Guideless on the Cathedral: Miriam Underhill's 1932 Grand Teton Campaign

The Philosophy of Manless Alpinism

In the golden decade of the 1920s, American mountaineer Miriam O’Brien had already rewritten the ethics of European climbing. Born in Massachusetts and educated at Bryn Mawr, O’Brien had spent seasons scaling classic routes in the Mont Blanc massif and the Swiss Valais. Yet she grew intensely frustrated with the pervasive paternalism of alpine culture.

Whenever a woman climbed a difficult peak behind a professional male guide, the public and the climbing clubs assumed the woman had been physically hauled up the rock like luggage. The guide chose the route, placed the protection, led the crux pitches, and took all critical safety decisions.

To break this patronizing barrier, O’Brien formulated the revolutionary doctrine of manless climbing: all-female, guideless rope teams where women shouldered full responsibility for route-finding, technical leads, and mountain survival. In August 1929, climbing roped with French partner Alice Damesme, O’Brien completed the first all-female ascent of the notoriously difficult Aiguille du Grépon in Chamonix. In August 1932, alongside Micheline Morin, she conquered the historic first all-female traverse of the Matterhorn from Zermatt into Italy.

Shortly after that triumph, Miriam married fellow climbing philosopher Robert L. M. Underhill, a Harvard professor who had studied dynamic belaying in the Dolomites. In late August 1932, the Underhills brought their elite alpine philosophy across the Atlantic to the wilderness of Wyoming’s Teton Range.

The Cathedral Group Beckons

In 1932, Grand Teton National Park was only three years old. Most visiting climbers hired local guides or followed established, fixed cairns. The Underhills, however, arrived with an entirely different ethic: absolute self-reliance, lightweight movement, and equal partnership.

Setting up a base camp beneath the towering cottonwoods of South Jenny Lake, Miriam and Robert sorted their equipment: hemp ropes, steel pitons, and lightweight rucksacks. Looking up into the Cathedral Group—where the jagged spires of Teewinot Mountain, Mount Owen, and the Grand Teton pierced the sky—Miriam planned an audacious traverse of the range’s highest precipices.

Departing before dawn on August 20, 1932, the Underhills moved rapidly up the switchbacks of Garnet Canyon, bypassing the boulderfields of the Platforms to gain the Lower Saddle at 3,535 metres in record time.

Mastery on the Owen-Spalding Route

From the Lower Saddle, the pair scrambled up the Central Gully to the Upper Saddle at 3,990 metres. Miriam tied into the sharp end of the rope to lead several of the exposed west-face sections.

Approaching the Belly Roll, where the granite slab bulged outward over thousands of feet of exposure into Idaho, Miriam slid smoothly onto her stomach, demonstrating flawless balance as she swung her legs out over the void and gained the safety of the shelf beyond. She then led through the cramped tunnel of The Crawl, pulling the rope through with practiced precision.

Arriving at The Wall—the sixty-foot vertical chimney where Franklin Spalding had unlocked the first ascent in 1898—Miriam studied the rock. Eschewing brute force, she applied refined European bridging technique, stemming her boots against opposing crystals and using small side-pulls to climb past the overhanging bulge with effortless grace.

She established a secure body belay on the ledge above, calling down to Robert to follow. Moving in fluid harmony, the couple climbed through the upper chimneys, stepping onto the 4,199-metre summit of the Grand Teton at noon under brilliant sunshine.

A Legacy of Self-Reliance

Rather than lingering on the summit, the Underhills explored adjacent ridge lines and technical variations across the Cathedral Group, documenting route topography and demonstrating that modern alpine style—rapid, lightweight, and guideless—was vastly superior to heavy siege expeditions.

Miriam Underhill’s leadership on the Grand Teton sent shockwaves through American outdoor circles. She proved that technical competence, cool-headed judgment, and high-altitude courage were entirely independent of gender. Her groundbreaking climbs laid the foundation for generations of American women mountaineers who would follow her footsteps into the great ranges of the world.