Be careful what you pray for...

This post is more for my own psychological good, however, you all might enjoy one of life's little lessons.

Twas the week before school was set to begin and after climbing Mt. Rainier I had a bug to look to the skies again and so two neighbor/ward guys and I left for Jackson Hole to try our luck at a summit bid of the Grand Teton.

Ryan Jenks (center) is renting H & W's place and Dave black (right) is the other crazy who climbed Rainier with me.

Ryan, Dave and I are all Elders quorum instructors in our ward and we planned on leaving Friday early and making it back LATE Saturday night so I could teach. With so much spirituality in our group we even said a prayer as we were leaving the parking area beginning our hike. For whatever reason I prayed that we could be safe, have fun, and let it be a "spiritual experience."

Earlier during the week, a few storms had gone through the area and left a dusting of snow and rain on the mountains, but there was a window of opportunity for the weekend and things were beautiful.

I don't remember all of the small details how far it is or how long we took, but we made good time up the mountain with a very small rain sprinkle and possible bear in the area as the only excitement.

After a long day of hiking we reached our camp site. We had a permit just below the lower saddle giving us a great start for the next mornings alpine start (3:30 ish).

If you look closely the "mid" is just a top cover, there is no bottom to this shelter, this plays a small part later on in the story.

Saturday morning started well, we were all feeling well and we caught up to one of the groups on the mountain being professionally guided from a group called the Exum company. The advice on the street was that we should NOT attempt the mountains easiest route, the Owen Spalding route because of ice and difficult sections. Rather, we should try the Upper Exum route because it is exposed to the sun and the snow from earlier in the week had melted. We took their advice even though they were taking a different route. Hmmmmm

It was easy scrambling until we reached Wall Street and the Exum route (we didn't have any route information regarding difficulty/elevation/etc. (Are you learning a lesson yet?)

This is picture of Ryan climbing up a nice patch of rock. This was Ryan's first climbing experience and he really did a great job. Dave Black did the lead climbing and then we belayed Ryan from the top and bottom, then I would come up collecting all of the protection cams and nuts. Thank heavens for good belaying from above.

I know that the pictures don't tell much of the story but I hope they show lots of rock, often times steep 5.9 difficulty and nothing on the sides. The following pictures just show the group working together and the rock above us.

(As a side note, there were certainly times that we/I wondered if going up was the best idea, but just like President Uchdorf taught there is a point of no return and we could no longer climb down, up was our only option).

Now begins the lessons...our prayers must have been to help us reach the summit safely and that we could finish the exum ridge without rain. No sooner had we reached the summit did the SNOW come.

Our beautiful Friday weather left us and we had enjoyed a very grey/cloudy Saturday which soon became white. (near white-out conditions) The wind and snow forced on our goggles and we even patched a call to the park service to get instructions regarding how many meters south then west etc. just to get off the summit.

Anyone want to spend the night on the top of the Tetons? Neither did we and so our Enos prayer experience continued. We truly acted in faith with the instructions we were given and prayed sincerely and just as if scripted we had a small break in the snow just long enough to find the rappel anchor that we never would have found in the snow. The rappels were really fun, but it does take a while to get three guys down safely so time was now becoming an enemy.

Andy rappelling

After finishing the two rappels the weather let up and we were now on a route finding adventure. Because we went up the Exum route, we had no idea where the O.S. route was and so we went very slowly down very icy rock fields until we finally found the path from earlier that day. We made it to the lower saddle just before dusk and to our shelter (which had fallen down during the wind).

Now comes the decision making time do we hike out in the night and drive home all night just to teach a lesson, or do we sleep on the mountain and hike out in the morning. It might be good to mention now that we no longer had ANY cel phone services or battery.

We decided to spend the night on the dirt/snow and hike out in the morning. The hike out was absolutely beautiful with everything dusted with new snow. It was slow climbing over the rock, but once we hit the dirt pack things picked up and Ryan and I tried to jog/shuffle down the rest of the way to call our families before they left for church.

Ryan made it first (I have only one disclaimer...my pack was heavier) the phone calls were made and we drove home with a new look on life, appreciation for family, and testimony of prayer.

So before you go off on your next adventure...be careful what you pray for or you might just have your "spiritual experience"