Greetings from Grand Teton National Park

It’s September 1986. I’m walking toward the Ranger Station in Grand Teton National Park beside a small elderly man. Osteoporosis has bent him into shrimp-shape. He takes determined steps, one hand on a cane, one arm through mine. But through his body may be frail, his mind is robust. His deepset blue eyes are alight and alive with excitement. He is coming home.

His name is Fritiof Fryxell. He was the first Park Ranger/Naturalist at Grand Teton.

He asked me to write a foreword to the seventh edition of his book THE TETONS: INTERPRETATIONS OF A MOUNTAIN LANDSCAPE and so he shared many of his memories from those early days in the late 1920s and 1930s. How he first came to study the Teton Range for his doctorate in geology. How he quickly realized that to know the mountains, to learn their scientific and spiritual secrets, you must go to them. How he took up mountain-climbing, initially with no equipment but a rope and a pick and oversized boots with spikes driven in by the shoemaker in Jackson Hole. He climbed most of the peaks in the Teton range, many as first ascents, and traversed most of the canyons. And then named many of these features: Nez Perce, Lake Solitude, The Cathedral Group–just a few.

And he shared memories of his Ranger/Naturalist duties, which he undertook each summer for a decade, as soon as his teaching responsibilities at Augustana College in Illinois ended for the year. How he explained the geology of the park to visitors who’d gather around campfires in the chill of the night, the big stars clear above. How he assisted in trail planning, advised climbers on routes, helped douse forest fires, placed climbing registers on peaks, assembled a park museum.

But most of all, he shared the wonder of being in the park, and of what parks can give the human mind and spirit: watching dawn come from the top of a mountain, or sun set on the peaks in gold, or moonlight erase the austerity of the mountain faces, infusing them with silver tenderness and mystery.

As Dr. Fryxell walks through the door of the Ranger Station that September day, the assembled staff gives him a standing ovation. Sudden tears stand in his eyes. He has come home.

Sincerely,
Ann