As a full-time student, most of my climbing these days is done in gyms. So I was excited for an opportunity to spend a weekend climbing on real rock at Phantom Spires, an area south of Lake Tahoe off of Highway 50 with excellent climbing on granite spires. Phantom spires is a neat place to climb because it has routes of varying difficulties, opportunities for trad leading, sport climbing, and top-roping, and it’s a beautiful area but only a ten minute walk from the parking lot.
I spent two months in Alaska during the summer of 2007 as part of a college field study program. On our day off, a group of people in the program decided to go ice climbing on the Root Glacier, one of the two major glaciers in the area.
During World War I, the northeastern Italian city of Cotrina occupied a strategic region in the Dolomite Alps. A string of forts was built high in the mountains among extremely rugged terrain. To assist soldiers in reaching their posts, the army installed miles of iron cables and ladders through the rocky mountains above Cortina. Since then, the via ferrata (iron road) has been extended and opened to the public. I visited Cortina with my parents in September of 2006, when we spent three days exploring the via ferrata.
I’ve flown into Jackson Hole, Wyoming twice now. But, no matter how many times I do it, I will never cease to be blown away by the final approach to Jackson. The small airport only takes prop planes and very small jets, and both times I was on a prop plane. If you look out the plane’s right side as you approach Jackson from the north, abruptly to the west rises the Teton mountain range, its grey and brown rocks speckled with snow patches and glaciers. Since the plane was so close to landing, even the more modest peaks of Middle Teton, Teewinot, and Mt. Owen stand about four thousand feet above your window. But between Middle Teton and Teewinot the unmistakable form of the tallest mountain in the Tetons—the aptly-named Grand Teton—carves out its place on the horizon.
One year after I climbed the Grand Teton for the first time, I returned to climb it again, this time with my parents. On my first climb, I’d taken the Exum Ridge route (5.4-5.5). This time, we would follow the path of the first ascent along the Owen-Spalding route.