Upper Exum Ridge

Upper Exum Ridge 5.5

On a Thursday in late July Kristi and I flew from Denver to Jackson and met up with our good friend Jenny Crawford (Bentgate Athlete) and her friend Eric. We had dinner, beers and watched the sun set behind the Tetons from the upper deck of Dornan's.

On Friday Kristi, Jenny and I hiked from the Lupine Meadows TH to the Petzold Caves where we camped. Eric joined us a few hours later and we were treated to a 'Blood Moon' and the longest lunar eclipse of the century.

We set our alarms for 4:00am and got to bed relatively early.

The next morning we were hiking by 4:45am. We reached the lower saddle by 6:30am.

After hiking some easy class 2/3 we reached Wall Street. Eric took lead set a great pace on the Upper Exum Ridge. We summited by 1:00pm. Even though it was a Saturday we didn't encounter other climbers until the last pitch before the class 3 scramble to the summit.

After 90 minutes of summit quality time we descended the Owen Spalding route and headed back to camp. We reached camp at 6:50pm.

After packing up we hiked the 5 miles back to the car and proceeded to the Snake River Brewery for well earned burgers and beers.

A huge thanks to Jenny and Eric for being great hosts and guides. We couldn't have asked for a better group to do this trip with... what a fantastic time!!!

The total mileage and vertical for the trip was 15.4 miles and 10k vertical over two days.

Here is a link for the GPX file from our trip.
GPX

Ford - Stettner Ski