Community Highlights: Meet Jeffrey Mascaro of Smile Mountain Guides

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jeffrey Mascaro.

Hi Jeffrey, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Hi and thanks, I’m a local business founder, owner, and climbing guide based in the front range of Colorado. The path to where I am is an adventurous one but here it is!

I found both love and appreciation for the mountains- in the mountains, being a part of, and working trips for teams in the Ecuadorean Andes. Those trips taught me many lessons about what perseverance means for success and how true passion feels in the pursuit of lofty goals.

Dizzying altitudes, numbing cold, suffering. “The mountains teach us lessons about ourselves”, and they pose real risks and hardships along the way. In these environments, finding a balance of practice, failure, reflection, and growth leads us deeper into ourselves. It’s what many alpinists seek- yet struggle to verbalize.

Several journeys to South America, a home away from home, have brought several teams and me to this point, but it’s important and builds on the reasons I am here now with Smile. Fighting altitude sickness on Alpaymayo, theft on Cotopaxi, a stomach bacteria in the Quilcayhuanca. Setbacks, maybe- but with the right partners, whose collective mission is seen as greater than themselves, these were more an opportunity to find a sense of partnership and ways to support the other. “We do not choose to play with opponents that are lesser than us, we choose ones that are greater”.

A good team helps us find strength in hard times when we set goals that verge on the impossible, and hard times are bound to arise.” Summits are always a great success, but here’s the lesson. “ Don’t hit the peak and miss the point”. “These early trips into the greater ranges of the world sparked a trajectory of travel and mountain adventure that would soon define much of my goals, career, and dreams”, Jeff says.

Looking back, many years before these trips to South America, I seemed to stumble upon a sense of adventure in a dusty, nondescript warehouse that would soon be home for the next ten years. Earth Treks Climbing Centers would be my start in the outdoor world. A home of mentors, a place for friends and family, and avenue for adventure. “ Earth Treks, in my early climbing days, was for me the perfect moment of time and place. I am fortunate to have many beautiful friendships from this era and many memories of personal and professional growth ”.

Later into my guiding career, as I stepped away from the Earth Treks gym, I still yearned for the sense of community those places offered. A third space for the outdoor community to thrive. A space to grow, be inspired, and a way to share those fundamental mountain experiences I’d had.

To make that idea a reality, I needed to build a space that had room for growth & creativity and share a way for others that felt compelled- to share their passion for the mountains.

Lessons from the Andes would come to serve me as Smile was getting started. Perseverance, when times were tough, only surviving on little more than the daily needs of the business. I failed often, practice more, learned from my mistakes, and kept pressing forward.

I was passionate and now, we still are. Energized and motivated by our Mission to inspire growth and exploration in the mountains. We’ve put this founding view first in all that we do, with both traditional guiding operations and our other more creative pursuits like working with ShayrdAir and Movement, who with them we are building a large-scale community climbing aggregator that connects silos in our industry together through inspiring events and high-end instruction. We try to think differently.

Our team is consistently working with high levels of collaboration and innovation allowing for these industry-expanding ideas. As we grow Smile Mountain Guides, we still aim to find the sweet spot of challenge in the mountains where each guest can experience the true spirit of climbing: Passion, Creativity, Perseverance, and Partnership, because we embrace diversity to help bring our mountain communities closer together.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Building a business that reflects the values of the team, has a purpose, and works to better the community is hard, not to mention making it all work out financially. That’s the reality of taking on a project such as this. To say there have not been hardships or that there will not be more in the future is a delusion. How we stand up to these challenges, our behaviors, will define our results.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Smile Mountain Guides?
Well, here’s a bit more on Smile Mountain Guides. We’re is a small and vibrant climbing guide service based in the Front Range of Colorado, whose mission is to, “inspire growth and exploration in the mountains”. Our entire purpose is to expand on this mission in several ways both for our guests and for our team.

Smile focuses on curating high-end instructional programming for groups and individuals, whether from a beginner’s mindset to those that have years of experience and are seeking to learn more. Our entire team is trained through the leading guiding educational body in the US, The American Mountain Guides Association. This ensures that our team works at a high standard of care for guests and can therefore maximize the time spent on the mountain together. This should be considered standard, but it’s not.

What set’s us apart is our industry experience, having each member of the team spending nearly a decade or more in the field in different roles that bring different perspectives to the table. Our team has a history in route setting, youth team development, outdoor program management, climbing gym desk staff, outdoor leadership training with Wharton, UDel, military winter readiness training, and the list continues.

It’s important to share this because our team is more than just a guide for the day with our guests. We’re educators at heart and these experiences help us tailor a high-end product for those enjoying a day with us.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.smilemountainguide.com
• Instagram: @smilemountainguides
• Facebook: @Smile Mountain Guides
• Youtube: @Smile Mountain Guides
• TikTok: @Smile Mountain Guides