his crampons, thinking it had been so hot lately the snow wouldn't freeze. Like an idiot, I decided to leave mine in camp in "solidarity" with my partner. Of course, the snow was bullet hard that morning. We had to do some significant detours as well as some step chopping to get across the snow fields leading to the lower saddle.

We finally found the Black Dike and got a look at the start of the Lower Exum. Damn, more steep snow to get to the base, but it looks like a way down and around. When Collin joined me he looked at the route and said, "we're going up THERE! That looks hard! I don't know man" As he was physically turning away I tried to reassure him that things always look better up close, but I could clearly see there was no way I was going to convince him to follow me up that route.

I quickly adjusted my expectations and we headed for the Upper Exum after our short detour. "The Eye of the Needle is a little boulder problem that was completely iced up. We were able to find a sketchy way around it with a short squeeze and belly flop onto loose rubble.
When we came in view of Wall Street, Collin was again taken aback. I just ignored it and kept going. Once up on the big slopping ledge it wasn't nearly as exposed as it looked from below. We roped up for the step across move at the end of Wall Street (exposed!).

We cruised up the Golden Stair and short roped through the Wind Tunnel carefully avoiding the ice. We never found the Friction Pitch, but instead climbed a couple pitches of 5.5 - 5.7 cracks. I think we were somewhere to the right of the Friction Pitch.
We did find the unmistakable "V pitch". Once you've done that you're almost there. A little more short roping and a short slog brought us to the summit. Yay! it was 7:00 PM! . . . The weather was stellar! Thankfully.
PLEASE NOTE: I am glad I studied the descent very carefully before going up on this mountain. The way down went off without any problems. But, it is not straight forward. By now the ice had melted and the snow was perfect for descending. We made it to the Lower Saddle just in time to see the sun going down. We stumbled through the snow fields in the dark arriving back at our camp at 10:30 PM, an 18 hour push.
Day 4:It was nice lounging in our camp until almost noon. My pack wasn't going to be any lighter for the return trip. This sh#t kills me: I'm 53, 5'9", 155, I've got a bad back, bad ankles, bunions, and I spent too many seasons schlepping a pack around the High Sierra. My days of doing this type of climbing are numbered. But, this was totally worth it. The Grand Teton is one badass peak! I just tried to enjoy the hike the best I could.

Day 5: Met an old college buddy and went cragging at Rock Springs Butterss, near the Jackson Hole Ski Resort. We did "Do it for Doug' and something else lower down on the wall where you climb up under this huge wedged boulder. It was fun exposed climbing, but I was a bit dismayed at all the bolted cracks. But, hey we didn't have to bring any cams . . . LAME!

Day 6: I finally got a day off, too much hiking, my legs were trashed.

Day 7: Rounded out my trip with an ascent of the classic Snaz in Death Canyon. Another stiff 3+ mile approach. We did the Snazette Variation, 5.10 b/c, which is a killer finger to hand splitter on the 3rd pitch, 120 feet and pumpy. Don't know if I could have lead that pitch. The 5.10- crux of the regular Snaz on pitch 5 is very cool stemming out a series of complex overhangs. Really fun.
Ended up with 6 miles and 6 pitches in about 8 hours.

Ok, I should be "in shape" now . . .


Special Note: The Teton Climber's Ranch is THE place to stay when climbing in the Tetons. For the same price as a campsite in the zoo, you get a bunk, quiet, privacy, a nice outdoor cooking area with bear boxes. Showers and Laundry. Bike and hiking access to park trails. After dealing with the Camp 4 scene this is pure luxury. Plus, you can do some reading/research in the AAC's library. Very highly recommended!