This story originally appeared in the 2025 Locals’ Guidebook featuring the Best of Jackson Hole. Pick up a copy today!
JACKSON, Wyo. — In the late 1920s, an avid climber named Paul Petzoldt — who had first summited the Grand Teton at age 16 — was leading small groups up the mountain when he realized there was an opportunity to start a business.
“He’d walk around the campgrounds showing paintings of the Tetons with local artist, Archie Teater,” says Kimberly Geil, founder of The Exum History Project. “After people admired the artwork, he’d see if he could talk them into going up the Grand.”
Soon after, Paul met Glen Exum and after climbing together, decided to invite Glen to be his partner in his new guiding service. Thus, Exum Mountain Guides was born and operates today as the oldest alpine guiding service in the United States.
“This is where guiding in America began,” recalls Phil Powers, owner of Jackson Hole Mountain Guides. Founded in 1968, Jackson Hole Mountain Guides is the only other alpine guiding service with permission to operate within Grand Teton National Park.
From river guides to ski instructors, guiding is one of the most popular professions for locals living in the Jackson Hole. But alpine guiding in the Tetons requires a distinct skillset and offers a uniquely demanding experience.
Each summer, in close collaboration with park rangers, the two authorized guiding services shuttle hundreds of guests up the Grand Teton.
Exum employs around 65 guides to keep the operation running smoothly. About half live locally, while others sleep in their vans, and live largely “on the mountain” during the busy summer season. Guides typically lead multiple strenuous climbs per week.
“It’s a very physical job,” says guide Nat Patridge, a longtime guide with Exum. Most summit expeditions take two days and involve over 7,000 vertical feet.
“Guiding is not the most lucrative profession in the world, yet it demands a huge amount of education and devotion to the craft,” says Powers.
However, it’s not all about the physicality.
“Guides know how to manage an ever-present risk of catastrophe in those surroundings,” Patridge says. From avoiding sudden rockfall to dodging lightning storms and avalanches, alpine guides must instantaneously adapt to changes in the environment. That element of risk, he says, is part of what makes guiding in the Tetons so powerful. “You can’t have adventure without risk, and the presence of risk bonds people — with the place and with each other.”
The summit, Patridge adds, is often more than just a physical high point.
“There’s always a deep connection between the guide and their client; they work so hard to reach the top — it’s great to watch that success,” Patrdige says.
Working in such consequential terrain isn’t for the faint of heart, but the reward of a successful trip keeps guides coming back each summer for more trips up the Grand.
Important to note:
The first summit of the Grand Teton remains a hotly contested subject. Officially, the first ascent was established by climbing pair Billy Owen and Rev. Franklin Spalding, who, along with two other climbers, made the first ascent in 1898, establishing the popular “Owen-Spalding” route. Nevertheless, soon after their ascent was officially recorded, mountain explorer Nathanial Langford claimed to have previously climbed the mountain on an expedition in 1872, while Army surgeon Capt. William Kieffer also claimed a prior ascent on a hunting trip in 1893.
Regardless of which expedition officially reached the top first, evidence of Native American climbers from the Shoshone, Blackfeet, Gros Ventre and Crow Tribes is widespread. A famous alpine horseshoe-shaped feature known as the “Enclosure,” believed to have been built by Native American mountaineers, sits at 12,000 feet on the western face of the Grand Teton.
