Mt. Moran and The Skillet Glacier

Mount Moran via the Skillet Glacier
Teton Range, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming
Saturday, June 3rd, 2006

Every ski trip should start like this.

Matt Lloyd and I start paddling across Jackson Lake, towards Mt. Moran around 8:30pm Friday night, June 2nd, 2006.

The route we paddled is in blue. It took a little over and hour to paddle five miles. It was about 10:00pm when we pulled the boat ashore and set up camp for a few hours of sleep.

Mount Moran, all 12,600 some feet of it, and the routes we took. Red was our climbing route and blue was the skiing down route. From shore to peak it's a 6000 ft. climb- maybe 4000 feet of climbling snow, and then skiing it.

We got up on Saturday, a few hours after we got there, at 2:45am. We were saddled up and bush whacking in the dark around 3:30am. We hit the snow line and began skinning around 5am. This picture was taken not long after that. It's towards the bottom, approaching the top of the "skillet".

After crossing the skillet, skins came off and we strapped the skis to our backs. Time to boot pack, and start the long trudge up through the "handle" and the "runnel". Above, Matt starts the climb. This was about as close as I got to keeping up with him. Ha!

The views of Jackson Lake that we got were amazing. Great place to watch the sun come up.

Looking up the at the "candlestick" from about two thirds of the way up the "handle". A ways to go still. Whew! Dunno about this one.

Shad making his way up the last stretch of the "candlestick". It was pretty slow going for me at this point.

Finally, I'm near the top. Just and the fog starts rolling in.

A view from the top of Moran looking over the other side, up a pretty cool canyon. Impressive country!

At the top, Matt gazes at the scenery and tries to warm up, after waiting on my pokey arse for hour. He flew up the Moran, top to bottom probably in 5 and half hours. Took me closer to seven. I think Matt summited before 9:00am. I reached it closer to 10:00am.

Shad with Mt. Moran summit in the background. While waiting for me Matt hiked his skis up around the rocks and skiied down it.

Time to drop... into the mist.

Shad, out of candlestick, below the clouds and into the handle. The snow was fantastic!

Shad drops the candlestick and then looks down the handle. So much to ski!

Matt drops from the top, down the candlestick through the foggy mist.

Out of the misty candlestick on to the handle, Matt lays down the tele turns.

Matt, dropping into the skillet now.

Shad head out of the handle towards the skillet.

Shad rides the skillet. It's huge!!!

Tally rides her skillet too!

Looks like corn!

Whooosshhh!!!

Matt lays down a beautiful line up across the side of the skillet and take a break above the skillet.

Matt on the edge, almost out of the skillet, Jackson lake in the background.

Shad, enjoying the bushwhack back to camp.

With a little more light coming back, we were able to ski a bit further down than we thought we would be able too. This is where the skiing pretty much stopped though.

Matt, Moran and the skillet. Been there, done that!

We got back to camp around 12:30pm. Shedded our sweat soaked ski gear, and broke out the brews. It felt sooo good to pop those ski boots off. They work good for snow, but I hate hiking in them. Whew!

After relaxing a bit, we decided to earn some browny points with the Generals back home. We packed up our gear, loaded up and started our paddle home aroudn 3:30pm. Matt caped in canoe attire, loads up. We turned the boat around for one last look at Moran.

Shad paddles with home with Mt. Moran in the background. I'm not sure that grin ever left my face for the rest of that day. Mt. Moran and the Skillet in 24 hours, probably my biggest backcountry achievement yet. Unbelievable!