Chouinard Ridge - middle teton

A week after climbing full exum, I found myself back in garnet canyon, headed solo up the south fork to the south side of the middle teton.  

standard middle teton view from the garnet trail

As I hiked past several people and small groups also headed for the middle, I hoped no one would blindly follow me, assuming I was headed for the standard SW couloir route.  Instead I deviated to the bottom of continuous snow below the ellingwood couloir, where I put on microspikes and slowly kicked switchbacks up the semi-steep snow to reach the base of the chouinard ridge.  

from L to S - chouinard ridge, chouinard couloir, SE buttress, ellingwood couloir

I spent a solid 15 minutes on a large ledge below the route to dry out shoes/socks and refuel.  Above me lay over 1500 vertical feet of scrambling, reportedly up to 5.4 in difficulty.  I was stoked.  I slowly worked my way up the broad ridge, enjoying the solid rock and choose-your-own-adventure wide array of route options/difficulty.  

bottom of chouinard ridge

the SE buttress (III 5.7) looks worthy of a return trip

midway up the route

Route finding was fairly straight forward but there were a few steep sections where I had to downclimb and look around to find a more reasonable route.  I was surprised to find myself feeling a little relieved as the difficulty eased off and the route more-or-less deposited me in the upper SW couloir about a hundred feet below the summit.  I arrived on the summit about 5 hours into the day and enjoyed another long break of food, views and the company of those that had come up the SW couloir. 

upper portion of route

the crux of the way i went

the GFT

iceflow lake to the west 

I then descended the SW couloir and rock hopped and boot skied the snow patches of the south fork down to the meadows.   Despite hiking the entirely of the egress to the trailhead, I still had to pass and dodge countless hikers along the way.  A stark contrast to the solitude of the chouinard ridge but a small price to pay for playing in such an incredible mountain range.

Stats: roughly 13mi/6k vert/scrambling up to 5.4 in a leisurely 8.5 hours roundtrip

Rose: routefinding on the fly on very good rock

Thorn: crowds on the lower trail on the way down

Bud: the adjacent SE buttress with a partner and a rope

Thoughts: while I would definitely recommend this route to others, its worth noting that there is mandatory exposed 5.4/5 climbing (particularly on upper half) and is more routefinding intensive and committing than the CMC route on moran.  Also – descending the south fork of garnet is MUCH nicer the more snow there is