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Trump Just Renamed North America’s Highest Peak. These Climbers Will Still Call It “Denali.”

Fred Dreier — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 17:55:40 +0000

On Monday, January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump to rename Alaska’s 20,310-foot Denali, the highest peak in North America. The mountain’s name will revert to Mount McKinley, named for William McKinley, the 25th President of the United States, who was assassinated on September 14, 1901.

The decree undoes the work of former President Barack Obama, who, in 2015 officially changed the name from Mount McKinley to Denali, the peak’s traditional name from the Koyukon Athabascan language, which is spoken by Alaska’s Native inhabitants. Denali translates as “the high one” or “the great one.”

The name change will take effect within 30 days. The name of Denali National Park and Preserve, where the mountain sits, will not change.

Policy wonks (and ) know that there has been infighting in Congress about the name of North America’s highest peak since at least 1975. That was the first year the state of Alaska petitioned to use the local name Denali instead of McKinley. Lawmakers from Ohio, McKinley’s home state, pushed back.

But how do the people whose lives and livelihoods depend on the mountain feel about Denali’s name change? We asked some of Denali’s, er McKinley’s, most prominent athletes, guides, and rangers.

Why Alaskans Prefer the Name Denali

The guides and mountaineers who spoke to ��ϳԹ�� for this story expressed dismay at the name change.

“It’s worth mentioning that the President suggested doing this about six years ago,” says Mark Westman, an Alaska resident and former ranger on the mountain. “And he was told by Alaska’s two senators—both of whom are Republicans and both who are still the current senators—not to do that.”

Indeed, on Monday, January 21, Alaskan Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, : “Our nation’s tallest mountain, which has been called Denali for thousands of years, must continue to be known by the rightful name bestowed by Alaska Koyukon Athabascans, who have stewarded the land since time immemorial.”

Guides and climbers echoed Murkowski’s sentiment—the importance of the name Denali lies in its connection to Alaska’s precolonial��history, they said.

“The name Denali reflects a local cultural heritage here that predates the United States,” Westman says. “The name McKinley was an arbitrary name given for someone who had never even set foot here. He was from Ohio.”

Conrad Anker, who began climbing in the Alaska Range in 1987, said he was overjoyed when the peak’s Indigenous name was officially restored in 2015. Changing the name back, he said, makes no sense to outdoor enthusiasts, local Alaskans, or the region’s Indigenous population.

“It was fitting to honor the people of Alaska with the rightful name,” he said. “I think it’s worth noting that the vast majority of peaks in the Himalayas have local names.”

Guide Melissa Arnot Reid, the first American woman to ascend and descend Everest without supplemental oxygen, said that precolonial names such as Denali enhance a visitor’s connection to a place. That’s why she encourages her climbing clients to refer to peaks and regions by traditional names.

“Discovering what the local people call a place, and why, enhances our connection to that place,” she says.

Does Anyone Even Use the Name Mount McKinley?

Even before the 2015 name change, climbers and guides frequently used the peak’s Native name, guides told us. Westman, who first came to the peak in 1994, said that while the names were used interchangeably by locals back then, the preference was to call it Denali.

“There’s been a difference in the name Denali for, well, forever,” he said. “Native Alaskans were calling it Denali for thousands of years before anybody else came here. In the climbing community, it’s almost universal—I almost never hear anybody call it McKinley.”

In the days following the announcement, many Alaskan residents appear to agree. On Tuesday, January 21, the group asked 1,816 adults in Alaska about the proposed name change. The survey found that 54 percent opposed it, while just 26 percent supported the change.

Ski mountaineer Kit DesLauriers, the first person to hike and then ski the Seven Summits, pointed out that even Alaska’s political leaders have used the name Denali publicly for decades. “With Denali, the traditional name has been the choice not only of Alaskan Native people, but also of the entire state including its political leadership since at least 1975,” she says.

Dave Hahn of RMI Mountain Guides, who has ascended the peak 25 times, said that the mountain is “big enough to handle however many names you want to throw at it.”

But he stressed that Denali felt like it was always the appropriate title within the climbing community. “I never felt that McKinley was wrong—it honored a president that was assassinated while in office,” he said. “But I think that Denali is truer to where the mountain is, and who the people around the mountain are, recognizing that it’s an Alaskan mountain and not a Washington D.C. mountain.”

