The House of Rock: Exum Mountain Guides

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Outside Magazine April 2004

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The House of Rock (cont.)


	From left: Chris Morris walking "The Horse," a knife edge on the Exum route; and belaying a client (Kurt Markus)

BY SEPTEMBER 10, snow is already returning to the high country and Exum's summer season is drawing to a close. By now, most of the cabins at Guides' Hill have emptied out and the occupants have begun their autumn migrations to places like Patagonia, the Alps, Africa, and Park City, Utah. For some, the departure came earlier than they had hoped. Halfway through the summer, a guide who had been on the apprentice track for several years was asked to leave.

"He was very, very good with people, but it takes more than that to survive the process here," says Peter Lev. "He just wasn't quite as switched on as he needed to be. He didn't have that quality of having eyes in the back of his head."

Today, six of the seven owners—Lev, Al and Susan Read, Rod and Mark Newcomb, and Cindy Hargis (Tom Hargis is away teaching a clinic)—gather at a bed-and-breakfast in downtown Jackson to decide the fate of the rookies and a handful of "overflow" guides, recruits who are still in their first few seasons and haven't yet transcended evaluation. I've been permitted to sit in on this meeting on the condition that some names and details not be revealed. The pace is brisk, the tone serious, with none of the joking that lightens most Exum get-togethers.

Read, who has brought along the written appraisals from the senior guides, opens the meeting without any preamble, launching right into a pull-no-punches appraisal of the guides on his list. The meeting goes smoothly, with the others occasionally voicing their own opinions in terse one-word summaries: Solid. First-class. Keeper. Superstrong.

The group hangs up on only one young guide, who handles clients well but who, according to one senior guide, hasn't been paying sufficient attention to safety issues. It's a classic case of questionable vibes.

"We have this problem," Read says, turning to me. "One of the senior guides doesn't like one of the new guides."

Then, back to the group: "OK, now we have this case of [the disputed candidate]," says Read, "and needless to say, the senior guides wrote a lot about him."

Peter Lev: "I simply can't understand or accept it. I don't buy it for a minute. This is an example of extreme unfairness."

Cindy Hargis: "He's still not anyone's best friend, but he's a good, strong, hardworking guide." Peter Lev: "He is also a very solid, safe climber, very strong, very attentive in all possible ways."

Rod Newcomb: "What did the report say?"

Al Read, reciting from the senior guides' report: " 'Needs procedural review. Personality versus trust, judgment, and safety.' But he seems fine to me, too."

"You know," says Mark Newcomb, "it might be the case that he just has to learn a few things about where to belay and methods for handling four people. It does happen a lot with overflow guides, who learn a thing but then it will be two weeks or more before they actually get that assignment that puts them on the Grand. Maybe that's the case here, and if so, I don't think that's a reason not to invite him back. I remember that I screwed up a lot in my first few years."

The group consents to ask this guide back, on the condition that he is earmarked for intensive observation next year. If he fails to improve, it will almost certainly be his last summer at Exum.

They march through the rest of the names, including Morris's fellow rookie, Susan Detweiler, approving each of them for return invites without much discussion. "OK," concludes Read, "that's all we have to say about guides."

The only odd thing is that Morris hasn't been mentioned. After the meeting, Read explains the exception: Just before Morris took the Procknows and me up the Grand, he was called into the Exum office and told that if he was interested in coming back next summer, he'd be welcome.

The early nod signaled how impressed the old pros were with the rookie. It was a moment that must have ranked as a high point in his career. But I can't really say. In all the hours that we spent together, Morris never said a word.

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