Cloudsplitter Mountain Guides

Dan approaches the Grand Teton summit on the Owen-Spalding route in early-season conditions.

While Emilie is (still....) off on an expedition in the Indian Karakoram, I have been staying busy with a handful of private trips in the Tetons before reurning to the Adirondacks for the busy August rock climbing season.

UPDATE 7/23/11: Emilie called this morning and said things are going well- with the biggest challenge simply being getting acclimatized to move efficiently at that altitude. She says they are definitely the only climbers around there! There is a considerable amount of snow on the rock buttresses they had originally sought, so they made a recon/attempt on a more moderate mixed snow gully and rock rib on a different aspect, and retreated from a bivy @ 19,500.' They are resting up in their well appointed meadow basecamp @ 17,000'- courtesy of the exceptional support services offered by locally-based Rimo Expeditions- and plan to go back up and finish the route as soon as they can. The forecast suggests some unsettled weather arriving- so they may have to wait a bit- but that will only help their acclimatization.

Dan edging his way in crampons across the Owen-Spalding 'Crawl' pitch.....

Many of our regular guests like to plan and train for one intense climbing trip a year- often someplace 'alpine' in the Adirondack backcountry or beyond. This year, Dan and Richard both chose the Tetons for their summer adventure. The Tetons- especially early season- offer up a well balanced mix of terrain- both rock and/or snow & ice- but with generally much nicer weather than the North Cascades and with shorter, gentler approaches. Access to Exum's basecamp at the Lower Saddle makes for a good 'high camp' right at the base of the routes. With the economy as it is, forget paying those pricey Euros to get to alpine terrain in Chamonix- for the cost of a few hours' hike instead of a telepherique ticket, the Tetons offer up their own American version of steep and featured alpine granite.

Jesse tiptoes around the' Belly Roll' with crampons still on for the snow and verglas ahead....

The folks at Exum Mountain Guides- one of the country's oldest and most established mountaineering guide services- are a primary concessionare for guided climbing in Grand Teton National Park. One of the benefits of AMGA Certification is that Exum now has an AMGA Guest Guide program in place- so that certified Alpine Guides like myself can work with Exum to bring our own (experienced) guests to the range.

The video is kinda long but includes footrage from climbs on the Cloudveil-South Teton Traverse, the Middle Teton via the North Ridge/Northwest Couloir and the Grand Teton via both the Owen-Spalding in early season conditions and the Upper Exum Ridge- coincidentally on the 80th anniversary of the first ascent! If anything, some documentation of the record snowpack remaining even in July is worth archiving.

If you've climbed with Cloudsplitter before- or you'd like to build your skills here in the Adirondacks first before tackling something bigger like the Grand Teton- then start thinking about climbing with Cloudsplitter and Exum in the Tetons next July, 2012. - Jesse