Most People Will Still Say Denali

The sources who spoke to ��ϳԹ�� for this story agreed on one thing: they will continue to call the peak by its Native name going forward.

“I intend to continue to refer to the great mountain as Denali for as long as I’m alive, and I encourage every other climber to do the same,” wrote author��Jon Krakauer��in an email. “Trump might be able to officially rename it, but he will never be able to force me to call it anything except Denali.”

Ultrarunner Jack Kuenzle, who in 2023 set the fastest known time for ascending the peak, echoed the sentiment.

“I can’t imagine anybody will be actually utilizing McKinley,” he said. “I’ve never heard it called that.”

Keith Sidle, who teaches mountaineering courses with the Alaska Mountaineering School, said the only thing he expects to see change is how the mountain is named on maps and signs. Sidle said his climbing buddies are already saying online that they will continue to use the Native name.

“It’s changing a name on a piece of paper, it’s not changing the mountain,” he said. “To the people that it really matters to, it’s not changing anything.”

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10 Reasons Why You Should Only Date Climbers

jstern — Fri, 03 Jan 2025 09:00:15 +0000

Back before climbing went mainstream (Olympics, gyms, Hollywood documentaries, , yippee!), we climbers were known for our social awkwardness and unapologetic penury. The community was an eclectic mix of rule-following problem-solvers (e.g., mathematicians and engineers) and barely functioning societal dropouts who survived on peanut butter and ramen while sleeping in caves, stripped-down cargo vans, or passenger cars with plywood “box springs” in lieu of seats.

So perhaps a good joke, playing off the classic riff about engineers, might have been:

Q: How do you know when a climber likes you?

A: She stares at your rock shoes instead of her own when she’s talking to you.

With such an oddball crew, there were (and remain) Yet the good news—I guess?—with the sport’s recent boom is that there are more of us than ever, expanding the pool of eligible single climbers.

This also means that there are now at least 10 reasons why dating a climber might possibly be a good idea.

1. Climbers Are Low-Cost/Low-Maintenance

Climbers have traditionally been non-materialistic; the thinking was that we’d rather be poor and have the free time to climb than labor away earning enough cheddar to slurp consommé alongside tiny-fork bluebloods at some Michelin-starred snob-hole. On the one hand, this is great news. Our low-overhead minimalism makes us cheap dates. Want to stage a “romantic” “picnic” with a moldy loaf of French bread, spray-can cheese, and gooey tomatoes harvested from a dumpster�� (“it’s caprese!”) while watching pirated Netflix on a phone using the free Wi-Fi in the McDonald’s parking lot? We’re all-in—and easily impressed—as long as it doesn’t overlap with good condies.

The con? Any money we do have—or that we siphon off you—usually goes right back into the sport: These days, most climbers easily drop a few thousand bucks a year on gym memberships, shoes, chalk, pants, cams, ropes, pads, fingerboards, fans, travel, and skin care.

2. We Like to Travel (To Rocks)

Another thing traditionally associated with climbers: wanderlust. And since travel is the glue that binds many a relationship, we’re a catch. The only caveat is that there needs to be rock (or a gym) at our destination or we go full “Torrance,” like Jack Nicholson in The Shining. For instance, if you told me I had a once-in-a-lifetime, all-expenses-paid trip to Fiji, where I’d be taught surfing by Laird Hamilton, my first question would be, “Is there any rock in Fiji?” And my second would be, “Or at least a doorjamb in the bungalow for my hangboard?”

As a further example: years ago, after a month of Eurail touristing around Europe, I landed on the Greek isle of Paros (where the Euros gaily tan and windsurf during their August holidays). At that point, I was so hard up to touch rock that I did pointless traverses in a crumbly beachside cave right where everyone takes a dump… in the 100-degree heat. Talk about a “shitty” landing—and a near-psychotic desperation to clamber.

3. We’re Fit

Climbers must be some of the most training-obsessed athletes around, even at the amateur level where literally nothing is at stake. Witness the endless training ateliers, podcasts, apps and tools, and our obsession with etc. We end up with toned, attractive, eminently datable physiques, even if all we’re doing is eking out sad, expensive, barely noticeable one-percent gains after months of self-flagellation. The downside: We are so rigid about our workouts that we do weird things like fingerboard while riding as passengers in cars, or even “car-king”: ARC endurance training by squeezing a grip ring while driving.

