Grand Adventures

(it is almost midnight and I am posting this. I just finished canning with my friend, so this is my spelling and grammar warning. Sorry if it's not that great. I'll check it in the morning)

My mom is the greatest. She is an adventurous of all sorts. Last summer I was sitting with the kids at the pool, when I get a call from her. She asked me if I want to hike the Grand Teton with her. "Ummm yeah, sure. Are you serious? Are you crazy? How tall is that mountain anyways?" Those were a few of my questions. Well with a year of planning, working out and preparing. Not to mention a very supportive and patient husband and a wonderful friend who helped me train for a triathlon to prepare for this journey. I MADE IT!

SO HERE IS THE STORY

I flew in July 23rd Tuesday evening. That day a girl died on the Middle Teton. Here is the story. Wednesday we start our training; however we don't get very far, because it starts pouring and the thunder/lightning storms are one after another. We finally call it a day. After going back to the Exum office (the guide service we used), our guide tells us that there has been rescues going on during the day. That night we find out that it was one of the largest rescues ever done and there might be a fatality. Thursday we go out for our second day of training. While repelling, we see the helicopter come down with the body of the missing person from the rescue. Here is that story. Not that it was enough to make us nervous already, that day a man broke his leg on the boulder field we had to cross.

With all this in mind. We got up Friday morning and began our journey! I think we were smiling, but nervous!

It was an amazing, but very difficult hike. We left around 10 in the morning and hiked the 8mile, 8000ft hike to to the lower saddle. Luckily our packs were only 40 lbs, because we got the privileged of sleeping in community sleeping bags and tents. I had a lovely experience with this. That's another story. Anyways, that all happened at the lower saddle. I will point it out later on.

Here we are hiking up.

This is where we stayed, the lower saddle. I am squatting on my rock, eating our "dinner". Once we finished eating and packing our day pack for the next morning, we went to bed. I think I fell asleep around 9 p.m.

We woke up at 3:30 in the morning, put our head lamps on. I tried to eat breakfast, but couldn't get too much down. Then we started up the mountain. I don't have any pictures of the night or in the morning. But from the saddle, I could see Rexburg, Idaho Falls and even the lights of Pocatello. It was really amazing.

Here I am before I do the belly roll pitch. I was shaking to death, because I was so cold. The climber in front of me was taking a very very long time and it was 32 or so. Once I started moving, I warmed up, but while I was crouched on the mountain, I was freezing.

Here we are the first day, yep we were all smiling.

Here we are on the summit. We got there around 9:15, so almost 5hrs to get up there. After about 20 minutes I was ready to head back. I just wanted to be on solid ground again.

Here are some shots from the top. This is looking North up into Montana

This isn't our group, but this is looking South towards Jackson Hole.

This is one of my favorite pictures I found online. Here you can see the saddle in the lower left part of the picture. It is the gravel area. The next morning at 3:30 we followed that gravel and headed straight up onto the rocky part of the mountain (It makes a triangle shape. We went followed the triangle up). I wish I could just point it out for you.

These are not my feet, but this is what looking down, looked like. Needless to say, I'm not that afraid of heights anymore.

This is looking East. That is the Snake River.

Here you can see the saddle again. This time you are looking from the Grand Teton towards the Middle Teton.

Going down into the saddle again.

What some of the pitches looked like.

This picture was taking on Thursday, when we were practicing our rappels.

One of my Best Friends! Love you Mom

Here we are on Wednesday at the Falls, we were getting drenched. At least we weren't on the Mountain.

On the top! We got up at 3:30 and hiked until 8 at night. It took awhile to get down and out, but after hiking for 7 hrs Friday and 17 hr Saturday, we were pooped. It was Grand, but very difficult. I am glad that I was able to have the help from my mom to get me there. I will always remember this journey.

Okay, here are the pictures from the 1st Triathlon I did with my friend Maile. We were both so nervous, but had such a great time. I've got the Tri Fever. I would love to do more, but the are kind of pricey. Anyways, time for bed.