While skiing in Glacier Gulch yesterday, I found myself staring up at and day-dreaming about skiing the Hossack-MacGowan route on the north side of the Grand Teton.  I think it has been about 14 years since the route had its last (2nd) descent, and although we have had some really phat snow years since then, there still hasn’t been another descent of what has to be the most proud line in the whole Teton Range…if not the entire country.
Occasionally, I think to myself that I’d like to give it a try some day. But, I also hear a lot of other people say the same thing, only to get the smack down when they really get an up-close and personal view of the route. For now…I think I will keep this one on my “B-List”.
I think it would be fun to just go up the lower flank to check it out…looks mellow down there. Up top terrifying! I saw a picture from an old TetonAT post of Andrew McLean on a failed attempt doing a ballet step from above….clammy hands just looking at it.
looks kinda cruxy but i think you got it.
How much do you actually get to ski even in a big snow year?
@chuck, same question here. How much more filled in is it? Are they skiing or repelling?
drew…i kind of agree with you. kind of make trying to ski it a three-year project…slowly making high higher and higher up the route.
jason/chuck…when done in the best conditions, i think one only makes two rappels descending the HM. if you follow the links in the post, they go to an earlier post of mine that shows the location of the raps. it gets a lot more filled-in than in the video in the post…which is from yesterday.
That would an incredible line to nail, but wow talk about pucker factor to the max. Great vid though and something to dream about.
How bout the east face of the grandstand? Has it seen a descent? Kinda looks like hm’s little brother.
ty…the east face of the grandstand (the line most looker’s left…where it butts up against the north face of the grand teton) has a hand full of descents. I think only 2-3 though.
it’s been on my list for quite a while and I have been denied a few times on it due to thin conditions. it takes a while for it to fill in (enough to not deal with rappels and such)…and when it finally does…it’s usually springtime and gets sun first thing in the morning which makes timing a little tricky.