4. We Know How to Do Proper Pull-ups

Unlike CrossFitters, whose half-assed “pull-ups” make them look like fish death-flopping in a dinghy (see video below) and will never get them stronger, our rizz us up with sexy, well-defined shoulders and backs (see reason No. 3).

Also, I may be biased (I probably am), but I feel like our sport is smarter than CrossFit: We need to execute complex, choreographed beta under the pressure and duress of facing a fall, whereas all CrossFitters need to do is figure out how to roll a tractor tire around an office-industrial parking lot without getting rhabdo.

5. We’re Good at Communicating

At least on a rope, since we need to be clear with our belay commands in a life-or-death situation. How well we express our needs off the rock will vary. Everyone’s different! Plus we tend to forget that the non-climbing public won’t always understand our lingo. So if your climber boo says, “My feelings for you are deeper than the anchor jug on ��Գ��,” they love you. But if they say, “Hanging out with you is worse than a front-team double split on a greasy Bishop afternoon,” they hate your stupid face.

6. We’re Really into Skin Care

Other than models, actors, and perfectly complected skinfluencers, climbers might be than anyone on Earth. If you date a climber, you’ll never need to buy balm, salve, lotion, ointment, emery boards, nail files, tape, Band-Aids, or nail clippers again. We have all that stuff stashed in multiple spots—medicine cabinet, cragging pack, gym pack, and cars. It’s not all designed for making your face radiant and free of age lines, but you will most definitely have the best finger and palm skin in town.

7. You’ll Be Plugged into an Instant Community

Just as , , usually from our apparel, veiny forearms, and chalky, hands. In this way, we tend to bond quickly, forming communities and networks both large and small. So if you pair up with a climber, you will be plugged in to a big family, which is great if you are a social person, but perhaps not so great if you’d rather not see your guest room turned into a hostel for a rotating cast of aromatic vagabonds who range from lost skatepunk bouldering kids, to dreadlocked Germans chain-smoking Drum cigarettes, to penny-pinching bro-grammers soaking up all your Wi-Fi while they work on rest days.

8. We’re Youthful and Free-Spirited

Climbers are often accused of hiding from real life by being out at the rock all day, which is 100 percent true. But this carefree lifestyle also keeps us young at heart and fun to be around. Thus, while some might call us immature, I prefer to think of climbers as ��ǳܳٳ�ڳܱ�.��

Take it from me. At age 53, I can spend all day bolting choss, stop in at the gym to train, come home and pop in a frozen pizza and wash off some baby carrots for the kids like the “World’s Greatest Dad” that I am. Then trade wiener, butt, and fart jokes with my boys at the dinner table much to my wife’s chagrin. And still wake up the next morning with enough energy to put in a two-hour workday and then MoonBoard. I mean, if I were single, I’d be a major catch!

9. We Always Know the Weather

No one is as obsessed with the weather as rock climbers, who schedule our lives around when it’s ideal to climb. Condies are king, and we stay up to date—via multiple apps and websites—at least a week out on the weather, including wind, humidity, chances of precipitation, etc. So, if you never want to have to check the forecast again, date a climber.

10. Lots of Us Are Secret Trust-Funders

Despite our and our apparent poverty (worn, soiled clothing; blown-out rock shoes; guerilla camping; etc.), many of us are actually secret trust-funders. I mean, how else do you think that buddy of yours who never works somehow manages to spend three months a year in Spain and three months at Rocklands while also basing out of a high-end condo in an expensive mountain town and shopping exclusively at Whole Foods? It’s because he has a secret income he might be ashamed to talk about, e.g., a trust fund. If you play your cards right, you, too, can share in that bounty, trading the stress and tedium of work for the delicious apathy of… “not work.”

Matt Samet is a freelance writer and editor based in Boulder, Colorado. He is the author of the and the memoir ��

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The Nonprofit Founded to Honor Alex Lowe Is Closing After 25 Years

Corey Buhay — Fri, 15 Nov 2024 18:09:50 +0000

On November 14, Jenni Lowe, president of the Alex Lowe Charitable Foundation (ALCF) and widow of climbing legend Alex Lowe, announced that the nonprofit she founded in his name will officially dissolve before the end of 2025. The nonprofit’s assets—including the iconic Khumbu Climbing Center—will go to the Juniper Fund, a Nepal-based charity helmed by celebrity mountaineers Melissa Arnot Reid and David Morton. Jenni Lowe first initiated the handoff process about a year ago.

