Hello All,

A colleague and I are thinking about a guided climb up on the Grand in summer 2013 with Exum Guides- one day of multi-pitch training refresher with them, and then their guided climb up and down. Everything I can find online is nothing but positive with reviews for Exum, their people, and their history. But I wanted to see if anyone here had anything to say about them as well.

Thanks so much!

Exum is a great guiding service. They're really hands on and know their stuff. Used them a few years back. The Grand is a awesome climb!

Best of luck,
Dalton

summitfever1990 wrote:Exum is a great guiding service. They're really hands on and know their stuff. Used them a few years back. The Grand is a awesome climb!

Agreed. I've climbed with a half-dozen different Exum guides on shorter and long, rock and snow. From your personal page it seems you may not have experience with roped climbing, in which case the normal two-day prep for the Grand may be a real benefit. Depending upon weather, number of folk on the route chosen, etc., you may be in a position to let your guide know your own preferences if there are discretionary options--e.g. a more rapid or more leisurely ascent, minor variations (I'm presuming the Upper Exum, but same holds for the O-S), and whatnot (though some guides may not take kindly what sounds like an expectation rather than a query). I had the good fortune to get led over the horseback ridge on approach to the summit, a pure joy and nice capstone.

FWIW,
Both Exum Guides and Jackson Hole Mountain Guides (JHMG) are excellent companies with excellent guides. I don't think you can go wrong choosing one over the other. However, if you have a very specific route that you want to climb guided, you may have slight restrictions.
If I remember correctly (and I could be wrong here), I thought that Exum and JHMG had negotiated which company would guide a couple of the popular routes during the peak summer climbing season on The Grand. That is, I thought that Exum guided the true/original Owen Spaulding (OS) and JHMG did a variation of the OS until the beginning of September. Also, the JHMG camp is located lower down from the saddle (If I remember correctly it was about a 20 minute hike to the saddle) on the standard/OS route. Exum has their camp right on the saddle, so you start a little higher. In the scheme of things the guide camp location matters little I admit. If your exact route is a concern, I would double check with the guide service. Any route on The Grand is awesome. Even the dog route is a fantastic alpine rock climb. To paraphrase Libeki: life is short, the time is now.

I climbed the Grand via the Upper Exum with EMG. Super solid folks. We had three different guides over four days and they were all world class climbers (piolet d or, sponsors, first ascents in Nepal, AK, Tetons, etc) and very good people. That was half the fun, just chatting with the guides about climbing.

I recommend them 100%.

Both companies are indeed great groups of people. I would try and pick the least crowded dates you can. I'm a bit surprised that after the 2010 lightning debacle that they haven't restricted the number of people on the mountain more.

Thanks all, guidance and words are much appreciated.

We're trying to decide between Grand Teton and maybe the Mountaineers Route on Whitney- I know they are two completely different animals, but each has a particular sway for us.

I can certainly recommend Exum after my "Grand" climb with them last August. I also climbed with them on another Teton peak in September.
I plan on climbing with them again soon, if that says anything!