From the blog
Story
The Grand Teton climb is over and I require about a week’s worth of writing to summarize the events. I’ll keep it short though. We didn’t make it to the top, we got to within 600 vertical feet of the summit to the West Summit. There were thunderclouds and storms in the area and it is not wise to be near the top of the highest point in the area when lightning is possible. I raised $4,385 for Bay Area Wilderness Training though! That is a summit I am very proud to have reached. I thank everyone who donated.
The folks in the picture were my climbing buddies from left to right: Emily, Justin, Lucky, me in front, jeff, and our lead guide Tom. My favorite part of the climb was the climbing school where we had time to talk, joke, and learn. Also, sitting on the deck at Dornans drinking beer and eating with my friends.
Now on to why tour groups suck. I’m talking about being on one. My wife and I have taken groups of students to Europe on tours. We did an Explorica tour to London and France and had a great time. We also did an EF tour to Italy and France and the tour really sucked. You get treated differently by people when you are on a tour. Restaurant people roll their eyes when you appear at the door, you get the tour’s prepaid meal, nothing off the menu, and the service sucks usually. The best times we had were when we left our tour behind and were treated like normal tourists.
I noticed a similar treatment on the Teton climb. Our guides Exum Mountain Guides, treated us like we were intruders into their cool climbing realm. Some were very cool and very nice. Gary and Westin were great guides that welcomed us and really helped. The others were so wrapped up in being big climbers that they could barely contain their disgust with this climbing beginner. I felt, again, like I didn’t belong and the best times were when I was not among the guides.
Contrast this to my Mt. Rainier climb with RMI Expeditions where the guides became true members of the climb, partners in getting up the mountain, and truly cared about each of us and that we felt welcome. I felt a connection to my RMI guides. We went out and had pizza and beer after climbing school and after the climb. I couldn’t wait to leave the Exum guides and discuss all the crazy things that went on with my climbing team.
One event really sticks out, but other similar things happened the entire climb. Emily tripped and hurt her knee. She was then directed down a very dangerous slope with Justin helping her down alone. The guides stayed to do some trail work. When she reached us, she was clearly in pain. I suggested she take her pack off, a client wrapped her knee, and she ended up trading her pack with a client who had a lighter pack. This is all while the guides looked on. We were on our own to take care of the first aid, the packs, and get ready to move on. We started moving and Emily clearly was having a hard time. I said “take that pack off” and offered to tie it to the back of my pack. The client who’s pack it was said it was light and that he would tie it to Emily’s pack, which he was carrying. I tied it to his pack. Again, the guides looked on and got us moving again. At the next rest break I was fed up as the guy who was carrying two pack’s daughter told me he shouldn’t be doing that as he just had ACL surgery. I said out loud to her that “one of these guides needs to Man-up and carry that pack, this is pathetic. They heard, and divided up the pack and carried it down
A woman on my Mt. Rainier climb twisted her ankle on the decent. The guides surrounded her, assessed her, wrapped her ankle, and tied her pack to the pack of one of the guides. There was no discussion, it was automatic. They knew what to do. The Exum guides routinely allowed us to assess and treat our own injuries, routinely allowed our group to become dangerously separated (not fast enough for their climbing greatness), and were not friendly or helpful to a climbing beginner’s mistake or miss-step.
I felt like I was on a tour group with EF again. I’m done with both tour groups and guided climbs. I’ll stick to setting my own schedule, guiding myself up mountains (smaller ones will be fine!), and enjoying my friends and family on vacations.
Sometimes bad experiences can turn into lessons. Maybe all bad experiences contain a lesson. The mountain was beautiful, I had a great time overall and am very proud of what I accomplished. More about the Teton climb in the next post.