“It just felt like time,” she told ��ϳԹ��. “I’m approaching 70 years old, and I feel as though I’m ready to change direction in my life.”

The ACLF has been a force of change in the Khumbu region of Nepal since its founding 25 years ago. Jenni Lowe initially launched the ALCF alongside leading alpinist Conrad Anker to help indigenous mountain communities and to honor her late husband, Alex Lowe, after he was killed in an avalanche on Shishapangma in 1999. At the time, Alex Lowe was considered one of the best alpinists of his generation, establishing bold first ascents in Antarctica, Baffin Island, and in the Himalaya. He was only 40 when he died, and he left three young sons behind.

Conrad Anker and Jenni Lowe during the early days of the Alex Lowe Charitable Foundation (Photo: Jenni Lowe)

The cornerstone of the ALCF’s work was The Khumbu Climbing Center, a facility that helps provide safety education to Sherpa guides and other members of indigenous climbing community. Together with Anker, Jenni Lowe helped build the KCC from the ground up. Since its launch in 2003, the facility has provided life-saving training to hundreds of climbers.

From here on out, the KCC will continue under the umbrella of the Juniper Fund, a well-regarded nonprofit that has worked alongside the ALCF for more than a decade. The Juniper Fund’s mission to support the families of Himalayan high-altitude workers, especially those grieving loved ones killed in the mountains, dovetails with that of the ALCF. That made the hand-off an easy decision, Lowe told ��ϳԹ��.

“The Juniper Fund does amazing work,” Lowe said. “When I started the ALCF, I was this young widow, and I had deep compassion for the women over there who I saw as in my shoes. The Juniper Fund stepped in to provide support to those families in a beautiful way.”

Jenni Lowe visiting Nepal with her and Alex Lowe’s sons. At the time, the boys were 7, 10, and 14 years old, respectively. (Photo: Jenni Lowe)

Lowe hopes the transfer of assets from the ALCF to the Juniper Fund will be complete by the end of 2025. That includes all monetary assets, the building that houses the KCC, and other resources. The ALCF’s board of directors will continue to be involved throughout this process, Lowe said.

Arnot Reid described the transfer as an opportunity to build on the Juniper Fund’s existing mission. But, she said, it’s important to emphasize that the KCC isn’t getting passed off, per se; it’s a powerful organization in its own right, and it’s simply getting a new financial backer.

“The KCC is run in Nepal by Nepalis, and it’s an incredibly successful and really well-run organization,” Arnot Reid said. “They don’t need our intervention to run the incredible programs they already have; they just need our support financially and awareness-wise to continue to bring their mission to people who aren’t aware of it.”

Arnot Reid said the Juniper fund is committed to supporting the KCC’s existing work and has no plans to alter or add to it at this time. Instead, the Juniper fund will work closely with the organization’s Nepali representatives and follow their lead.

But while the work will remain the same, Arnot Reid says Jenni Lowe’s leadership will certainly be missed.

“Jenni is a role model for me,” Arnot Reid said. “She worked really hard to make things happen in a space where people said it wasn’t possible, or ‘We can’t do that,’ and she did it with grit.”

That’s something Lowe is equally proud of: she said in her time at ALCF, the nonprofit accomplished more than she could have ever dreamed of.

“In the beginning, it was just a way for me to walk through the grief of losing Alex. I had no idea what I was getting into when I first started the foundation, but it was a huge gift to my life,” Lowe told ��ϳԹ��. “I love that community and I’ll miss them. But I feel satisfied and happy with what we’ve done. It’s time to make my world a little smaller.”

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A Year After the Shishapangma Tragedy, Climber Tracee Metcalfe Returned to Set a Record.

Fred Dreier — Fri, 15 Nov 2024 03:59:54 +0000

On October 4, 2024, American climber Tracee Metcalfe trudged toward the summit of 26,335-foot��Shishapangma in Tibet. It was freezing, the snow was deep, and winds gusted up to 30 miles per hour. Metcalf, 50, was on the edge of her comfort zone.

“If there wasn’t so much at stake for a lot of people, we might have considered turning around,” Metcalfe told ��ϳԹ��. “Or at least, I would have.”

Metcalfe was a member of a guided expedition with the Nepali company called Imagine Nepal, alongside other paying clients and guides. She and the Imagine Nepal team picked their way around a knife-edge ridge, with nothing but air thousands of feet below them on either side. As they completed the traverse, the group reached the peak’s summit. The climbers celebrated as they took turns standing on the pinnacle. Metcalfe, however, was too focused on the impending descent to party. “It wasn’t this crazy, sublime moment like you might think—but none of my summits have been,” she said. “I have a hard time being in the moment up there.”

