Rick Reese

Rick Reese was an environmental activist and alpinist, born in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1942, who founded the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He became interested in climbing after seeing the film The Conquest of Everest in 1954, and in 1959 he and friends became the youngest unguided group to summit Mount Rainier. He climbed widely in the Wasatch Range and gained a reputation as a skilled alpinist, worked as a Climbing Ranger at Jenny Lake in Grand Teton National Park in the 1960s, and in 1967 took part in the North Face rescue on the Grand Teton that is recounted in the documentary The Grand Rescue. Later he continued climbing and rescue work in Montana and went on to a career in conservation and university administration, retiring in 2003.