Guiding in the Tetons

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Quebec 2002: The Ice World Cup is holding an event in Quebec City. It's cold. I go into the Petzl trailer to get a little quesadilla. Sitting across from me is Stephen Koch (http://www.stephenkoch.com): Stephen is a strong alpinist, living Jackson Hole. He is out here for the comp. We get talking. As always, I am wondering what the next step in my life is going to be (5years later, I am still wondering what my next step in life is... I'm obvioulsy not great at that standard 5 year projection!!!!). Stephen suggests that I get in touch with Exum Mountain Guides (www.exumguides.com), a guiding outfitter located in Jackson Hole, WY. The thought really appeals to me. I have been seriously considering becoming a mountain guide and this could give me a great feel for doing just that. I play with the tought a little: I remember stories from when my parents had climbed it; I also remember lying to my fellow schoolmates about having climbed upon returning from my first trip there in 1988. The thought lingers until...

2007: five years have gone by. I never made the move to work Exum. Rather, I started going through the guiding certification process in Switzerland and started guiding actively when I moved to the USA in 2006. I worked for Exum in Utah, for Colorado Mountain School in Boulder and for Chicks with Picks (www.chickswithpicks.net). Seeing the freedom that guiding offered, Adam, my husband, decided to get into this profession as well. As we were looking for a place to work for the summer, Exum was obvisously the dream option. Yet, only Exum has the reputation of hiring only the best (Read the Ourside Mag article: http://outside.away.com/outside/features/200404/exum_mountain_guides_1.html), and since we applied late, we felt that our chances of being hired were slim. When I opened the Mark Newcomb's email (one of the owner of Exum) that offered us not only a job but also an appartement, we almost thought is was too good to be true!



Our friend, Ben Gilmore, who also works for Exum, moved in with us into the condo. We went through all the audits pretty quickly (auditing climbs is obligatory at Exum) and started working by July 10th. We got as much work as we could possibly handle and it was an amazing gig.

We would drive from home to work - aka the Grand Teton National Park almost everyday. The way things work there is that clients learn to belay each other for two days in the school room and then we take them up the Grand Tetons. There are lots of other climbs to do there, but people usually focus on doing just that! I left for a week to the Wind River Range, a mountain range south-east of Jackson that holds amazing spires.

The atmosphere there was great: great people, great work, beautiful scenary, great lodging, unique wildlife (you encounter bears all the time!) and actually good climbing. On our days off, we would go climbing at BlackTail Butte, a little limestone cliff that reminded me a lot of Europe, or we would get on longer climbs in Death Canyon.

The season died off by the end of August... and soon it was time

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