Around March of 2022, I recieved a phone call during the work day from my buddy Chas. I hadn’t spoken to Chas for some time, so I immediately picked up the phone wondering if everything was ok. Little did I know what he was about to say would turn out to big the biggest challenge I faced in all of 2022. Chas excitedly yells into the phone, “Hey Jon, this year, Eric and I are going to summit the Grand Teton. We tried last year but got iced out, and this year we’re going to complete it. You’re coming with. No exceptions. It will be the most rewarding thing of your life. Talk to you soon, pal.”

Now for me, I’m a relatively beginner climber. I climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro in 2021, which required no technical climbing experience, but the Grand Teton? Having to get roped in? Potentially falling to my death? Now that was signing up for someting I’ve never thought possible.

Weeks came and went, and the thought of going would flip in and out of my head. Normally I’d sarcastically say “Ok Chas, whatever you say,” and things may fall through. But this was different. There was determination in his voice. There was passion. I was not about to miss out on doing something incredible with my boys. A few weeks later, I spontaneously called Chas and said only three words before I hung up the phone.

Chas, I’m In.

-Jon

Preparation

The months leading up to the trek were fun. Normally, I’m not one to get too spooked by things, but I’ve never come face with a situation where my life legitimately is at stake. What Eric and Chas had planned was to summit the Grand via the Owen Spalding Route. Along this route there are three technical moves: The Belly Roll, The Crawl, and the Double Chimney. What makes these moves spooky is there are high amounts of exposure, meaning if you slip and fall while not clipped in, you will tumble 2000-7000ft down the mountain to your death. Quite spooky. I’ll get more to these moves when we get there, literally, but prepping myself was going to be both a physical and mental journey. I got to lifting weights, running, and getting my body ready for the trek, all while doing constant research on the route from both YouTube videos and Whiskey Wyoming’s incredible pages on the route. Months came and went, I started to feel good, and then the journey began.

The Journey

Wednesday rolled around faster than a cannonball during high tide, and before I knew it, I was onboard a flight to Minneapolis. Our schedule was as follows for the weekend

• Wednesday: Jon arrives in Minneapolis
• Thursday: Drive the 16 hour drive out to Grand Teton Nation Park. Stop in Rapid City to grab Eric
• Friday: Arrive in Grand Teton National Park. Set up camp, relax, and get prepped
• Saturday: 2am – Step off and summit the Grand Teton
• Sunday: Marvel in what we did or cry if we fail, and enjoy the park
• Monday: Drive Back to Minneapolis
• Tuesday: Fly back to Detroit

Now you may be asking, “Jon, why did you decide to drive to the Tetons from Minneapolis, when you were flying anyway?” Great question. My answer for that question whenever I was asked was the same as my mantra for the year, “Why Not?” I love road trips, and this gave me the opportunity to hang out and connect with a buddy who I don’t get to see all that often.

Fueled by Taco Johns over the Missouri, we were making great headway, driving through the vast openness of South Dakota. Now this was my first time driving through the area, and while the East side of the state underwhelmed me, the West side was STUNNING. The Black Hills are so cool, and I can’t wait to take some more time to actually adventuring and hiking through that region of the country.

We snagged our third and continuted our drive. The drive planned on getting us into Grand Teton NP at roughly 4:30am. I had the graveyard shift, and this was probably the most stressful drive I’ve ever done. Through most of Wyoming, there are deer everywhere. And I mean EVERYWHERE. We had to swerve out of the way of atleast two deer in the road, with about 40 in sight throughout the night. Nevertheless we made it safe and arrived at 4:30am. The crew decided, lets sleep in our car at a known sunrise point, so we can catch the sunrise at 6:30am. The site we chose was Schwabachers Landing, and the sunrise we got was without question the most gorgeous sunrise I’ve ever seen in my life.

After watching the incredible sunset, we went to try to find camp. Eric heard rumblings that the best spot to camp in the Tetons was the Shadow Mountain Camp Site. The site is first come first serve with an incredible view of the mountain itself. Promply after the sunrise we were able to secure a gorgeous open site, with a jaw dropping view of the mountain. I present to you all, site 2A.

After setting up, we took a quick nap and decided we may as well see some of the park.

Jenny Lake

One of the most spectaluar parts about the Grand Teton National Park, is the high concentration of exhibits, trails, lakes, and obvoiusly the mountains, all in a denser area for a national park. According to AllTrains, Grand Teton National Park has 121 trails throughout the park. We decided to not do a trail due to the exteded hike on Saturday, but we wanted to check out Jenny Lake. Jenny Lake is a beautiful scenic lake in the base of the Grand. The waters are crystal blue and the view all around is mountain, whats not to love about that?

After the quick dip in Jenny Lake, we headed back to site to get prepped for the climb the next day. Me personally, I’ve rarely rappeled off of anything, so I needed training because I was about to do an 80 meter rappel off of a mountain the next day. We tied me up to a tree, and got practicing. While this was happening, I had a friend of mine coming to hang with us. Anna is a fellow creative and engineer friend of mind in Detroit. She took sabbatical and decided to tour the country this year, and it just so happened our trips lined up where we could meet up! She brought her rig, met us at camp, we all had tacos together, and the boys were alseep by 9, getting ready for our 1am wakeup to summit that Grand Teton.

