A View From the Other Side by Michael Pafford

United Airlines Flight #5574 left Little Rock, AR at 9am on Saturday September 12th heading to Denver.  I had flown many times, many different airlines, many different destinations, but this one was special.  I had waited 17 years for this flight.

This trip was hatched when I was 32 years old and still in residency training.  I had big climbing aspirations at that age and spent many down-hours reading about the places I would go.  I can’t remember now where I had read about this place.  Was it in Climbing Magazine or was it on a website?  Either way, The Wind River Range of Wyoming caught my attention and naturally I focused on the Cirque of the Towers. What drew me was the combination of remoteness, granite, and volume of moderate climbs punctuated with sheer exposure.  What other granite cirque can boast two of the 50 Classic Climbs approachable from the same basecamp in addition to another 6 multipitch moderates that dwarf anything I had access to in Arkansas?  I only ever had one true climbing partner, so I told him about the Cirque that same week.  “Mark! This has got to be our next trip!”, I implored while we were road-tripping to Stone Mountain, North Carolina.

But it wasn’t the next trip.  Life is what happens while you are making other plans.  Mark managed to squeeze in much more climbing than I did over the intervening years.  The list of climbing destinations that were now outside my ability started to grow, and I was now asking myself if I’d ever see the Cirque, let alone climb there.

Enter Thomas Gilmore.  Mark new Thomas from some other smaller day trips.  Mark had dropped into Las Vegas a couple years before with only a day to climb and hired Thomas to guide him.  Mark told me about Thomas and that he wanted to guide some longer destination trips.  When I had originally envisioned the Cirque trip, I had not planned on being guided.  Now, 17 years later, I understood that if there was a chance to make this happen, the right guide was the only chance.  Almost like providence, Mark and I had the same break in our schedules, and we started talking seriously about making this happen.  Even as we booked Thomas to guide us, I wasn’t certain what to expect other than Mark, who I trusted implicitly, said this was the guy we had to have.

What you first notice about Thomas is that he is on point, exactly like you need your guide to be.  Within the week of us booking the trip, he had started a text thread for logistics.  Equipment lists, timeline, information about drive times from different airports, links to weather reports, everything you might not have thought of yet, Thomas was already on it.  That carried right on into the trip.  From the parking lot we met the rest of the team he had put together to support us that week.  Every meal was planned down to the calorie and gram.  Pack weights were optimized.  Hiking in was comfortable.  There was lively conversation punctuated by an evening sunlit view of Wolf’s Head and Pingora as we crested into the Cirque.  The entire week was more than I could have ever expected!  The food was incredible the whole week thanks to Stephanie, camp chef.  I climbed the peaks I had waited a lifetime for and we were secure the whole time.  The only disappointment was that it had to end.

What you don’t realize until you have spent some time with Thomas is his kindness.  I have interacted with several climbing guides at this point and have gained a clear understanding of what optimizes my experience.  Sure, your guide must be on point, but that is actually the easier trait for them to learn.  The harder trait for guides to perfect is the ability to understand their client’s position in life and their ability to tailor the interaction with kindness.  I have been with guides who were well intentioned and, in their mind encouraging, but instead what I felt was the void between their ability and mine.  I never felt that climbing with Thomas!  Clearly, he is an amazing climber, but I never felt inferior.  Instead, I felt supported and free to enjoy the trip I had waited 17 years for!

By Michael Pafford

Trip Report from Cirque of the Towers September 2020

If you want to read more about this incredible experience, you can find my Trip Report from the Cirque here.