Who are Wyoming Mountain Guides?
We are a boutique climbing guide service operating across the state of Wyoming, USA. We guide rock, ice, and alpine climbing programs in some of the best climbing venues in the western US including Ten Sleep Canyon, Vedauwoo, Devils Tower, the South Fork of the Shoshone River, the Wind River Mountains and many others. Our guides are professional instructors as well as talented climbing athletes who are at the forefront of local climbing development in many of these areas.
Our mission
Our mission is to make climbing in Wyoming more sustainable. Our aim is not simply to capitalize on the growing popularity of climbing in Wyoming, but to provide much needed instruction for a growing number of new climbers visiting these areas. Our guides keep people safe, set an example of stewardship, and help preserve these invaluable resources through direct cooperation with land managers.
We also mean sustainability in the sense of making climbing more beneficial to the local community. We work to improve relations between traveling climbers and the local community by increasing the economic payout of destination tourism (for every dollar spent on a guiding service, four dollars are spent other services), making climbing in Wyoming more family friendly, and helping more locals get exposed to climbing.
What sets us apart?
1) Our location
Our biggest selling point is the place itself. There aren’t many other areas in the world that have desert voodoos, dozens of limestone canyons, and pristine alpine wilderness all within a few miles of each other. Our aim is to promote these wildlands of Wyoming by helping people explore our state’s world class rock, ice, and alpine climbing.
2) Our service
We guide a wide variety of custom climbing trips on rock, ice, and alpine objectives, in addition to our youth and community programs. We teach lessons on safety systems, specialized climbing techniques, and climbing movement. We also offer hands-on, place-based lessons on each of these climbing areas’ unique geology, ecology, archaeology, and history.
3) Our stewardship
What sets us apart from other guide services is our emphasis on stewardship. We think of stewardship as having two major components: education and engagement:
- Education – For us, climbing is not just an adventure; it’s a great way to explore the natural environment and history of the places we climb. We place a lot of emphasis on place-based education in our guiding curriculum and we also believe climbers have a responsibility to help preserve and protect these wildlands of Wyoming. We teach our clients the principles and practices of “Beyond Leave No Trace” and “Beyond Clean Climbing.”
- Engagement – In order to be good stewards of the land, we have to develop good relationships with land managers. We think of the permitting process as less of a regulatory burden and more of a working partnership, where businesses like ours work directly with regulators to help achieve a productive balance between keeping public lands in public hands while also opening up new opportunities for small businesses to help bolster the local economy.
Our team
Our guides are professional climbing instructors, wilderness first responders, and experienced all-mountain climbers that teach people of all ability levels to climb smoothly, safely, and sustainably. When it comes to hiring, our aim is not just to seek out top climbing and guiding talent. Just as important is building our team of Wyoming-based guides who care deeply about the place, the people that live here, and are invested socially in the communities where they work. Our guides are the most valuable part of this organization and we are very lucky to have these great humans working for us.
Shane enjoying a summer sunset on Devils Tower after guiding El Cracko Diablo (5.8)
Shane Miller
Assistant Rock Climbing Guide
Certifications: PCGI Lead Guide, Wilderness First Responder
Guiding philosophy: “When taking out someone new it is exciting for me to relive my first moments climbing. During my first experiences climbing I was terrified and horrible at moving over the rock. What appealed to me about climbing was that, if you mastered safety systems and exercised good judgment, then you could overcome psychological and physical barriers in a safe, controlled, and incredible environment. Guiding is an opportunity to share that experience and philosophy of climbing with other people. It is, above all, keeping clients safe and exercising sound judgment, so that they can explore those personal boundaries and grow as individuals.
Outdoor education is essential in understanding our positions in the world as individuals, social beings, and ecological beings. Educating people outdoors provides opportunities for exploring one’s boundaries and passions. The outdoors is a place that invites self-development through challenges, explorations, and meditation. Visiting and learning about places off the beaten track recontextualizes the social role of cities and city life. It invites us to contemplate the history of settlement and the demands that cities place on the natural world. Spending time outdoors and learning about the ecological relationships of specific locations invites us to contemplate our role as animals in the natural world. When we learn about people who lived on the very same land, but under different ecological relationships, it relativizes our own social organizations. This fundamental lesson may lead to establishing more wholesome relationships with nature.”
Slim teaching proper knot-tying technique during our Vedauwoo Youth Climbing Camp
Chris “Slim” Murray
Assistant Rock Climbing Guide
Certifications: PCGI Lead Guide, Wilderness First Aid
Guiding philosophy: “
I love the act of imparting my knowledge to someone in a way that they are able to understand. I know that sounds weird but it is my favorite thing about teaching someone how to climb. The challenge with teaching for me is being able to be dynamic enough to be able to teach all different sorts of people. Of being able to recognize how the individual best learns and then being able to respond well enough to teach them to the best of my ability. I especially love teaching crack climbing because of the technique needed. It is not just simply grab a hold and pull hard, it is about how to best and most efficiently fill the space in the crack and then also how best to place protection. Vedauwoo cracks are so nuanced, even in lower grade numbers, that it provides an ideal learning space for an aspiring crack climber and that gets me excited.”
Zayne Hebbler guiding Too Cold To Fire (WI4) in the South Fork
Zayne Hebbler
Assistant Rock and Ice Climbing Guide
Certifications: PCGI Lead Guide, Wilderness First Responder, AIARE I & II
Guiding philosophy: “Unlike some aspects of the world, rocks do not see race, gender, ethnicity, religion etc. I enjoy how rock climbing can be a place and home to any and all people if we support a comforting and inclusive environment. Additionally, rock climbing is just fun. The unique position and movement of the sport can spark the joy of a child into anyone… I have a deep sense of gratitude for the people who took me under their wing and feel a duty to share these experiences to others. Bringing people into the outdoors gives me an opportunity to share some of my favorite places and watch as new eyes come to see the beauty in what makes that environment so special. Landscapes like this today are in dire need of activists and supporters, and I see no better way to cultivate these people than through outdoor recreation.”
Zach Lentsch approaching Finger on the Trigger (WI5+) while guiding ice climbing in the North Fork
Zach Lentsch
Lead Guide & Owner
Certifications: PCGI Lead Guide, Wilderness First Responder
Guiding philosophy: “I learned to climb in Wyoming so I can’t think of any better place to help others learn. Guiding for me is all about getting to relive those first feelings of wonder through other people’s experiences, whether it’s their first knot or first free ascent. My hope is to make climbing more accessible for folks from all walks of life and inspire the next generation of skilled and conscientious climbers.”
Dane guiding the Wig (WI5) on Carter Mountain
Dane Steadman
Assistant Rock and Ice Climbing Guide
Certifications: AMGA Apprentice Rock Guide, AMGA SPI, Wilderness First Responder, AIARE I
Guiding philosophy: “Years ago, before I found climbing, I lacked confidence and purpose, but climbing gave me those, and so much more. Climbing opened up a whole new world of beautiful mountain terrain, and helped me begin to feel and understand the power of mountains and wild spaces. Climbing, and the places in which I climb, have given me so much, and I want to share climbing with many other people in my lifetime in the hope that they, too, will experience at least some of the benefits and joy that it has brought me. Also, I hope that by exposing more people to climbing and mountains, that will instill in them more of an appreciation and respect for wilderness, and in turn lead them to value it, respect it, and stand up for it in their own lives.”
