Editing Grand Teton National Park (section)

===History of mountaineering===
[[File:Shive Spalding and Petersen on top of Grand Teton 1898.jpg|thumb|right|In this image taken by William O. Owen in 1898, his climbing partners John Shive, Franklin Spalding, and Frank Petersen are depicted on top of Grand Teton.]]
During the last 25&nbsp;years of the 19th century, the mountains of the Teton Range became a focal point for explorers wanting to claim the first ascents of the peaks. However, white explorers may not have been the first to climb many of the peaks and the earliest first ascent of even the formidable Grand Teton itself might have been achieved long before written history documented it. Native American relics remain including ''The Enclosure'', a human-made structure that is located about {{convert|530|ft|abbr=on}} below the summit of Grand Teton at a point near the Upper Saddle ({{convert|13160|ft|abbr=on}}).<ref name="rossiter2">{{cite book|last=Rossiter|first=Richard|title=Teton Classics: 50 Selected Climbs in Grand Teton National Park|date=January 1, 1994|publisher=Falcon Guides|isbn=978-0-934641-71-5|edition=2nd|page=30}}</ref><ref name="bonney">{{cite book|last=Bonney|first=Orrin H.|title=The Grand Controversy|date=May 2000|publisher=American Alpine Club|isbn=978-0-930410-45-2|author2=Lorraine G. Bonney|page=11}}</ref> [[Nathaniel P. Langford]] and James Stevenson, both members of the Hayden Geological Survey of 1872, found The Enclosure during their early attempt to summit Grand Teton. Langford claimed that he and Stevenson climbed Grand Teton, but were vague as to whether they had made it to the summit. Their reported obstacles and sightings were never corroborated by later parties. Langford and Stevenson likely did not get much further than The Enclosure.<ref name=jackson/> The first ascent of Grand Teton that is substantiated was made by [[William O. Owen]], Frank Petersen, John Shive and [[Franklin Spencer Spalding]] on August 11, 1898.<ref name=rossiter2/> Owen had made two previous attempts on the peak and after publishing several accounts of this first ascent, discredited any claim that Langford and Stevenson had ever reached beyond The Enclosure in 1872. The disagreement over which party first reached the top of Grand Teton may be the greatest controversy in the history of American mountaineering.<ref name=jackson/> After 1898 no other ascents of Grand Teton were recorded until 1923.<ref name="ortenburger">{{cite book|last=Ortenburger|first=Leigh N.|title=A climber's guide to the Teton Range|date=Nov 1, 1996|publisher=Mountaineers Books|isbn=978-0-89886-480-9|page=30|author2=Reynold G. Jackson}}</ref>

By the mid-1930s, more than a dozen different climbing routes had been established on Grand Teton including the northeast ridge in 1931 by [[Glenn Exum]]. Glenn Exum teamed up with another noted climber named [[Paul Petzoldt]] to found the [[Exum Mountain Guides]] in 1931.<ref>{{cite book|last=Martin|first=Bruce|title=Outdoor leadership: theory and practice|date=January 10, 2006|publisher=Human Kinetics|isbn=978-0-7360-5731-8|page=16}}</ref> Of the other major peaks on the Teton Range, all were climbed by the late 1930s including Mount Moran in 1922 and Mount Owen in 1930 by [[Fritiof Fryxell]] and others after numerous previous attempts had failed.<ref name=ortenburger/> Both [[Middle Teton|Middle]] and [[South Teton]] were first climbed on the same day, August 29, 1923, by a group of climbers led by [[Albert R. Ellingwood]].<ref name=ortenburger/> New routes on the peaks were explored as safety equipment and skills improved and eventually climbs rated at above 5.9 on the [[Yosemite Decimal System]] difficulty scale were established on Grand Teton. The classic climb following the route first pioneered by Owen, known as the [[Owen-Spalding route]], is rated at 5.4 due to a combination of concerns beyond the gradient alone.<ref name=jackson/> [[Rock climbing]] and [[bouldering]] had become popular in the park by the mid 20th century. In the late 1950s, gymnast [[John Gill (climber)|John Gill]] came to the park and started climbing large boulders near [[Jenny Lake]]. Gill approached climbing from a gymnastics perspective and while in the Tetons became the first known climber in history to use gymnastic chalk to improve handholds and to keep hands dry while climbing.<ref>{{cite book|last=Sherman|first=John|title=Stone Crusade: A Historical Guide to Bouldering in America|year=1994|publisher=Mountaineers Books|isbn=978-0-930410-62-9|page=3}}</ref> During the latter decades of the 20th century, extremely difficult cliffs were explored including some in Death Canyon, and by the mid-1990s, 800 different climbing routes had been documented for the various peaks and canyon cliffs.<ref name="jackson" /><ref name="routes">{{cite book|last=Ortenburger|first=Leigh N.|title=A climber's guide to the Teton Range|date=Nov 1, 1996|publisher=Mountaineers Books|isbn=978-0-89886-480-9|pages=18 and 418|author2=Reynold G. Jackson}}</ref>