The Climb

“Its not about whats waiting on the other side” Pffffft. Get out of here Miley. Its about being the tallest thing in the whoooooooole park.

1am comes fast. We load up the car and head to the trailhead at the entrance to Lupine Medows. Research told us to leave early so we didn’t run into wait lines at the technical portions of the climb. We step off our first steps at 2:01am, not bad for trying to punctual.

The Route would be as follows:

Type: Out and Back

Total Distance: 16.3 miles

Elevation Gain: 7,300ft

• Lupine Meadows Trailhead – 4.1 Mile Section through a forest area. Switchbacks and gorgeous scenery
• Scramble to the Lower Saddle
• Scramble to the Upper Saddle
• Technical Maneuvers: The Belly Roll, The Crawl, The Double Chimney
• Scramble to the Summit
• SUMMIT THE BAD BOY
• Rappel Past the Technical Maneuvers
• Downclimb

The opening walk through Lupine Medows went quick. Being 2am and pitch black, we didn’t really chill to take in any scenery. We put our heads and headlamps down and tried to move as fast as we could through this section so we could spare time later in the hike. Spirits were high. We were chatting, laughing, and singing the Chats as we breezed through the Lupine Medows section. The next section was the scramble to the lower saddle

Needless to say, these views were dumb beautiful. The sky lit up like cotton candy. We stopped for a sandwich break before heading forward. On the mountain we had to pack all our food, so we had STACKED ham cheese and mayo sandwiches to eat at the lower saddle and at the summit to keep us fueled. After a quick break to snack on those delicious sandwiches, we have the next phase of the trek, the journey to the Upper Saddle. The path between the Lower and Upper saddly is not very well marked, and there is often times exposure (chance of a big fall) on this portion of the trek. Here is where we started to get a little tired. Scrambling up the rocks takes a lot of effors, there were times where we were full on climbing, going through little cove areas, and pulling your full body weight upwards. This over a period of four hours starts to wear at you, nevertheless we persisted. Below are some videos of the climb to the Upper Saddle.

As we reached the Upper Saddle, the hardest part of the climb was right in front of our eyes, the technical maneuvers. The three upcoming moves arent incredibly difficult, however if you slipped and fell without being roped in, you would fall 2000+ feet to your death. We didn’t want to risk anything, so we roped into rocks and belayed each other across as an extra layer of security. This is the first time I had ever experienced anything that truly could put my life in jeopardy, and nerves were rather high. I took a deep breath, told myself, “You’re Jon Barker, you can do anything. Why Not?” And it was time to beat the technical section.

The Technical section was broken down into three moves: The Belly Roll, The Crawl, and The Double Chimney.

And there it was. The most difficult part of our climb was over. All that was left was some scrambling and light climbing up some chimneys until we reached the summit. We could taste the end. Quite literally. A guy gave us some Coors to celebrate his birthday that we’d drink at the top.

We climbed across the catwalk, up Sargeants chimney, and then Eric started sprinting. The summit was in sight. We moved quickly as we ascended the final scramble until we arrived…the summit of the Grand Teton was ours.

The feeling at the summit was like no other. Eric and Chas have dreamed of this moment for over a year. Them unable to sumit last year, and then getting to summit this year was so incredible. Tears filled their and we all hugged, as we had accomplished the hardest physical feat of our lives. At the summit there is a little marker embedded in the rock marking the summit. We all touched the rock, took our pics, and cracked a sweet, sweet Coors Banquet.

We are literally amongst the clouds, looking down, smiling at society. We all were the tallest thing in the park that day, and there is truly no feeling like that, and doing it with homies that you love. We sat on that summit for at least an hour, drinking in all the views (and beers) with our fellow summitters. After the summit we were on to the rappel and downclimb.

We stepped off the trailhead at 10pm. The downclimb was long and tiring, but we had done it. 20 hours on a mountain, 7,000 feet up and down, 16 miles, all conquered. We drove back to our campsite, to our surprise, a full dinner already made for us with a bunch of new and lovely friends. We all cracked a beer to celebrate what was just accomplished, and smiled the night away. Everything went perfect.

Sunday, Funday

Sunday, all of us rose early in the morning and greeted each other. Now when I say new friends, we had two others join us that Saturday night. Anna’s friend Jade also happened to be in the area and met us in the Tetons, and while they were on trail, they ran into a solo traveler, Jarrod and invited him to stay at our site too. I am so happy this all went down, becuase we couldn’t have asked for a sillier, goofier crew to be with. All of us piled into a car and headed into town to grab a hot meal at a restaurant.

After a hot meal, we decided to head to Jenny Lake for a quick dip. The clear waters and gorgeous weather was perfect relief to our tired legs. After hanging around for the day, we decided to head back to site to enjoy the rest of the night all together. We made cooked some mac and cheese, sat around a fire, and invited our neighbors over to make some memories. A lot of drinks went down that night, many laughs were had, and memories that I will never, ever forget were made.

Needless to say, this was the trip of a lifetime. One I will never, ever forget.

A Note For My Friends

To Chas and Eric:

To Anna:

To Jarrod:

To Jade:

Life is too short to not try to do incredible things. Never in a million years would I think I would be summiting mountains, not to mention one of the most renouned in the United States. Go try things you’re not capable of. And always remember:

Why Not?

-Jon

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