water and control the Snake River for irrigation in Idaho. The Teton country’s lake and pond environment has benefited moose and ducks the most, but nearly all park denizens—vacationing _Homo sapiens_ included—appreciate this aquatic resource. One species, the beaver, extends its appreciation by creating more ponds. Once nearly exterminated during the trapper’s era, beaver are now abundant here. Mountain Climbing [Illustration: Mountain climber.] [Illustration: The Tetons offer the adventurous some of North America’s most superb mountain climbing. The rock is very hard and mostly free of slides. Cracks and ledges abound for hand and foot holds. The mountains, rising sharply from the valley floor, are unusually accessible. No expedition is required just to reach the peak. All Teton peaks and spires have already been climbed. Many have been climbed by several routes. Together they offer an exceptional range of climbing difficulty, from a stiff uphill walk with little hand and foot work to technical climbs that challenge most experienced alpinists. Atop the 4,200-meter (13,770-foot) summit of the Grand Teton you stand taller than anything nearby. (A climbing permit is required. See “Mountaineering” in Part 3.)] [Illustration: _This print, adapted from Leigh Ortenburger’s 1956 A Climber’s Guide to the Teton Range, shows the Grand Teton from the northeast. The four climbing routes indicated, and their first-ascent dates, are:_ 1 _East Ridge (1929)_, 2 _Northeast Couloir (1939)_, 3 _North Face (1936), and_ 4 _North Ridge (1931)_. _First climbed (officially) in 1898, the Grand was not climbed again until 1923. Since then, however, it has been one of the country’s most popular peaks._] [Illustration: The first ascent by a Jackson Hole woman, Geraldine Lucas, aged 59, is shown here in her triumphant moment in 1924. Officially, the first party to climb the Grand Teton was the W. O. Owen party in 1898, although Hayden Survey members James Stevenson and Nathaniel Langford said they climbed it in 1872. Owen carried on a 30-year war to have history rewritten his way. He finally won—by act of the Wyoming legislature in 1929. Even a member of Owen’s party thought Stevenson and Langford had climbed it. And among Owen’s papers at his death was an 1899 letter, with route map, from a man who evidently climbed the Grand in 1893 with two soldiers. The man was not interested in particular credit for it.] The Mountain World