As the group of 12 women gathered to start their training last month, everyone was nervously looking at the weather forecasts, foretelling rain and possibly snow on the mountain. But they set that worry aside to focus on the tasks at hand: learning how to tie into the harness, using the friction of the rope around their bodies to prevent other climbers from falling, practicing multipitch climbing and utilizing the rope and belay devices to rappel down steep and overhanging cliffs.

The Women’s Climb is a program put on by Exum Mountain Guides, entirely for women and with women guides from Exum and Jackson Hole Mountain Guides. The women in the group ranged in age from 19 to 63, representing six decades. They came from Jackson, Victor, Salt Lake City, Seattle, Indianapolis, Colorado, Maryland and Florida. All had gazed up at the Grand Teton and wondered if they could climb it. Now they were going to find out — if the weather cooperated.

Rucker looks at the summit of the Grand Teton every day. She can see it from her house. On her first attempt, the voice in her head telling her she couldn’t do it was impossible to ignore, and she turned around in the cold dark, exhausted after a poor night of sleep.

Her failure last summer turned into a confidence booster for her this year. She already knew what to expect. She trained smarter. Two summers ago she hiked uphill at the ski resorts, and took gondolas or chairlifts down. This summer, if she hiked up, she hiked down, and carried a heavy pack.

Rucker’s daughter, Mango, trained hard, too, dialing in her climbing skills at a climbing gym and hiking as much as she could. Having to do it all in Maryland made her nervous. “I trained at sea level, so the altitude is a little intimidating,” she said. “But that’ll be OK. … I tell myself I’ve done harder things.”

Rucker and Mango are Army veterans, having served in various locations stateside and abroad. Rucker studied engineering at West Point, spending three of her five years of active duty in Germany. She then took the helm of a private company that made systems for all branches of the military.

After selling the company, Rucker got involved in robotics and artificial intelligence at Carnegie Mellon University and now mentors startup companies. She and her husband raised their five girls in Pittsburgh. When their youngest graduated from high school in 2020, they sold their house and moved to Jackson, an ideal location now that their daughters are spread out from coast to coast. That’s when Rucker’s fascination with the mountain outside her window began.

The women who already had reached the Exum Mountain Guides hut on the Lower Saddle burst into cheers when Rucker and Mango entered it around 6 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 24. A “C-E-L-E-B-R-A-T-E” sign hung from the ceiling, and party hats perched on people’s heads. But the altitude had taken its toll on Mango, and after discussing the situation with her guide, she decided to stay at the hut while the rest of the group attempted the climb the next morning. Mango felt she had pushed herself harder than she thought possible, and she didn’t want to be a distraction to her mother.

After a scant few hours’ sleep, the guides turned on the lights in the hut at 3:30 a.m., and the women groggily got out of their sleeping bags and prepared for the challenge ahead. Helmets and harnesses on, they applied glitter to their faces to keep the party going. The climbers started out in small clusters, two or three per guide. Rucker was near the rear, along with two sisters, one of whom turned back at the same place Rucker had the summer before, also foiled by the altitude.

Other than a few snow flurries — appropriately termed “sky glitter” by one participant — the mountain remained dry but cold. The 10 remaining climbers and five guides made their way up the Owen-Spalding route, avoiding patches of snow and ice. The rising sun was a welcome counterbalance to the wind that whipped past them as they climbed higher and higher.

A friend of Rucker asked her if looking up and seeing how much farther she had to go was daunting, but Rucker said it never even occurred to her. The guides had given her all the skills she needed, and she had done the work to train. She focused on the next step, the next handhold, the next foothold. And all of a sudden, she was there!

Rucker wishes she could bottle the amazing feeling of standing atop the Grand Teton so she could relive the experience of being at 13,770 feet, looking down at her house. Rucker thought to herself, “This is what she sees when she looks down at me,” explaining that the Grand Teton had always been a “she” in her mind.

Rucker brought an American flag to re-create the classic picture of Geraldine Lucas standing on the Grand Teton. Lucas was the second woman to climb the peak in 1924. Rucker’s flag rests now on the bookshelf in her office, properly folded, and every time she sees it she remembers where both she and the flag have been.

Dawn Rucker on top of the Grand Teton, August 2024 (Dawn Rucker collection)

When asked what others might take away from her experience, Rucker said, “All of us underestimate what we can do. But if you decide what you want to do and you train for it, you can do it — at any age!”

Rucker knows that her daughter also pushed herself out of her comfort zone, all the while being super supportive of her mother. And perhaps now, Mango will have her own unfinished business with the Grand Teton.