Metcalf has now been “up there” on all 14 of the world’s mountains above 8,000 meters. In reaching the summit of Shishapangma, she became the first American woman—and just the third U.S. citizen—to complete the achievement, which took her almost a decade. But Metcalfe’s accomplishment on Shishapangma had its roots in tragedy. In 2023, Metcalfe was on Shishapangma when avalanches swept down the flanks, killing climbing guides Mingmar Sherpa and Tenjen Lama, as well as American climbers Anna Gutu and Gina Marie Rzucidlo. Metcalfe and Rzucidlo were friends, and at the time, Rzucidlo and Gutu were each attempting to become the first American woman to complete the 14 peaks. Shishapangma was the final peak for both women.

Metcalfe descending Makalu (Photo: Tracee Metcalfe)

In the wake of the accident, Metcalfe became the frontrunner to break the record—she already had ascended nine of the peaks. But the deaths left her wondering what compelled her to climb—and whether she wanted to complete the record for herself, or for the history books.

“People started asking, ‘Who has the most in the U.S. now? Who is going to be first?’” she said. “And it was me. I had the most. I tried hard to avoid those questions, because that wasn’t what I was climbing for.”

A Mountaineering Hobby Becomes a Passion

Metcalfe grew up in Los Angeles, and began rock climbing and mountaineering while attending college and medical school in Colorado. She hiked many of the state’s 14,000-foot peaks, and in 2013 began working as an expedition doctor in Alaska on Denali, an experience that motivated her to take on higher mountains in the Himalaya. She climbed Mount Everest in 2016, and in subsequent years ascended other peaks above 8,000 meters.

“It wasn’t necessarily that I wanted to go climb the 14 highest peaks in the world,” she said, “but I did want to climb bigger mountains, and I didn’t have a group of climbing buddies.”

Metcalfe ascends Makalu with guiding company Expedition Base (Photo: Tracee Metcalfe)

The commercial climbing industry, with its guided expeditions to the top of Everest and other high peaks, offered Metcalfe community and structure. She signed up for more trips to Himalayan peaks. She nearly reached the summit of 8,000er Manaslu the fall after she summited Everest. The following year, she summited 22,349-foot Ama Dablam. She returned to 8,000-meter success with Cho Oyo in 2018, Makalu in 2019, Annapurna in 2021, and Dhaulagiri and Kangchenjunga in 2022.

“My friends were all starting families or busy with their jobs, and I wanted to keep climbing mountains,” she said. “But I’m not a professional climber, I’m not totally self-sufficient, and there is such a strong culture and community around these peaks, that it made sense to keep coming back. It flowed and evolved.”

In 2023 Metcalfe traveled to Shishapangma to ascend her tenth 8,000er. By then, the goal of becoming the first American to complete the 14 peaks seemed out of reach—both Rzucidlo and Gutu had 13 and arrived in Base Camp looking to reach the summit first.

Metcalfe and her climbing partners approach the summit of Dhaulagiri (Photo: Mingma G)

“In a way, I was grateful,” Metcalfe said. “Like, ‘Cool, they want to get this record. Let that attention be on them. I’m going to focus on me.”

Being four peaks behind Gutu and Rzucidlo may have saved Metcalfe’s life. Conditions on Shishapangma became dangerous after a storm dumped fresh snow on the summit. On summit day, Metcalfe left Camp II at 22,300 feet elevation alongside Gutu, but the latter soon outpaced Metcalfe and the other Imagine Nepal clients. When the first avalanche killed Gutu and Mingmar Sherpa, Metcalfe and her companions turned back. Rzucidlo, who was further ahead and continued climbing, was killed in a second avalanche. “I can’t put myself in their shoes,” Metcalfe said. “If I was to have found out there was another American woman attempting the summit the same day as me, I don’t know how I would have felt.”

The deaths of Rzucidlo and Gutu were hard for Metcalfe to reckon with, and it showed her just how selfish��mountaineering can be at its core. But Metcalfe never considered abandoning the high peaks. “At a certain point, you can’t take the risk away,” she said. “Those avalanches could’ve wiped us out, too.” Metcalfe was also struck by how the deaths impacted the loved ones that Gutu and Rzucidlo left behind. “How shitty is it going to be for my family, my friends, if I end up dead doing this?” she asked herself.

