On Wednesday, Aug. 20th, we set out to climb the East Face of Buck Mountain, one of the classic and major peaks in Grand Teton National Park.We had read a lot and talked to a lot of people about the route , and it still seems like a big mystery -- no one seems to know exactly how to get there. We knew we were in for something strange when one of the park rangers told us that he has been lost up in this area several times himself. Despite what you might read, the fact is that there really is no defined trail on the way to this mountain. Even friendly locals that we met in town said they’ve been up there several times and haven’t even found the alpine lake at 10,000 feet, more or less the mountain itself! So, using all available information, we set out with a good map, compass and a good attitude.
Sure enough, we got lost. We spent nearly 2 hours on the lower slopes of the foothills trying to find a drainage system called Stewart’s Draw. It was fun navigating by map for a while, and we eventually did find it. Since there was no trail and we were bushwhacking, we did lose a lot of valuable time and energy (takes a LOT more energy bushwhacking than hiking on a trail).
Even with the challenging route, it was great to be so far out in the backcountry with no one else around. We did not see a single person all day, which meant that we had an incredible mountain on an incredible day, all to ourselves. We kept the bears away by talking a bunch and keeping our bear bell ringing. However, we were very fortunate to run into a bull elk high in the drainage system. We were as startled as he was and we locked eyes for about 5 seconds before he took off. There wasn't enough time to snap a picture, but he looked something like this. So, to put this in context, this nearly 800 pound elk with a HUGE 12 point rack was only about 30 yards away! Absolutely majestic.
Back on the route, we continued climbing along the drainage systems taking different forks and climbing ridges to get closer to Buck Mountain. Eventually, after hours and hours of bushwhacking and navigating, we finally made Timberline Lake, a major milestone on the route. Timberline Lake is literally at the base of the Buck Massif, signaling the start of the climb.
We stopped for a quick break and studied the mountain and east face route we intended to climb. It was intimidating to look at, for sure, but it's only a class 3 climb. At first, the east face route did not look climbable because the snow in a critical chute had melted away (see the picture), leaving a dangerous mix of bowling ball-sized rocks to possibily tumble down on us. Luckily, as we approached it, it looked much safer and doable than from further away.We started up the initial chute and we had arrived in climbing heaven. It was immediately clear why this is one of the classic climbs in the Tetons. I knew we'd summit this peak unless something unforeseen got in our way. Within an hour, we had done 1200 feet of fantastic climbing on the east face. From class 3 climbing, to steep snow with ice axes, to easier grassy ledges, this was totally fun stuff.
However, at 11,200ft, we hit a roadblock -- a section of the route that was too unsafe to climb (the red "X" on the picture shows the spot). The route is supposed to cross a small "finger" of snow and then continue on rock after that. Unfortunately, the snow was dangerously thin and had a waterfall running underneath it. We tried to skirt the hazard on the rock above, but by this time in the day, the rock was very wet and slippery -- not good. It was also getting pretty late in the day (430pm), so we ultimately made the conservative call to turn back and call it a day. We had a long and hard descent ahead of us before sunset, so this was definitely the right call. We had warm clothes, headlamps and other necessities for getting out after dark, but we didn't really want to push our luck. We had a great time on the mountain so far, and we wanted to keep it that way.To get a sense for our overall route, you can check it out in Google Maps here. Unfortunately, our GPS tracking unit lost connection to the satellite half way through the trip, so I don't have any cool 3D visualizations of the route like on Table Mountain.
All in all, it was a 12 hour day, with about nine miles of bushwhacking and navigating by map to reach the mountain. We did nearly 5000 vertical feet of climbing, and especially loved the last 1200ft of technical climbing on the east face. The journey was a good one, despite having missed the summit by only about 500 feet (so close!).After the climb, we drove to the town of Jackson, where we checked into the Ranch Inn, where . we'll be staying for the rest of our trip. We had a quick beer and some chips, and called it a night -- we didn't even have the energy to eat dinner!
You can see the rest of our pictures from this climb here.
