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There is nothing more special as a parent then sharing what you love with your kids. You might be a musician molding your boy’s fingers to a fretboard for the first time, or a poet slicing and dicing words till your girl’s smile splits her face like an ocean sunrise, or a farmer checking your crop in an earthy hands-on way that grabs that primal part of your kid’s core.
But we’re mountain people, so we share mountains.
Check this one out.
Guest Blog by Penn Newhard
A year ago, my wife and son attended a wedding in the Tetons. We talked then about possibly going up the Grand Teton during that trip but Kir was pregnant and I was not with them. So, the plan became to climb it this year.
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| Chapin with his selection of fuels. |
Over the past weekend we had splitter weather and gave it a go.
Chapin (11) has climbed some Colorado thirteeners and fourteeners, he also rock climbs a bit, but this would be his first real alpine adventure.
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| We camped for two windless, full moon nights at the Lower Saddle, saw a bunch of friends and made some new ones. |
Sunday we summited via the Upper Exum around 11:30 AM.
How would I describe it as a parent? Awesome, scary, stunning, humbling, burly, proud, beautiful, funny and a bit stressful.
Chape would describe it as WICKED cool!
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| On the climb, yep, WICKED cool. |
We were super fortunate with the weather as this Grand Teton is a big, serious undertaking. As it turned out we saw a bear (again, wicked cool) some deer and plenty of marmots. Chapin largely subsisted on Swedish fish and carefully timed Red Bull consumption to get him up to the Lower Saddle (5000 vert and 7 miles) and down from the summit on the grueling and confusing Owens Spalding descent.
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| Kirstin and Chape at the summit. |
Overall, a great time spent in beautiful country. We even snuck in a celebratory race down the Snow King Alpine Slide…
Have fun out there!
(Guest blogger bio: Penn and Kir Newhard live in a log cabin in Basalt, Colorado with their four (yep, four not a typo) kids, Chapin (11), Lacey(8), Natalie (6) and Teagan (9 months). Penn works at Backbone Media doing PR for various outdoor and snow sports companies. Kir wrangles the kids, plans awesome mini-adventures camping, climbing, rafting, skiing and bakes a mean plate of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies)
Penn and Kir Newhard live in a log cabin in Basalt, Colorado with their four (yep, four not a typo) kids, Chapin, Lacey, Natalie and Teagan. Penn works at Backbone Media doing PR for various outdoor and snow sports companies. Kir wrangles the kids, plans awesome mini-adventures camping, climbing, rafting, skiing and bakes a mean plate of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies
