Over three months this winter, The TCC held three episodes of its Winter Speaker Series, which was designed to provide the Teton climbing community a chance to “gather” in the midst of the pandemic.
On January 21, Carlos Carsolio, the first North American to climb all 14 8000-meter peaks, shared his adventures on the highest mountains in the world. The recording of his presentation, which begins at Minute 49, may be found here.
On Feb. 18, George Lowe, Michael Kennedy and Michael Gardner made a blended presentation of climbing one of the great lines in world mountaineering: Alaska’s Infinite Spur. Their presentation, which begins at Minute 43, may be found here.
On Thursday, March 11, Babsi Zangerl and Jacopo Larcher recounted their efforts to free climb the Eiger’s hardest route, the 33-pitch, 5.13c Odyssee—in a day. Their presentation, which begins around Minute 18, may be found here.
The series was sponsored by the Hatchet Resort, Black Diamond, Teton Mountaineering, Skinny Skis, Alpinist Magazine, Arc’Teryx, Access Fund, and The American Alpine Club, in collaboration with Coombs Outdoors and the Jackson Hole High School Mountaineering Club.
We are particularly indebted to Heather Distad, the Events and Outreach Manager for Access Fund, who helped us run the speaker series, which we did on the Access Fund zoom account. We honestly couldn’t have done this without her help. And the Access Fund has been critical to our launch as a local climbing org. In addition to helping us with our stewardship project on Rodeo Wall last summer, they’ve been an incredible resource and assistance to us as we’ve gotten off the ground.
If you’re not a member yet of the Access Fund, we’d encourage you to join. If you’re here in the Teton area, $15 of your membership will go directly to the TCC. Since we don’t have any money, that would be wonderfully helpful.