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Aug 10, 2018 — Yes, this route really does take about a mile per hour on average. With the route-finding, potential snow obstacles, and difficult Class 4 moves, this is not an easy trip. Six years ago when I took my first road trip and I drove through the Tetons, I saw Teewinot Mountain from the ground and thought "I'm going to go hike that!". So, like a dummy, I bushwhacked without any information (or even knowing the name of the mountain) and made it over 4000 feet of gain before exhaustion overtook me and I later fainted in the hotel lobby I was staying. Needless to say, I was ill-prepared and I had enough brains to turn around. But, years later after researching more heavily, Teewinot Mountain has been high on my list for redemption. And yet, six years later, and with a buddy, we were underprepared for Teewinot. No helmet or iceaxe. Both would have been nice. I guess I never learn.
From the Lupine Meadows Trailhead, locate a social trail that starts toward the middle of the parking lot and leads on a surprisingly good trail up a ton of switchbacks until the treeline ends. Follow a social trail through the scree field. My first attempt had no snow at all, but we weren't so lucky this time. Just after this snow field, we were able to see the famous "idol and worshipper" rock formation, which would sink into the distance the higher we ascended, and for some reason added an ominous vibe to the route. After deciding to take an extremely steep snow gully withouy anything for self-arrest, we continued up on the social trail, making a few wrong turns. In hindsight, the route-finding isn't too difficult. Generally, stay within the wide gully veering toward the notch on the left, and never ever ever climb onto the rocks on the left or right of the couloir. Apparently, quite a few people have died by taking a Class 5 route accidentally by leaving the couloir. Eventually, whether you were able to stick to the uncairned social trail or not, you should be funneled into a gully that has running water, with a couple of waterfalls. We stayed in this gully until an eroded social trail appeared on the right, just below an impassable fall. The socail trail is not clear because it is mostly on rock, but my advice is to stick as close to the running water as possible, and not going off to the right. We lost lots of time here trying to route-find. I added a cairn just below the route because I am going to assume this is where many of the deaths happened. I can see how easy it would be to go too far to the right (a group before us had just made that mistake and fortunately had ropes to rappel down - they decided to bail for the day). Anyway, assuming you stay just to the right of the water, we noticed some webbing that marked the Class 4 section, likely for those with gear who preferred to rappel rather than down climb. From our hour of route-finding, we decided this was the only possible Class 4 route up, and it required three or four sections of legitimate climbing moves. The exposure isn't awful, but a fall would definitely be severe. After this, continue on Class 2+/3 rock to just below a rock pinnacle (false summit). We accidentally went to the left saddle, which didn't allow for a way up, and had to backtrack to the right side of the pinnacle, which had a social trail to the summit block.
The route down was a bit more treacherous, not only because of the Class 4 sections, but the snow chute we opted to ascend without gear. I have never had my adrenaline pumped so high as my numb hands and feet slowly nudged me down. Bring proper gear.
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