After a series of failed attempts throughout the range in the early season, I was finally able to push into the Teton alpine with this clean & simple loop. I had some serious objectives I was excited to get started on, however each one was met with unease about conditions, weather, and just general self-doubts on my ability to balance tenacity with good decisions; it felt as if the decision-fatigue of last summer had finally caught up, and I was officially burnt-out.
This loop was inspired by the apparent lack of decisions I would have to make on the route; these two mountains do not present any sort of technical obstacles. I would finally squash the beef and shake hands with the flow state again. There were a few spots where an axe or spikes would’ve been good security, but overall it’s a pretty boring loop if you are looking for some Teton technicality.
Although these peaks are both accessed from Open Canyon, I strategically started at the Granite Canyon trailhead so I could glissade the enticing stripe of snow on the SE face of Hunt, as far as I could, and make a quick return back to the car from there. While I wouldn’t call this idea a “mistake”, it was definitely less efficient than I expected it to be and wouldn’t recommend it. I will be more specific about that later in this post.
The base of Open Canyon is about a 4 mile jog along the valley trail to the junction from Granite Creek. Open Canyon was dry up to about 8000 feet, where patchy snow quickly became a full-covered snowpack under shady pines. Near 9000 feet, I broke from the trail and crossed the creek where the snow had covered it to gain the southern aspect of the canyon. From there I just picked the through the path of least resistance, angling Northwest to the wide upper gully separating Tukuarika and Prospector’s; I skipped Prospector’s today as I had climbed it before, but I would suggest this way up to Prospector’s as well. If you are in the market for an 11er, This is a worthwhile combination.
The snow going up was in perfect condition to go without sharps, even at noon. There were two spots that were relatively steep with cliffy run-outs, but the grippy surface texture and malleability for deep kick-steps eliminated any thinky-thinky’s I may have had otherwise. After wandering through the snowfields and reaching the upper shelf, I cut west and climbed more snow to the top of Tukuarika.
I inspected the highline which wraps around from “Two Elk Peak” over to Hunt to find it might be an impossibly rotten massif to traverse, and doing the impossible was not part of my agenda today. Alternatively, the slope down to Coyote Lake was made of decently solid talus and held some snow for a glissade about halfway down. The loss of elevation was made up by a fresh perspective within the upper reaches of Open Canyon and Coyote Lake. It reminded me a bit more like a Lost River basin; the mountains around are either huge chossy cliffs or slopey talus, but no granite.
The walk over to Hunt was uneventful and presented no challenges. I was not quite as impressed with the view here. Prospector’s and Tukuarika block most of the cathedral group with the exception of the tip of the Grand… and to the south were the infrastructure-covered mountains of JHMR, complete with a faint noise of construction. Nonetheless, the prominence and symmetry of this peak as seen from the valley still made it feel like an accomplishment.
As I mentioned before, I glissaded the snow as far as it went (nearly halfway down) on the SE side into Granite canyon, and then followed the direction of a deeply cut stream bed. there were a few waterfalls which I had to work around, and some cliff bands to negotiate, but with some simple route-finding I was able to keep it below class 2 hiking. The bottom of the slope required some bushwacking down to the maintained trail.
In hindsight, I think a cleaner loop would have been to glissade down to where the snow meets the Hunt Divide trail, and then take that back to Open Canyon (and parked at Phelp’s Lake). But I don’t really care. I had good day.
bruh 