Two weekends ago Ricky Bobbi and I packed sparkly waters and fresh produce into high places, and enjoyed an awesome, almost leisurely, camp-to-camp ascent of Nez Perce’s acclaimed Direct South Ridge (5.7+, III) over three days.
The Direct South Ridge on Nez Perce was one of two remaining climbs on Bobbi’s 2023 must-do Teton tick list. In fact, neither of us had ever been to the ultra-prominent 11,906 foot summit. First climbed by Robert Merriam, William Buckingham and W Edward Clark in 1954, the route is known for having the finest granite on a peak known for exceedingly poor granite, and unique remote positioning at a moderate difficulty. I began scrambling and winter ski mountaineering in the Teton Range some five years before Bobbi ever touched a rope, and generally just climb more, so it’s rare we climb a local peak together for the first time. With this novelty in mind I’ve been unofficially reserving Nez Perce for her and I to experience together, and we finally made that dream a reality.
Instead of a typical Teton car-to-car siege ascent, we chose a three day itinerary with two nights at The Platforms in Garnet Canyon. We left late Friday evening and hiked through dark into camp, arriving around 9:00PM beneath a brilliant starscape. The classic scene of overdue Grand Teton parties, headlamps dotting the lower saddle trail like fireflies, illuminated the upper canyon. One by one they silently trickled past our camp, surely lamenting the thousands of feet of knee pounding switchbacks ahead. Oh how many times I’ve said “how nice would it be if we had a tent” when epic’ing into the late evening, the famous last thoughts of every Teton alpinist when they clock in for the nightshift. Tonight we enjoyed the flip side of the coin… for once.
Our alarm sounded at 6:00AM but predictably I was long astir, heavily caffeinated and halfway through breakfast prep. I’m sure Bobbi must be getting sick of waking to an overly stoked mangy man, bag packed, trying to shove scalding porridge in her face the second her eyes flit open. Today’s first meal was hot ancient grain wheat cereal cooked in soy-milk with chopped dates, sea salt, peanut butter and Honeycrisp apple slices. Besides the fact I undershot the grain-water ratio, leaving our nourishment a little toothsome, we were living luxuriously in the high alpine, and didn’t leave camp until the warmth of morning sun graced our skin at 7:23AM.
The approach for the Direct South Ridge is one of the more arduous I’ve done in the core range. There’s nothing even close to a climber’s trail for the 2,000 vertical foot and and two mile (warning: very rough numbers) hike from The Platforms to the base of the climb. The general tactic involves scrambling the steep dirt north-facing couloir just above The Platforms, then following the immediate ridge up and west until a large forested bench is reached. Traversing this bench south brings one to the basin underpinning Shadow Peak and Nez Perce, directly beneath the famed Sliver Couloir (winter ski route). From this basin, which holds snow into late season but also almost always has accessible water, a short red rock couloir just south of Nez leads to a small notch. According to guidebooks many parties begin climbing from this notch, but this is not the route! Looking west from this gully, the Direct South Ridge forms the skyline, one ridge to the west. Last June a partner and I wrongly traversed too low, across the entire bowl underpinning the Direct South Ridge, and began climbing in dirty black rock at the geological toe of the ridge. Fooled by two fixed nuts (one since removed) in a grainy crack we received a “heads up” 5.8 lead on very poor rock to the actual start of the route – then thunderclouds built – then we made the walk of shame to the car. This time Bobbi and I nailed the approach by traversing only about 100 feet skier’s right along the top of the bowl until progress could be made up and gently left on fourth class slabs to a bench with a few trees leading towards the ridge-crest. The route begins climber’s right of the crest in a large left facing chimney with gigantic blocks, invisible from the aforementioned notch, and a stomped out belay stance was fairly evident just left of a large flake. We began climbing around 11:30AM.
The first half of the Direct South Ridge reserves the bulk of the difficulty, relenting to a more typical, jumbled, Teton summit ridge after pitch five. The first lead climbs a short unprotectable slab into the 5.7 chimney which eats protection of all shapes and sizes. Above the chimney I forked back left over a tier of 5.7 steps and followed the line of least resistance, crippled by rope drag, to a cozy belay ledge. The second lead is transitionary faire, and was the first place where we encountered route finding issues. Aaron Gams’ Teton Rock Climbs guide seems to show “5.7 cracks” on the crest directly above pitch one, but we didn’t find any such cracks until directly above pitch two. Our second pitch was simply a rope-length of easy climbing just right of the crest, until obvious attractive cracks with a fixed piton on the crest itself, around 45 meters from the previous belay, called us to the ridge. The next lead was the finest of the route, up the steep 5.7 hand crack and along the true geological crest for 50 meters of exposed and high quality climbing reminiscent of Irene’s Arete. The positioning of this pitch and the next two, above Avalanche Canyon, Lake Taminah and the Southern Tetons is world class and earns this route its classic designation.
Pitches four and five continue along the crest, easterly skirting a large black gendarme at the end of pitch four, and attacking the crux of the route, another steep and exposed 5.7+ golden crack with a fixed piton on the crest, beginning from a notch just behind the gendarme. In reality this final crux is pretty powerful and probably modern 5.8, with slightly uninspired protection, but I’m not in the mood to upgrade anything. Above this short lived difficulty the terrain quickly flattens, beckoning a short pitch. A commanding and picturesque upper buttress, home to the three pitch 5.8 Garnet Traverse Variation (FA: Weicker, Ortenburger, 1967) towered directly overhead, but with daylight beginning to wane we deemed it prudent to summit as quickly as possible and stayed true to the original route, which skirts this buttress via ramps and slabs on climber’s right seeking more or less the path of least resistance. 3-4 pitches worth of approach shoe simul-climbing a good ways’ east of the crest, mostly fourth and easy-fifth class with one short belayed 5.7 layback crux, took us directly to the summit in under an hour. There seemed many ways of conquering the limited difficulties in these last few pitches. We reached the jagged 11,901 foot summit just shy of 6:00PM, pure alpenglow hour in the heart of the Tetons.