Metcalfe reaches the summit of Manaslu (Photo: Tracee Metcalfe)

Metcalfe’s relative anonymity in the world outside of mountaineering fueled her desire to return to the peaks. She’s not a climbing influencer with throngs of online followers and incentives to break records. She has just one sponsor—a Los Angeles-based orthopedic surgeon. Metcalfe has covered the lion’s share of her expedition costs out of her own pockets.

“No one is particularly interested in sponsoring a 50-year-old woman who has never achieved anything particularly remarkable and has fewer than 1,000 Instagram followers,” she said.

Pushing for the Record in 2024

So she returned to the mountains in 2024 and ascended five 8,000-meter peaks with Imagine Nepal: Gasherbrum I and II, and Broad Peak in Pakistan’s Karakoram range, and Himalayan peaks Lhotse and Shishapangma.

Metcalfe said that climbing that many mountains in one year had more to do with personal goals than the record. “I turned 50 this year,” she said. “I’m getting a partial knee replacement soon. I’m getting older. I only have so many climbs at this level left in me.”

Metcalfe navigates the Mushroom Ridge on Ama Dablam��(Photo: Kevin Kayl)

Metcalfe reached the summit of Shishapangma on October 4. In the days afterward, a staggering number of climbers reached the top of that mountain to complete new records on the 14 peaks. Nima Rinji Sherpa, 18, became the youngest person to summit every 8,000er. A handful of women became the first of their respective nations to complete the 14 peaks: Alina Pekova the first Russian; Dorota Samocko the first Pole; Dawa Yangzum Sherpa the first Nepali; Naoko Watanabe the first Japanese; and Adriana Brownlee the first from the United Kingdom.

Grace Tseng became the first Taiwanese person, Adrian Laza the first Romanian, Alasdair Mckenzie the youngest European, and Shehroze Kashif the youngest Pakistani person.

Metcalfe on the summit of K2 (Photo: Lhakpa Tenzing Sherpa)

��ϳԹ�� asked Metcalfe about the significance of these records. “Being the first doesn’t mean a whole lot to me,” she said. Rather, Metcalfe said that the significance was deeply personal—she endured a decade of climbing, which required dizzying logistics, physical fitness, plenty of cash, and personal grit.

“Yes, it’s cool to say, ‘I’m the first U.S. woman to do it,’” she said, “but I recognize I did it guided, using supplemental oxygen. I’m just proud of this goal because it was important to me.”

Metcalfe said she learned plenty of lessons during her 8,000-meter quest, but the biggest takeaway was the importance of being motivated by internal, and not external, forces. She told ��ϳԹ����she climbed Shishapangma for herself, and not because she sought attention from news outlets or social media followers. She believes this led her to make smarter and safer decisions during her climbs.

Metcalfe also believes her feeling of accomplishment will endure, knowing that she completed a goal for herself and not for others.

“In two weeks, no one’s going to care. If that external motivation, that fame, was driving me, it would fade,” she said. “When it’s internal motivation, when you’re proud of yourself for what you did, nobody can take that away from you.”

Want more of ��ϳԹ��’s in-depth coverage of adventure stories like this one?��.

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Christina Lustenberger and Gee Pierrel’s Latest First Descent Gives Us Chills

jstern — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 23:10:41 +0000

On October 17, professional ski mountaineers Christina “Lusti” Lustenberger and Guillaume “Gee” Pierrel sunk their ice tools into the shoulder of New Zealand’s highest peak, 12,218-foot Aoraki, also called Mount Cook. They ascended the mountain under darkness, climbing over snow, rock, and ice beneath the aurora australis. Clicking into their skis atop their new line at 8 A.M., they spied the full moon and prepared to drop into their third big-mountain ski descent in just four days.

“We went on a bit of a rampage,” said Pierrel.

The line they descended, which they named Hunter’s Moon, after the Kiwi name for the full moon, was the most dangerous and demanding that either had skied. “Every single turn we made on that face had a serious consequence, because of the exposure,” Lusti told ��ϳԹ��.��

Lusti and Pierrel met on a North Face team trip in Chamonix this year, and quickly developed a strong ski partnership. Pierrel is an IFMGA guide known for skiing steep and technical descents in his home of Chamonix, but he’s also descended lines in the Himalayas and the Andes. In 2021, he skied a first descent from the summit of Gasherbrum II in Pakistan in alpine style with no supplemental oxygen.

