At the end of last week, a group of 8 of us headed up to attempt to climb the Grand Teton via the Upper Exum Ridge climbing route.

Over Labor Day, the weather in the Tetons was pretty nasty, and when we arrived a couple of days later, the climbing rangers informed us the conditions on that route were in pretty bad shape: verglas, snow, and ice. They said we’d be better off coming back in the winter and climbing the mountain with a proper snow cover (something that is EXTREMELY difficult and dangerous).

So we adjusted our plans and headed up to camp at the Meadows for 2 nights, and then up the South Fork of Garnet Canyon Friday to climb the Middle Teton instead. The Middle Teton is 12,804 feet high. We climbed up the SouthWest couloir route that is Class III with a couple of Class IV sections (although with all the snow in there, I’d say more of it was Class IV). It was a great trip.

I’ve heard said before that “no plan survives contact with the enemy.” We’d planned to climb the Upper Exum Ridge for about 5 months. We sent out information, we met as a group and went rock climbing in Rock Canyon in Provo, we coordinated, we planned, we prepared (physically and mentally). We had a lot of momentum towards climbing the Grand Teton. But we got there, and courtesy of the Weather Service messing up my order for good weather, we had to change our plans. Some people in the world of climbing/backpacking/hiking get summit fever and don’t adapt and let all the momentum dictate their actions. They don’t change their plans, they get in over their heads, they have problems, and sometimes in the world of outdoor pursuits, they even make stupid decisions and die.

Entrepreneurship isn’t a life and death endeavor, but a lot of entrepreneurs don’t adapt their plans, get ’summit fever’, let the momentum take over, and run into lots of problems. Being nimble, being flexible is the difference in success and failure a lot of times, and for us, it was the difference in either bailing on the trip altogether, pushing up a mountain that we’d have had no business being on because of the conditions, or adapting and climbing an awesome mountain right next door and feeling like we were on top of the world in the coolest mountain range in America.

(Grand Teton right behind me, I could almost reach out and touch it!)

(6/8 of us on the summit)

(View to the south. South Teton is closest, and then you can see probably almost 100 miles)

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Posted by Jeremy at 6:21 PM
Category: Adventures, Entrepreneurship, Personal| Comment| Trackback