Paul Petzoldt (January 16, 1908 – October 6, 1999) was an American mountaineer and wilderness educator who established the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) in 1965. While he is most remembered for founding NOLS and for climbing and guiding in Wyoming he also climbed in the Sawtooth Range where he guided the Iowa Mountaineers. On Aug 24, 1947, Paul Petzoldt … Continue reading
There were three writeups for the Splinters from 1948: 1) Ralph Widrig in The Mountaineer (Seattle), Vol. 39, No. 14 (1948), 2) W.V. Graham Mathews in Appalachia, Vol. 47 (1948), and 3) Fred Beckey’s AAJ, Vol. 7, No. 2 (1949). Between the three writeups the following can be derived; a) the Splinter Towers “guard one of the ridges from Mt. Heyburn which … Continue reading
Glissading firm snow and going “way too fast,” I tripped and did a couple of fast-forward somersaults. Rolling out of the second somersault, I planted the pick of my ice axe deep in the snow. It was a perfect “ice axe self-arrest” for about a second–then the axe ripped out of my hands but stayed attached to my wrist. As … Continue reading
This article was published in the April 1967 edition of the long defunct Summit Magazine. Perhaps the most interesting information in the article is the author’s recounting of his interview of early Sawtooth surveyor, Arval Anderson. Summit Magazine published by was founded in November, 1955 by Jene Crenshaw and Helen Kilness. They published the monthly magazine from mid-1955 until 1989 when they … Continue reading
From the Idaho Stateman August 17, 1941. … Continue reading
“Rugged country. Awful rugged country. Miles and miles of sharp jagged pinnacles of firm granite.” A painter-friend of Bob Underhill told him that about Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains in the early 1930s, when Bob was in the Tetons for a few weeks pioneering big new routes on the Grand Teton and other nearby peaks. Although the painter isn’t named, it almost … Continue reading