Teton mountain guide and avalanche expert Rod Newcomb, who climbed the Grand Teton more than 400 times in a 48-year career, died in Jackson on Thursday at the age of 91.
A family member said Newcomb, former co-owner of Exum Mountain Guides, died of natural causes surrounded by family.
Newcomb first came to Jackson Hole as a teenager in 1953, leaving his family’s citrus nursery in California’s Coachella Valley for a seasonal food-service job in Grand Teton National Park.
In 1954, his second summer in Jackson Hole, the plucky youngster made his first ascent of the 13,775-foot high Grand Teton, an undertaking he would repeat again and again. By the end of his mountain-guiding career, Newcomb could only guess how many times he had been atop the peak.
“He was never sure,” his son, Mark, said Thursday. The two estimated the lifelong count based on Newcomb’s decades of guiding.
“It was more than 400,” Mark Newcomb said.
“He devoted his career to giving people the tools they could use to build whatever they wanted out of their lives.”
Mark Newcomb
Rod Newcomb moved to Jackson just as Jackson Hole was evolving from a cow, dude and tourist town on Yellowstone National Park’s doorstep to an international resort. Working first as a ski patroller in the winter and climbing guide in the summer, he founded the American Avalanche Institute in 1974, an organization that’s educated some 30,000 people.
Newcomb taught others how to climb, ski safely, guide others in the hills and forecast avalanche danger. The lessons he imparted were about more than the mountains.
“He devoted his career to giving people the tools they could use to build whatever they wanted out of their lives,” Mark Newcomb, chair of the Teton County board of commissioners, said.
“If you look at all of his summits — hundreds, if not thousands — the vast majority weren’t for him. They were for the people he was giving those tools to.”
Kept coming back
Born in May 1934, Rod Newcomb spent a couple of years of college and two years in the Army before settling in Wyoming. His folks hooked him up for summer work with a manager for the Grand Teton Lodge Company. His first season in Jackson Hole in 1953 hooked him.
“I just sort of kept coming back,” he said in a recent interview. “I was really attracted to the country. This was the place for me.”
He first wintered in the Jackson Hole valley in 1959, a time when there was, as he put it, “no winter economy.”
“Once the summer tourists left, the motel owners and café owners would get together and decide who would stay open over the winter,” Newcomb said, “and everybody else would take off.”
Jackson was “a poor little mountain village,” he recalled. Neil Rafferty was losing money running the double chairlift in the winter at Snow King Mountain, keeping it open for the locals on his summer tourist profits.
Newcomb began working for climbing guide Glenn Exum in 1963. It was the year Newcomb and other Teton climbers made their mark by pioneering a route up Denali’s East Buttress in Alaska.
Around that time he met his wife, Anne, who had been in college in Pennsylvania where she said a counselor told her of a mountain town in Wyoming “where the streets aren’t even paved.” They brought their first daughter, Lisa, home to Newcomb’s guide service summer wall tent near Jenny Lake.
The development of the Jackson Hole Ski Area, now Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, in 1964 was “the beginning of the evolution,” he said of Teton County’s change. The ski area’s European style aerial tram swung over steep cliffs and chutes — high-danger avalanche country — and the fledgling resort needed workers. Olympic gold medalist Pepi Stiegler hired fellow Austrians for his budding ski school; Newcomb signed on to the ski patrol.
After six years, Newcomb moved to a Bureau of Reclamation cloud seeding project in Colorado, designed to increase runoff from the San Juan Mountains. Snow and avalanche awareness was part of the undertaking.
Cloud seeding works, he said “but it’s not a viable way to suck water out of the clouds.” The project folded.
There was only one avalanche school in the country at the time and Newcomb thought it was inadequate for the legions who were beginning to tour into the backcountry. He began teaching snow safety and avalanche awareness in 1974 through his new avalanche institute, which he ran for 30 years.
He became a co-owner of Exum Mountain Guides in 1978. Newcomb celebrated his 55th season in the Tetons in 2009, climbing the Grand with son Mark in a day. He was 75.
Newcomb is survived by his wife, Anne, daughters Lisa and Maria, son Mark and four grandchildren.
What a nice article, Angus. I took an avalanche course from Rod decades ago. He was a first-rate teacher, and the course changed the way I’ve looked at landscapes and thought about the world ever since. Rod could explain it all, from why snow falls as it does, to how it changes after it’s fallen, to how much we can really know compared to how much we can only guess. I clearly remember two seemingly-trivial things he said when we skied off Teton Pass. At the top of Glory Bowl, Rod lobbed a charge onto the snow below us. Nothing moved. He asked us, “What do we know from that?” He waited as several of us mumbled some answers, and when we’d run down, he said, “We know that a 2-pound charge, exploding on that spot, did not trigger an avalanche.” As a mediocre skier, I waited at the top for the real skiers to do ski-tests down the Bowl, until Rod and I were the only ones left. I asked him, “Do we now ski it with reckless abandon?” He said, matter-of-factly, “I don’t ski anything with reckless abandon.” He obviously had seen and thought about a lot of things, and was well worth listening to.
Another fine tribute piece to a local Wyoming legend. Thanks, Angus.
I have known Newcomb, as he referred to himself, since I was a small child. I recall his wedding on Jackson Lake in the early 60’s. He let me sit in on an AAI workshop in 1978. I have worked in snow-related fields since then, approaching 50 years. No single person has had such an important and long-lasting effect on my life.
He was a straight shooter. I have never known anyone with less tolerance for bullshit. My favorite things about Newcomb were his unquenchable curiosity and humility. He was the ultimate lifelong learner.
Peace to his wonderful Annie and family.
RIP Rod Newcomb!
Our valley has lost a legend. In 1976, Helen and I wanted to add a challenging rock climbing experience to our fledgeling Wilderness Adventures (formally Wilderness Ventures) program for young adults, so we booked our first Grand Teton climb. Rod was one of our first Exum leaders that summer and he quickly became a group favorite. He loved working with young people and regularly assigned himself to one or more of our groups every summer. He loved to teach and had amazing patience, while working with 15-18 year olds. For forty-five years, Rod led hundreds of our students and staff to the summit of the Grand and made a profound difference in their lives.
One summer, Rod called me and said “let’s go up the Grand”, so I dropped everything. During those two days, I immediately saw what our staff had been telling me about his quiet, thoughtful and enthusiastic demeanor. He was a great leader and will be sorely missed.
Rod guided my father, who first climbed the Grand with Glenn Exum in 1953, myself, and my brother on my first ascent of the Grand in 1968. He probably saved my life by yelling “rock”just before a large falling rock hit the top of my pack. He was a wonderful man and a true ambassador for JH and the Teton range. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family.