Index	Tetons	Overview	Trip Report
Previous Slide	Slide 7	Next Slide

Bill Wright on the double pendulum pitch on Mt. Moran's South Buttress

Two days later with the weather still flawless Bill and I were over at Moran to climb the South Buttress. This photo shows the famous double pendulum pitch [tip: take some very small cams for the aid on this pitch].

I found the South Buttress more difficult than expected. We tried a 5.9 variation which turned out 5.10, A2 for us, and the descent was where the real epic started.

We descended by the "standard rappel route" described in Rossiter's book. After each double rope rappel we had to coil both ropes and search for the next anchor. This seemed to take forever, and Rossiter's topo was very inaccurate, but I'm certain the route we eventually followed was the standard rap route. On the last rap the ropes also got stuck, at this point it was almost dark and we were exhausted. I climbed back up to free the ropes and we were soon back in camp, but we had expected to go all the way out that day.

So no epic in fact occurred, we just got back later than expected. The next morning we got up before sunrise and enjoyed a beautiful canoe ride across the mirror-like surface of Leigh Lake as the sun rose.

We celebrated with a breakfast at Dornan's. In fact, I was so hungry I ordered TWO breakfasts. The cashier protested "... but it's all you can eat??" My glib response was "Yeah, but I'm so hungry I can eat twice that much!" The mundane reality was that it was only "all you can eat pancakes", and I wanted two plates of eggs. But this response really threw her!