Last Friday Erik Boomer and I climbed the Right and Left Ghost Pillars in Teton Canyon, WI5 and WI4 respectively.
I’ve wanted to climb the Ghosts for years, but the whole “seldom visited WI5 freestanding pillar in a monstrous avalanche path” thing was a tall order. Even this year I had reservations swirling through my mind as Erik Boomer and I zoomed down the Teton Canyon road via snowmobile assist. With such low snow we made the approach from the south fork trail sans skis, cutting a knee deep booter to Teton Creek before gaining some old tracks and following them to the climb. The approach gully had some typical Teton Canyon foolery – dense brush, mossy cliffs, thick willows and the like. True to their name, the Ghosts stayed invisible until we were merely a sniff away. From the canyon bottom the Right Ghost is only barely visible and the Left entirely invisible, adding an extreme layer of suspense. Luckily, we had positive beta from friends who nabbed an ascent just days earlier.
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As we approached the base of the Right Ghost I waffled between which flow to climb first – not that I could even see the Left, but we knew it was a bit easier. Erik, still very new to ice, was off the lead roster. After a taxing ascent I figured I was warm enough to tie in for the heavier task. Though quite intimidating from the bottom, a closer inspection reveled a generous groove feature with ample rests for the first 15 meters despite the unrelenting verticality. The upper third was a classic battle on a vertical pane with few pick holes from previous ascents. I was pumped out of my tree as I clipped the anchor (climber’s right), but beyond stoked to rack my first WI5 lead of the season, even if it was closer to WI5- conditions.
A short walk east brought us to the Left Ghost which looked lower angle, but potentially more technical than the Right. A strange hollow double curtain provided some bouldery climbing and tricky protection right off the deck, relenting to a more typical WI4 lead on the left side of the contorting flow. As mentioned in the Ortenburger-Jackson(1) description, the top-out was hollow, thin, technical and poorly protected. Weird blob features, moss sticks and a bit of mixed climbing were the name of the game – I even chiseled a ledge with my tool atop a lunchbox blob I was too timid to kick.
The dichotomy between the Right and Left Ghosts were emblematic of the overly simplistic system used to grade pure water ice. While the Right was WI5, one grade above the Left, I found the climbing on the Left more challenging. Using steepness, and the sustained degree of that steepness, as the sole metric for water ice grading negates the ever present challenges that impact a route’s total difficulty, including availability for quality protection, thickness and overall ice quality, atypical ice features, traverses – the list extends ad libitum. Or maybe herein lies the beauty of ice climbing – that climbs cannot be confined to a rigid grading system. In a world where the overwhelming majority of things are squished into a box and defined by structured metrics in order to be better understood, ephemeral ice lines remain wild.
Climber’s Notes
- Both routes can be top-roped with a 50M rope
- The Right Ghost in particular sits in a massive multi-thousand foot unsupported avalanche path with potential for, though unlikely, skier trigger. The Left Ghost is not completely vindicated from avalanche potential, but is more sheltered.
- The bolted anchor for the Right Ghost is located on climber’s right immediately after topping out the steep ice, not above the trivial finishing low angle ice.
- The anchor for the Left Ghost is a slung tree on climber’s left.
- Two bolted mixed lines ascend either side of the Right Ghost and appear to join the ice ice at some point. Teton Ice may have more information on the climbs. I believe one is M6, but I’m not sure which one.
Resources
- A Climber’s Guide to the Teton Range (Ortenburger-Jackson, book)
- Teton Ice (Garrick Hart, book)
- Mountain Project (website)
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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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