This is the register from the first ascent of Mount Moran in 1922…
…though not discovered until 1964.
If there is one thing for sure, there is a ton of climbing history here in the Teton Range. Some of it is well known, yet some of it is also lost forever. However, great pains have been taken by Jackson resident Paul Horton and Grand Teton National Park rangers to save some of it for all and future mountaineers to enjoy.
TetonClimbingHistory.com is a simple website that was created by Paul Horton to help document some of that history by copying all of the entries into the summit registers on a majority of the Teton peaks. Paul has been climbing in Wyoming since the 1960 and a member of Jackson Hole Mountain Guides since 1978. Paul’s project started in the 2002 when he started taking photographs of the register entries for history sake, but could really be dated back to 1989 and the first ascent of the Grand Teton.
Pretty interesting to see a party of eleven people (including a 17 year old girl) on the
summit of the Grand Teton, in a snow and lightning storm, all the way back in 1926
I found it very interesting to look back and read some of the entries documented on Teton Summit Registers, and I think for those folks that climbed in the Tetons prior to the removal of the summit registers, it would be cool to be able to go back and see the entries they made, and maybe relive some of the pleasure they had on their climb. Check it out…and feel free to share any of your own thoughts relating to Teton climbing history in the comments section. –Steve
The registers from the 1920s and 1930s, particularly those from the Grand, were the most interesting to me since so many of the climbs were new or significant and so many of the participants became historical figures in one way or another. It was also a time when mountaineering developed rapidly and it’s interesting to see the changes reflected in the register entries.
The project took a lot of time, but I’ve always been fascinated with the mountaineering history of the Tetons so there was far more pleasure than tedium involved in doing it. I hope you enjoy it. –Paul Horton
Please sup.
cool site.
what i am confused about though are the registers from the 90s? Weren’t there registers we were signing on many of these peaks during that decade? my memory might be bad, but i have recollection of their being registeres and paper to write on on those high peaks back then, at least on owen, the grand, nez perce and others in the cathedral group?
Like it states in the post…
“The rangers brought the registers out of the mountains back in the 1970s and 1980s, mainly because it was getting too hard to maintain them with the increasing number of climbers, but perhaps also because of the feeling that the registers were an intrusion in the backcountry.”
While there still are pieces of paper and ‘what not’ left as summit registers to this day, the official ones where removed due to the reasons stated above. Just think how many register pages it would take to record every person that submitted the Middle Teton just this summer. The registers would most likely have to be removed every year (or multiple time per year?) to keep up with growing number of people climbing the more popular peaks. Dig?
I dig. I’d like to hear thoughts on “intursion in the backcountry”. Is this a widely held opinion? We’ve been toying with the idea of maintaining summit registers on a few summits in the Bitteroot Range….not summits that get climbed often, but not summits that one could stand on top of and wonder if they might be the first on top. Just a few select summits that might get climbed a few times a year, if even that often. If lots of folks think it’s an intrusion, I’d like to hear it. I know I have enjoyed reading and signing the summit registers in the Wind Rivers.
Norman Clyde in tha House! đŸ™‚
Pretty cool that Norman was up there with 10 others.
I sort of dig, but that heavy use reality only holds true for a couple of the major peaks. Lesser peaks to this day still have very little use per year. how many people do you think summited rock of ages this summer? and that is close and easily accessible.
Registers made sense when there was no other reliable, easily accessible way to track which peaks have been summitted. Get to the top of a peak a hundred years ago and if there was no cairn or note or register, there’s a good chance you were the first, and you might make a cairn or leave a note to indicate that.
Now, just go home and check the internet. If you were the first, then post it to one if any number of websites.
For peaks that have already been summitted, who cares that you were up there also? Unless they were the first, I don’t give a rat’s ass about who’s been on rock of ages this year. Put that on your Facebook page. Put it on your blog. Don’t leave a sign on top of the mountain.
I’m glad that they’ve taken the registers down.
Great feedback. Thanks, Tony.
I’d kinda have to agree with Tony on this one. Yeah…registers are fun to read…on some peaks. But I’m not sure I’d like the idea of some PVC canister on top of every peak in the Tetons. And really…what’s the point of tracking every summitter on Rock of Ages? It’s more beneficial from a historical stand point for the earlier mountaineers.
Norman Clyde was a bad motha. There are registers all over the Sierra where he signed in with three or four girls, sometimes in Winter.
Bad ass winter comfort? He pulled a sled in the winter with a canvas tent including a pot bellied stove!