(ululating piano music) - Yeah, so Paul Petzoldt is the one who started the first climbing concession in the park.

He started guiding officially under the Petzoldt School of American Mountaineering in 1930.

That was also the summer he met Glenn Exum who was here playing saxophone for the Jenny Lake dance hall.

And he took Glenn climbing, I think once or twice that summer and took him up the Grand and said, "I'm gonna make a guide out of you."

And then of course you know the story where he said, "Oh, go see if you can find a route that way."

And Glenn did and that's how the Exum Ridge got its name.

(adventurous Western music) (adventurous Western music) - Yeah, so when Glenn did the Upper Exum Ridge, he on-sited it; in other words, he'd never been on it before.

And because he didn't have a partner, he didn't have a rope, falling was not an option.

And so it was totally unknown terrain until he reached the summit.

One part of it that demonstrates how little he knew about it was, as you go up the Wall Street, it's like this ramp that starts to narrow down to nothing.

He walked out until it was almost nothing and then he leaped across.

- Glenn did, and Paul both, had gone and done some climbing in Europe and they were not impressed with how guiding was done in Europe where clients were just dragged up the mountain like a sack of potatoes and they were determined to come back and do something different here in America that suited the American spirit, the independent American spirit, where people were confident and could do things for themselves.

They wanted to teach people how to be mountaineers and fully participate in the process.

- So as they came back from Europe, they wanted to start more of school of mountaineering, which is the name that it carried.

And so they wanted to teach the people that were climbing the Grand how to climb the Grand Teton, learn how to belay, tie knots, climb, be part of the rope team.

So instead of just being shown the way on how to go up there, you learn a set of skills and then you immediately put them into action to create a different type of culture for guiding and climbing the Grand.

(uplifting music) - [Tom] So he guided from 1931 until the early 1960s.

The end goal was to create a group of folks that knew what they were doing, that you're teaching 'em in a structured manner.

- [Brenton] The school system that Glenn built still works today as it did back then.

(uplifting music) (bright anticipatory music) (bright anticipatory music) - So we're almost ready to go.

Let's just do a quick double check.

We have boots and crampons?

Ice axes?

Harness, helmet?

I'm Jessica Baker, I'm a lead guide for Exum so I help train all our new guides and just provide some leadership for our guide staff.

I'm taking up Tait and Luke, who are two locals, and guests with me that are coming up the Grand.

- I'm Tait Bjornsen; I'm 21 years old.

Right now, I go to school at Montana State University up in Bozeman.

But yeah, I grew up in Jackson and I've been playing around in the park my whole life, also.

So it's a very nice playground that we have here, for sure.

- So my name is Luke Landino.

I'm 19 years old.

I'm from Jackson.

I finished high school and currently on a gap year doing some welding and construction in town.

I also try and get up into the mountains every once in a while, but I've never gotten up on the Grand so it should be a good time.

I'm excited to see how it goes.

We've got beautiful weather, got a great crew and yeah, it's gonna be fun.

(bright uplifting music) - We went through the ready part going up the dusty hot switchbacks and now we're up here lounging in the meadows by a nice little creek, getting a refill of water before we head up to the real steep stuff.

Gonna walk up some of these boulder fields up here and then get up onto the lower saddle which is where we'll be camping tonight.

(bright uplifting music) - [Jessica] Tait and Luke wanted to climb the Grand Teton so we took them out for a day of training and made sure they had the right skills that they needed to tie in, to belay, to handle anything we may find on the ground.

- [Tait] It's been pretty snow free up to this point, but moving forward we're probably gonna be throwing some boots on and some crampons on, just to make sure that we're able to grip into the snow a little bit better.

When you get up to the lower saddle.

it's gorgeous up there and it's nice to have a little reset in between days so it'll be nice to get up there and soak it all in.

(ululating piano music) (dramatic music) Definitely slept a little bit, took me a while, but I then I was out pretty hard.

When I woke up this morning, I was like, "How is it three o'clock in the morning?"

But, here we are, getting all geared up.

- [Luke] We're about to get going here.

Feeling pretty good, you know?

Wee bit early but it still looks clear for the time being.

Yeah, gonna go do some climbing.

Stake is high.

(tense music) (tense music) (ice crunching) - Woo hoo!

- Look at that.

- [Jessica] Not half bad.

- [Luke] Not half bad at all.

- [Brenton] People look at the Grand Teton and they don't think they can climb it, but yes, you can hire a guide and climb the Grand Teton.

For anybody that shows up in Jackson Hole that's reasonably fit and active, you don't even have to know how to tie a knot when you get here 'cause of the way Glenn put the schools together and we still carry that same progression today.

- [Tom] I think it's very empowering for a lot of these people.

Like, it can change their lives.

A lot of what you're doing in everyday life, like, you have this job and you're pretty good at it, you've got it wired and it's kind of like doing the same thing, over and over again.

You know, there's nothing mundane about a novice climbing the Grand Teton.

- We're on the Exum Ridge and we're just about halfway, actually, at this point.

We just came up the Double Cracks which is pretty exciting.

Like, crack chimney climbing, nice and steep, a little exposed, and now we're at the base of the famous Friction Pitch.

(pensive music) Well it's notoriously difficult, it's rated five-five but to be honest, it's quite challenging.

You have to have just the right moves to make it five-five, or it quickly becomes feeling, feels a lot harder than that.

(indistinct) belay!

We're moving in and out of like some snow and ice, and boots are a little wet, and it's just like a little bit harder this morning.

Yeah, there guests are doing great.

We're right on time, moving well.

I think we are on course to make it to the summit.

(uplifting music) (uplifting music) Okay, you guys... We're doing it now.

- Oh yeah!

- Whoo!

- [Jessica] Summit!

Yeah, baby.

Stand on up there.

- Right there.

- [Jessica] Whoo!

Yeah!

Awesome, you guys.

- Hell yeah.

- We just got to the top of the Grand Teton and it's just before 11.

Couldn't ask for a more beautiful day.

Blue skies, sun is shining can see the lakes down here, which is awesome.

- Yeah, so this is my first time up The Grand.

I had always heard that it was quite the scramble to get up here but I think these early season conditions really changed it up quite a bit for us.

We were wearing crampons, using ice axes, and didn't really expect to be doing a ton of that.

That made it very interesting.

It was a really great experience.

At least so far; we've only made it to the top, we still have to go back down.

I would definitely do it again and would recommend that anyone who wants to try should give it a go.

- We climbed it in pretty challenging like early season conditions, alpine conditions, and they did really, really well.

They were totally up to the challenge, and they were successful, and it was great to see that.

That's the power of what we do at Exum, is that we provide these inspirational life-changing experiences.

People have to work really hard to get to the top of the Grand Teton.

There's no shortcut around that.

We keep people safe, we give them all sorts of information we help them move along.

Ooh, okay, high five!

Right on.

(palms slap) - Yeah!

- Yeah!

- We did it!

But ultimately, they get themselves up there on their own.

They have to.

When they reach the summit, people are really moved by the experience and that is really... That's what Exum provides.

(soothing music)