This summit was a special moment for the two of us, but time was of the essence. A short snack and selfie was all the shortened fall daylight allowed as we raced north in hopes of finding two notoriously hidden rappel anchors for descent. Fortunately we uncovered them both expediently, and a single 50M rope got the job done. I will include a little more description for aspiring climbers in the footnotes below. After the second rappel we jogged through classic alpine choss, sniffing out cairns and climber’s trails in the general direction of Cloudveil Dome and the South Fork of Garnet Canyon. Surely we wandered off route once or twice, but whatever path we chose got us to the canyon bottom without headlamps, any fifth class climbing or rappels. The next two hours saw the typical knee pounding groans of pitch black talus hopping, but compared to other epics we’ve shared this egress felt like a sweet slice of apple pie. We reached our plush dwelling at exactly 10:01PM, retrieved our ice cold Lacroix (yep… singular… one got punctured the night before) from the creek and kicked back in alpine luxury. Chocolate, cheese and crackers, a home-cooked meal of pinto bean soup with shallots, bell peppers and tomatoes served with a local artisan loaf of jalapeño-cheddar bread – we were living the high life, adventuring and learning together, and most importantly NOT walking out the Garnet Canyon switchbacks until AFTER a good night’s rest.
Our next morning was truly leisurely. We slept like royalty, all snugged up in winter bags. We were in town eating a Thai brunch by 12:30PM, and lounging on the couch by mid-afternoon. The masochist in me feared I could be trending light duty, but occasionally it’s nice not to redline straight through Sunday evening. For the two of us, the Direct South Ridge was a memorable climb to an unbelievable first summit, and for 8-10 pitches and 1,000 vertical feet I’d say 6.5 hours on the wall isn’t too shabby. Having just returned from a two week vacation at sea level and fighting a gnarly head cold Bobbi was definitely feeling the elevation fatigue, but her ability to flip a switch and race up the final four pitches in an hour speaks to her evolution as an alpine athlete. Will this be our last time together in the high alpine this summer? Only time will tell. I believe it is currently snowing above 11,000 feet as I am typing these words.
Footnotes – Grade, Rack, Descent Notes and Guidebook Discrepancies
Grade
Although only rated Grade III, the lengthy off-trail approach and 1,000 foot technical descent alone make the Direct South Ridge a big day just about any way you cut it. The climbing itself is rather tame, with very few sustained difficulties at the grade intermixed with typical alpine rambling, as if Irene’s Arete and Upper Exum Ridge had a baby. But 8-10 pitches is still 8-10 pitches, and completing this rig car-to-car demands competency. The rock on the crest itself is on par with four-star classics across the range, and pitch three is up there with the finest I’ve climbed all summer.
Rack
For a rack we brought a single set of cams from fingers to three inches, a set of nuts and a set of off-set nuts. This suited me excellent, and I probably could have gotten by with less. A 60M or greater rope would be preferable to finish long pitches without simul-climbing.
Descent
The descent off Nez Perce follows the fourth class Northwest Couloirs route. An obvious climbers trail from the summit leads gently skier’s left until rolling over into steep terrain. At the edge of this rollover, a short fourth class step (marked by a cairn as of this day) leads down and skier’s right to a three piton anchor. A 30M rappel will reach the next ledge. We did a 25M rappel which landed us almost at the ledge, with only a body length of fourth class down-climbing remaining. From the bottom of the rappel, traverse hard skier’s left (southwest) across some shattered white rock and a slight ridge. Continue skier’s left until an obvious steep and clean slab is reached. A climber’s trail leads straight down along the edge of this slab for 15-20 feet, until hooking back skier’s left onto the slab. Here a slung horn rappel anchor will be found. A 25M rappel will reach the next ledge. From the bottom of this rappel, follow cairns, incipient trails, intuition and the path of least resistance down third and fourth class terrain into the South Fork of Garnet Canyon. Trending skier’s left when in doubt will probably yield the best results in most cases. Avoid dropping skier’s right into any of the attractive north facing couloirs, which are likely super loose and hold snow late season if not year round.
Guidebook Discrepancies
I am not a fan of either topo provided in the two popular Teton guidebooks. The topo in A Climber’s Guide to the Teton Range (Ortenburger, Jackson) stays far right of the crest, bypassing much of the enjoyable arete climbing described in this article on pitches three and four, though is probably accurate as it pertains to the first ascent. The topo in Teton Rock Climbs (Gams) appears to be incorrect at points, leaving out pitch two entirely and depicting a deviously steep traversing “grey ramp” above pitch five. In reality, we found the traverse above pitch five to be much gentler, nearly horizontal and void of “grey ramps” – however, it’s possible we missed something. Common sense is your most valuable compass on this route.
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DISCLAIMER
Ski mountaineering, rock climbing, ice climbing and all other forms of mountain recreation are inherently dangerous. Should you decide to attempt anything you read about in this article, you are doing so at your own risk! This article is written to the best possible level of accuracy and detail, but I am only human – information could be presented wrong. Furthermore, conditions in the mountains are subject to change at any time. Ten Thousand Too Far and Brandon Wanthal are not liable for any actions or repercussions acted upon or suffered from the result of this article’s reading.
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