Lusti, meanwhile, has scored several noteworthy accomplishments in 2024, including the first descent of Pakistan’s Great Trango Tower with Jim Morrison and Chantel Astorga on May 9. But the duo’s New Zealand rampage marked new territory for them both.

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Lusti first spotted Hunter’s Moon when she entered the Southern Alps on September 28. When Pierrel arrived on October 1, she decided to partner up with him to tackle a few lines.

New Zealand’s Southern Alps is home to famously fickle weather. The range is extremely close to the ocean and storms blow in quickly and often without warning. Lusti and Pierrel had spent the week prior skiing from a hut near Aoraki, but high winds and blowing snow kept them from being able to access their biggest objectives. During that time, they connected with Kiwi skiers Sam Smoothy and Will Rountreei, local legends who have been quietly ticking away extreme skiing in the range for the last few years. Together, the four athletes skied the Bowie Couloir, another line on Aoraki. Smoothy and Rountree’s efforts have brought attention to skiing in the Mount Cook Range, and Lusti and Pierrel credit the New Zealanders for piquing their interest.

“Sam and Will have shed some light on the steep skiing in this range,” said Pierrel. “They’re bringing a new vision to New Zealand and we got on that train.”

Once the snow stopped falling and their weather window opened, Lusti and Pierrel took full advantage of clear conditions. They first climbed and skied the glaciated southeast face of 9,853-foot Mount Dixon. They named their route the “Mullet Direct,” in honor of the alpinist Mike Gardner, an inspiration to both Lusti and Pierrel. Then, just two days later, they skied the cracked-up east face of 10,856-foot Mount Vancouver. The pair named that first descent “Uncle Pete,” for Lusti’s uncle, who died a few days later—but not before he saw photos of the line they dedicated to him.

On October 17, the duo began climbing Aoraki to ski by far the most demanding line either skier had ever attempted. Lusti and Pierrel climbed the rarely-repeated Jones route on the mountain’s east face, a sustained 55-degree series of ice and rock runnels that ascends from the mouth of the Caroline Glacier to the shoulder of the peak. “Our vision was always to descend this intricate ramp system further skier’s right,” Lusti said. “We started their descent at 9:15 A.M. in unforgiving icy snow conditions. Committed to the exposure, one turn at a time, we pushed each other out of our comfort zones.”

The route up and down Aoraki, the climbing route is labeled in pink and the ski descent is labeled in yellow. (Photo: Christina Lustenberger)

The icy surface required the utmost precision and attention, but Lusti and Pierrel were able to link turns down the entire face, save for one short section of glacier ice near the top that was too firm for their edges. They made a short rappel to navigate that section.

The ramp they skied looked improbable from the glacier floor, and even climbing up the pair of skiers could barely make out that it was skiable. Pierrel had spotted the exit ramp during an aborted attempt on the Jones route the week prior, which allowed the duo to escape the line cleanly on skis without needing to rappel. They backed off on the earlier attempt because the strong winds ripped the snow off the face, leaving bare ice.

But when the storm subsided, the gap of nice weather was longer than Lusti and Pierrel anticipated. That amount of time let them get acquainted with the snow quality and boosted their confidence when the time came to climb and ski Aoraki. “Going back-to-back with the lines like that allowed us to build a really intimate relationship with the snow conditions,” Lusti said. “We were so in tune with how the snow was changing that we were able to step out further each day into steep and dangerous terrain.” By the time the duo��dropped in on Hunter’s Moon, they were able to anticipate some of the surprises the mountain threw at them.

New Zealand’s finicky snowpack added to the descent’s difficulty. Strong winds off the Tasman Sea create an transform the snowpack into an inconsistent and patchy surface. In any one descent, skiers are likely to encounter névé ice, refrozen surfaces, and loose, dry powder. “You need to be extremely calculated from turn to turn, constantly anticipating the conditions ahead of you—and whether or not you can surmount them with your edges,” Lusti said. ” You’re basically just clinging for your life at every turn.” That intimate knowledge of the snowpack proved paramount to the safety of the descent.

