On June 22nd Chris and I planned to fly to Idaho Falls, rent a car, and drive 2 hours east to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The Jackson Airport was closed for maintenance, and the Idaho Falls airport was the next closest one. Chris had an American Airlines flight from Atlanta to Dallas, then if all went as planned he would transfer planes and get on a flight with me to Idaho from DFW. The night before we were supposed to fly out, Chris woke up at 2:00am with a text from American Airlines saying his flight was delayed 30 minutes. This would have led to him missing his flight from Dallas to Idaho. Rather than wait and deal with flight delays all day, Chris got out of bed right then, packed his bags (he hadn't packed yet) and left at 4:oo am to see if he could catch the first flight out of Atlanta around 6:00. Chris caught the flight, and landed in Dallas around 8:00am.
This was just the beginning of his issues with American. The good news is he made his flight to Dallas. I arrived around 10:40 and we caught a flight to Idaho around noon. We got off the plain, I got my bag, I looked at Chris. His bag wasn't there. When he transferred from Dallas to Idaho, his bags never made the transfer. The airline tracked his bag tag and told him he could come back several hours later for his bag. Eventually he got it, we rented a car, and hit the road.
The town of Jackson was quaint and charming. We stopped at a few shops and mingled with locals before getting dinner. We eventually made our way to a restaurant called "The Local." Chris and I sat at the bar to avoid a wait to be seated, and started traded climbing stories with a few guys at the bar. One guy who sat to my right, Eli, was driving through town, headed to visit family in Montana or somewhere. He was planning on spending the night in his van for the night and hitting the road in the morning. After a few drinks it seemed like an awesome idea to invite Eli back to our cabin because we had extra beds and he obliged. I use the term "bed" lightly. Eli is the tall guy in the picture below.
We opened the door to our cabin, it was about 270 square feet. One room, four mostly bare walls, no heat, no AC, no running water, just four wood planks that looked like somewhere Davey Crocket might sleep. We slept like babys, woke up, got breakfast, and started a long day of hiking and training with our guides.
We hired Exum Mountain Guides to facilitate navigation to the summit. Before they take you up though, they took us through 3 days of guided mountaineering school. The first day we learned about using our gear effectively, self arrest, how to use an ice ax, and what foods are best to bring. The second day was more about basic hiking technique, using our pack, and rock climbing. The training took place along what I thought of as the back side of the Teton Mountain Range, where we took a boat across Jenny Lake to train near Hidden Falls. The third day was more intense rock climbing and using ropes to repel down cliffs in the same area. The picture below shows our guide, Kai, who had just received his international mountain climbing and training certification. Apparently it was a big deal. I think there are around 200 people in the US who have it. He was one of them, and I was thankful we were paired with someone who knew what they were doing, because we sure as hell didn't.
The thing that made this different from the other hikes I had done in the past was for starters, the elevation. Mount Saint Helen from the year before was only 8,366.' By contrast Grand Teton was 13,776.' The elevation/altitude alone would be a challenge. To make matters more interesting, we needed technical climbing skills to make it to the top, and Chris and I did not know the first thing about climbing. Christian was also afraid of heights to sweeten the deal. We had a great time, climbing, rappelling, and joking around. At one point, Christian pulled his daughters butt paste out of his bag, thinking it was sunscreen and put it all over his face. Kai and I immediately gave him a hard time about it. He didn’t think the mistake was a big deal, so he just tried to rub in it. This made us laugh even harder, because it wasn't rubbing in. His face was pasty white. The guy looked like a Jerry!
Chris did well that day and pushed his fear of heights, but ultimately decided that eh wasn't going to make it to the summit. He had already made it so far, and he had plenty of fun. So he decided to hike up to the lower saddle with us and camp out, while Kai and I pushed on to the summit. After the third day of training, we ate a huge dinner, went home, got some sleep and prepared for the long journey ahead. I think I slept 9 hours that night for the first time in a long time.
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