Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks

• Posted on January 18, 2009 at 11:00 PM
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Walking along the Upper Exum Ridge toward the summit of Grand Teton, Wyoming, 13770'

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This is a long overdue post about the family's activities in 2008. We were fairly active with our weekend hikes: we explored sections of the Bruce Trail near Dundas, Ontario (Spencer Gorge, Tew's Falls and Webster's Falls) as well as other trails (Lime Kiln Trail) near the Forks of the Credit Provincial Park off of Highway 410 northeast of Brampton. We also returned to some old favorites such as HIlton Falls Conservation Area near Milton. The highlight of the year however was our road trip to Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone N.P. in Wyoming.

The trip germinated when I decided to resume my amateur mountaineering career after a two year hiatus after the arrival of our twins. I had to come up with a North American mountaineering destination that was family friendly so that my wife and children could enjoy a couple of days on the ground without me while I played in the mountains. The Grand Teton was a perfect objective: good solid rock, good weather (usually), situated near a fun resort town (Jackson Hole), and a hop away from Yellowstone N.P., our family destination for the latter half of the week. We made early plans to meet up with my erstwhile mountaineering buddy Jason, his wife and young daughter in Jackson Hole in mid-August and the die was cast.

For the next several months before the trip I managed to catalogue the various reactions when I told people that I planned a 36 hour road trip with 2 and a half year old twins and a 4 and a half year old. Reactions varied from horror, to ridicule, to outright disbelief. Suffice it to say that (having crossed the continent several times by car and motorcycle in record times) I needed to talk my wife down from wanting to buy First Class round trip airline tickets, or worse yet, to bail on the trip entirely.

We conducted oodles of research to prevent the road trip with the kids from becoming a complete horror show. The first thing was obvious: make the trip about the journey, not the destination. If your only purpose is to arrive, then not only will you miss all the great things along the way, your children will sense the anxiety and will not enjoy the process. If they don't enjoy it, then the whole thing will blow up and you'll quickly find yourself calling your doctor for a fresh Valium prescription. The other general piece of advice is that you can't try to divorce yourself from your children and the experience they are having. In other words, don't think that you are going to use the trip to get through that huge novel you've been saving for a rainy day. To make the trip enjoyable for you and them, you will need to be engaged with them, with what they are doing, and you will very much need to anticipate what they will need around the next corner, be it food, a washroom, a new movie in the DVD machine, or your best attempts to keep them entertained.

We departed from Toronto around 7PM. This was intentional, as we wanted the children to sleep through the first night as we tried to get some big Interstate miles under our belt. This worked extremely well. The kids were asleep before 8pm, and we cruised along into Michigan via Sarnia, driving along the Interstate for the better part of 24 hours straight, alternating with my wife as the passenger slept. The children woke up around 8 am, and we stopped at a MacDonald's to freshen up. I am not a huge fan of fast food, but with young children, you cannot find a better more chilled place to go and decompress after hours on the road.

We put a movie in the DVD and resumed the driving. Over the course of the day, we used our full arsenal of toys, games and diversions to keep the children interested and occupied. We stopped a few times at rest areas, and took out a ball to kick around and get some exercise. In the car, we had coloring books, movies, games, books and many, many toys. We also had food, water and drink boxes. I brought along the childrens' favourite CD music and even downloaded some audiobooks on my Ipod (James and the Giant Peach, Pippi Longstocking, Charlotte's Web and some Dr. Seuss classics). Our secret weapon however was a handful of "loot bags" which we gave the children when we sensed they were about to go nuclear on us: sensing these cycles became critical to the success of the trip. These bags were filled with a piece of candy and a couple of neat little toys that would keep them amused. These were ideal at diffusing crisis situations. After 24 hours of continuous driving, we stopped at a motel with a pool and let the kids swim and blow off some steam.

We arrived in Jackson, Wyoming on Saturday evening after leaving Thursday evening. On Sunday, we met our friends from Vancouver and then set out to find the Exum Mountain Guide headquarters since I was planning to climb the Grand Teton on Tuesday with a guide from the Exum outfit.

On Monday, I left the family in Jackson Hole and spent the day with my climbing guide and climbing partners getting "checked out" for the Teton climb. This involved some brisk steep hiking and a few multipitch rock routes. Everything went without a hitch so we returned to our hotels to prepare for the 2am meeting a the trailhead for our "car to car in a day" attempt on the Grand Teton.

We met at 2am as planned. We left the trailhead and some 4 hours later were sitting in the climber's shelter on the Lower Saddle. We brewed up, put on our gear and left at approximately 6:30am to climb the Grand via the upper Exum Ridge. We summited at approximately 9am after several sunlit pitches of great Teton granite. A wonderful climb. The descent was uneventful, though I did feel the dizzying effects of the altitude and made a point to be extra careful, especially on the unbelayed pitches. We returned to the lower saddle, rested for several minutes, and then bounded, stumbled and jogged back to the trailhead. We were there by 3:30 pm, which made for a fairly quick (for amateurs) 13.5 hour car to car climb, by our guide's account.

I spent the following 4 days exploring Yellowstone National Park with my family after the Teton climb. This park is a wonder for any outdoor lover, with a limitless variety of topography and distractions. We enjoyed seeing Old Faithful erupt right on schedule, explored several thermal areas, hiked a local mountain, saw the "Grand Canyon of Yellowstone", had a peaceful picnic in a meadow beside a meandering river, saw families of elk up close, drove through an enormous herd of bison, saw a moose, a red tailed eagle, a porcupine, beautiful waterfalls on the Firehole River, and countless other natural wonders that amused us all tremendously. We found the book entitled Yellowstone Treasures by Janet Chappell to be of tremendous assistance in helping us plan our itineraries in the Park.

The trip back was a little busier as we just wanted to get home, but isn't that the way with all trips. We can't wait to go on our next road trip (probably Colorado or the Canadian Rockies) but would also one day love to return to Yellowstone.