Grand Teton National Park

Son of the Apocalypse


The little brother, or I guess for it's namesake, the "son" of the "father" that is the Apocalypse Couloir, the Son of the Apocalypse is a couloir just before the Apocalypse and anyone who has done the latter has definitely seen the entrances to the former.

The Tetons have seen a weird season - Covid crowds have flooded the Pass, the Park, the Village and the Ghee (that last one is a first). On top of Covid we are the only ones with a decent snowpack whereas Utah, Colorado, Montana, California have seen higher than normal temperatures and less precipitation. Our avy conditions have been sketchy at best to dangerous pretty much all Winter. So when the temperatures go from 25 degrees and snow on February 28th and immediately, like hitting a light switch, the sun comes out and Spring temperatures (about 45 degrees) come out March 1st causing the snowpack to heal, we finally started looking at bigger lines. We landed on the Son of the Apocalypse, a north facing shot just off of Prospectors with the hopes to find some soft powdery snow, the kind everyone and their grandma likes.


We got out early to beat the heat and, for some reason it didn't hit me until we got out there but, to beat the crowds too. I think it is the norm now, if you have a good idea in the Tetons someone else has the same great idea. Anyway, we rolled up at about 8:00am to a not-so-filled parking lot. I saw some people I knew and they were heading the same direction as we were. We also crossed one other group on the way up but I believe they went higher to the Apocalypse.

Moving on, worth noting it was a high of 45 degrees that day and as we were making our way up on an East aspect, by 10:00am the snow was already mashed potatoes. It did not take long for everything to dethaw from the night before. That definitely got me a little nervous, not for safety but because it felt like our Spring season would be very short if these temps kept up this way.

Moving on again, we made it to the top of the second entrance to the Son of after dealing with some bad glopping. All in it took us longer than it should have, about 4 hours but neither of us were in a rush. It was kind of nice to have the sun on the skin for the first time in three months.


Dropping into the Son of it was meh. Better than I expected snow quality wise and knowing that there were a group of three ahead of us (the buddies I mentioned in the beginning), I will not be complaining about it. There was also a group behind us so, yeah, sorry if it sucked behind us.Overall, it was a fun line that usually requires a mandatory air at the end. That was filled in this time. It is a great line to get into and definitely worth the short walk across Phelps Lake. I will probably be revisiting in Winter conditions next time.






Weiss

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