Mike, Jazmine and I got a typical alpine start around 8:30am at Lupine Meadows trailhead. We alternated between slowly jogging and hiking up the switchbacks. I thought it was going to be a nice slow day. After passing the meadows Michelino began to turn on the jets... at least from my perspective. I think he was actually just walking his normal pace but my effort certainly increased.
We continued at this clip until the lower saddle where we filled our water bottles and got a bite to eat. We then cooked up upper saddle and right into the Owen Spalding. We were on top of the Grand right around 2 hrs 45 mins - after taking our sweet sweet time on the lower switchbacks. Thankfully, the super humans were down to chill and enjoy the summit. Michelino passed around quesadillas and we enjoyed the views for around 15-20 mins.
We went down to the lower saddle on the standard route - same way we went up. We then began climbing Middle from the lower saddle following the small climbers trail. We worked our way around the prominent horn then down climbed into the obvious gully/ couloir. We then climbed up and to the right to the north facing couloir of Middle. This is the same route I take in the winter.
Instead of going all the way up the couloir, which still had snow, we went roughly 1/3rd the way up and then cut right onto a shelf. We followed this shelf right to an opening and scrambled our way to the top. The climbing wasn't technical, no harder than the OS. We had another little picnic on the summit of Middle and then moved on to South.
We went down Middle on the standard route and summited South on the standard route. We enjoyed our last summit picnic on south and after some pics we began to head down using the standard trails. We noticed dark clouds rolling in and all the sudden our chill pace became not-that-chill. Before I knew it we were barreling into the meadows. We continued this clip into the switchbacks and didn't relent. It began softly raining so the trail was nice and tacky. It was one of the most fun downhills I've had out of the meadows even though my tank was on E and my full frame camera was having a boxing match with my back.
We cruised into the parking area and then hit the river for a quick cool off. We had a celebration lunch at Stillwest. Jazmine and Mike looked as if they just came back from a stroll... I found it hard to finish sentences and kept drifting in and out of sleep.