The Grand Teton // Owen Spalding it with Blake

right now i'm at what appears to be one of the hottest destinations on earth and that is the lupine metals trailhead at four in the morning this place is jammed with people cars traffic so if you're looking for some nightlife this might be the place for you um today we'll be climbing the grand teton we're starting here at the lupine meadows where we'll go up to uh organic canyon then the owens spalding route through the belly crawl and then up the chimneys to the summit it's gonna be an interesting day there was so much smoke yesterday you couldn't see more than a mile but it looks like the smoke cleared off i saw some stars [Applause] good morning guys hey hey how'd you guys sleep it was horrible horribly oh and why was that just it was too many people coming in and out of the parking lot either he was snoring or i was snoring um but i guess that means somebody slept my legs were sticking together a lot what are you doing you ever had your small space with blake well it could only mean one thing and that's a big adventure yeah it's on this way tell me more about your legs [Laughter] there's a lot of humidity heading toward the grand teton i've tried it one time with blake and we got turned around because of like driving hail lightning snow and blake ditched me and summoned it anyway um but i turned around uh because i was afraid and um so now we're back we were going to climb it yesterday and found out there was snowing yesterday up the top of the ground so we went today instead and hoping for better results you're back first time back doing anything uh in two and a half years so we decided to do something easy like the grand teton and uh anyways it's not easy but i hope i can make it honestly i'm kind of worried i've been nervous for like three days since danny texted me um but yeah it feels good to be back and i feel like it's it's not like riding a bicycle you forget everything that you used to bring and i'm worried i forgot stuff and my glasses are fogging up all the same old stuff that used to annoy me before i even had to go buy new gear like i had to pull tags off of half the stuff i brought it's pretty embarrassing but anyways it's good to be back blake commented that around in this corner he it took his breath away and a lot of that probably has to do with the massive amount of smoke filling this canyon better than yesterday so got something to be thankful for but still a lot of smoke i'm glad to have uh blake back i just don't want him to die or have his spirits get crushed because he's been out of the game for a while and i'm really worried about his downhill quads his legs could just give in at any moment he is not in mediocre shape [Applause] ah [Applause] [Music] so it's been three years since i've done anything tens of fans have been asking like what's wrong with me really i had a knee injury that i got in the wind rivers like well four years ago three years ago anyways it stuck around for a long time finally got it fixed and i can't tell you how glad i am to be back is freaking amazing gorgeous i've totally changed i'm not going to complain ever again lots of people made comments that they hate my complaining [Music] made to the saddle between middle and grand and it is as crowded as you would expect on a saturday there are lots of people here especially with the weather being as bad as it was leading up to today gotta go up this and then probably be in a line in a conga line from here on out trying to get around people and making them up upset already blake has caused some sideway glances passing groups but that's just blake you know what he just he just brings it on doesn't care [Music] it is the beginning of august even though it looks like it's late september we got a dusting of snow just had a hard storm passed through last night so anything can happen on the tetons i think that that's the biggest danger is after thunderstorms snow in the middle of [Music] [Music] summer getting a little worried it seems like three years of not doing this is catching up to me and doing the chimneys might be kind of hard yeah upper saddle now and everything below us has been coated with snow sometimes even like water ice so we'll see what the chimneys are like and uh i got turned around on sergeant's chimney seven years ago honestly i wouldn't be surprised if it happens again i'm not gonna do anything stupid [Music] already two things are working in our favor there's clear ice and there haven't been a lot of people we've kind of caught up to the head of the column and something that the people would trump it down and get it all muddy and do the hard work for us but looks like it's just us and maybe one or two groups in front [Music] a little bit of exposure but good hand holds if you've got a strong grip like blake does he hasn't let that go his grip strength is through the roof [Music] that helps there's a lot to criticize when it comes to watching us do this but uh everyone on the mountain is worried for it for us they've all been super nice though yeah we've got we haven't had everyone's jerks like last time everyone's been so positive and giving us reinforcement when they should probably be telling us to turn around zach's even offering to let us use his rope if you have to go down that exactly so zach's going to give me his venmo zack's the best if he ever sees that give him a high five just came up the chimney and we all agreed that we would not have gone any higher if zack that friendly kid from idaho falls hadn't told us that he'd let us use his rope on the way down that would have been the point we turned around at but we're going to rely on zach to get us safely home so no pressure [Music] that's disappointing this is what it was like last time i was up here i didn't get to see a single thing off the top [Music] this is the top of the grand teton it's my second time being up here and after a long break of not doing a lot it feels so good to be up here i mean it's warm it's sunny no wind if we come off the summit like uh you know maybe 10 feet and i just had a bagel with peanut butter and jelly on it and i'm super high on friendship and climbing mountains i'm very tired though and i gave about all i had to get up here um this is the biggest thing i've done of course in a long time and the clouds clear just in time so what a perfect time to peak right when the clouds clear um awesome day view wise but honestly probably should have turned around not because going up was so dangerous but because going down is would be terrifying if we didn't have the promise of a rope no better meal for the top of the ground than the grandest snack at them all blake and i were just talking about how we don't mess around we're all business today that's why we've got our business pants on our slacks this is my first time ever on the summit of the grand hopefully not my last i think that if it is my last it's probably going to be due to the down climb so the thing about the grand is it's probably one of the most crowded things i've done in a long time but here we are in the summit we have the summit to ourselves we're the first people here they're they're on any footprints in the snow so we just lucked out i guess or maybe we're just the stupid ones but um you know if you're stupid enough you can actually have places to yourself that's the moral of the story we're just sitting here out of the wind and in the sun waiting for our new best friend zach we don't want to rush him but he's over on the other side of the hill with his jacket off and a t-shirt eating a sandwich no rush [Applause] zach you ready to go zack you can't you can't get rid of us that easy [Music] this is zach and anna and without them we would have probably died getting down so if you guys like you know people who keep us alive just there's always people in the mountains like this who keep mediocre amateur people from killing themselves you know the responsible grown-ups in the mountains and that's who zach and anna are [Music] [Music] best part of the day coming up take my shoes off that took a little longer than the first time but the best news is that blake did not his knees did not become inverted and blow out the back no gruesome injury he did do a pete rose on the rocks but he got right back up and dust himself off okay it took me a few attempts but finally made it to the top of the ground best of all reuniting with blake he survived not only did he survive i think he crushed it actually and uh yeah the conditions were definitely a little extra spicy but fun and never felt like i was gonna die or anything so that was actually a plus how's it feel blake two thumbs up

Channel: Mediocre Amateur

Views: 89,541

Keywords: owen spalding route, owen spalding, the grand teton, grand teton, grand teton national park, teton national park, teton np, garnett canyon, climbing the grand, climbing the grand teton, climbing owen spalding route, grand OS route, us national parks

Id: Qs7sV72bk3g

Length: 15min 0sec (900 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 21 2021