He brought ice climbing to the first Winter X Games in Big Bear, Calif., in 1997. To do that, he envisioned and helped design a man-made refrigerated ice tower to make the event possible in California's 60-degree temperatures.

With his climbing days behind him, he is still immersed in the world of climbing. He has returned to Ogden, where, in the city's employ, he has thrown himself headlong into bringing the sport to others with an almost religious zeal.

A climbing purist

In returning to Ogden, Lowe has come full circle. He grew up here, one of eight children born to Ralph and Elgene. An avid climber, Ralph taught his children early to climb and ski. Jeff was skiing at age 4 and was making technical rope climbs in the Tetons with his father at 6.

At Ogden High School, Jeff competed on the school wrestling and gymnastic teams, placing second in the state championships on the trampoline. But his real love was in the mountains.

"It was just being outdoors," Lowe says. "I spent my life there."

As soon as he graduated from high school, he moved to California to attend school and climb, not necessarily in that order. He dropped out of school and moved to Colorado to pursue his sport full time, and during the next 30 years he climbed, guided, instructed, designed gear and clothing, lectured, wrote and opened an international climbing school.

From the beginning, he was a climbing purist. Traditional climbing expeditions consist of large groups of climbers, with a guide to prepare the way with fixed ropes from the bottom to the top of the mountain, following the easiest routes and often augmented with bottled oxygen.

"It's not very sporting," Lowe says. "And it allows unskilled people to get up there who shouldn't be up there. That's where you get into trouble."

Lowe believes in fast, light climbing — one or two climbers, possibly three, each carrying everything he needs on his back; no fixed ropes or established camps; camping on the face of the mountain; no oxygen; the most technically challenging routes, often ones that have never been attempted; the use of only one or two ropes.

Essentially, the two or three climbers play leapfrog up the mountain. The first climber free climbs 10 feet to anchor a rope in the rock, the next climber follows and sets the next rope 10 feet higher and so forth. If the first climber loses his grip, he falls 20 to 30 feet before the rope brings him to a complete stop.

It's slow and physically and mentally demanding work.