But equally important was the trust that the two built in the process. Lusti was holding the weight of the loss, but Pierrel helped her focus and be present in the mountains. “Having a partner like Gee who trusted what we were doing and who had a complete focus in the vision we were trying to accomplish allowed me to feel confident and push away my distractions,” Lusti said. Reflecting on Hunter’s Moon in particular, Lusti said she was grateful to have such a brilliant partner who pushed her forward when she needed it and was willing to be pushed by her in return.

Pierrel told ��ϳԹ�� that he felt lucky to be accompanying Lusti on the peak.��“I’ve been skiing with the best athletes in Chamonix, and Christina was so impressive,” Pierrel said. He described her making turns on tiny ribbons of ice while he was using his ice axe to help him slide down.

To push the envelope of what’s possible in ski mountaineering, the stars have to align. Skiers��need the right snow, the right partner, the right motivation, and even the right luck. “On that day we went, under the full moon, we had this incredible night sky,” Lusti said. “That’s when hard times’ silver linings appear. We were able to find such an incredible flow within our partnership and put down lines that were really special for the people in our community.” Under the full moon, the southern lights, and a sky full of stars, Lusti and Pierrel were in exactly the right place to make skiing history.

(Photo: Mathurin Vauthier)

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A Human-Powered ��ϳԹ�� to Canada’s High Peaks Is Anything But Easy

jstern — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 18:10:25 +0000

After hours of bushwhacking through dense Canadian alder trees, Langdon Ernest-Beck was catatonic. That was before he lost his helmet in the scrub. Ernest-Beck, 23, and his climbing partner Ben Spiers, also 23, had ridden their bicycles 1450 miles across 9 days north from Seattle, WA, to Tatla Lake, where the road ended. Then they��started walking toward their destination: 13,186-foot Mount Waddington in British Columbia.

The duo had spent the prior five days hiking through harsh shrubbery toward Mount Waddington and still had not yet seen a view of the peak. “As far as the hellish bushwhack, we were not prepared,” Ernest-Beck said. “It was definitely the most brutal thing I’ve ever experienced.”

Mount Waddington is one of the most imposing and difficult-to-reach big peaks in North America. It’s not only the tallest mountain in the Coast Range, it’s also the highest peak that stands entirely within the boundaries of British Columbia. Waddington is so far off the beaten path that it didn’t even exist on a map until 1925 when it was first spotted (by a non-indigenous person) in the distance by��a local couple named Don and Phyliss Munday. They called it “Mystery Mountain.” The few people who do choose to climb Waddington each year are often flown in by helicopter.

Riding a bike to the peak and then scaling it felt like a suitable challenge for Ernest-Beck. In 2023, he navigated the Cascade Range from the seat of his bicycle��along with his friend and mentor Jeff Hashimoto. The two rode across hundreds of miles of trails, highways and forest roads to reach and then ascend Washington State’s 100 tallest peaks. Then, they climbed them all. After completing such a massive adventure, the question inevitably arises: what’s next?

Mount Waddington felt like the perfect challenge. “My first-ever introduction into bigger mountains and mountaineering was in a course I did while I was in high school in the Waddington Range,” Ernest-Beck said. “I always had it in the back of my head that I wanted to go back there.”

Motivated by his concern for the climate, Ernest-Beck has been looking for ways to lower his carbon footprint while pursuing big climbing objectives.“I think climbing in general can be seen as a selfish pursuit, so being able to do it in a way that’s environmentally responsible is nice,” he said.

The bike trip alone was a major adventure. When the two charted the journey prior to the trip, they estimated they would need to��pedal 1,450 total miles from their homes in Central Washington to Waddington and back. The return trip would take them across Vancouver Island.

The two began planning their expedition in May. Then, they departed their homes in Ellensburg, Washington on June 25 and began riding toward the peak. But they hit their first big snag just three days later in Bellingham, Washington before crossing the U.S. border with Canada. Ernest-Beck had mailed all his climbing gear to a remote post office in B.C. to save��weight on his bicycle. But he received a tracking notification that his equipment was stuck in customs thousands of miles away near Ontario.

“It was like the second day of the trip,” he said. “I called my mom and told her to pick out everything that was left in my closet. She drove up to Bellingham and handed me the clothing. Then I borrowed some ice tools and crampons from some friends.” Ernest-Beck made it to Canada with enough gear—he just had to carry it all the way there.

Once across the border, the pair braved the Trans-Canada highway, pedaling north until they reached Tatla Lake where they spent the 4th of July. “It took us ten days to bike up there,” Ernest-Beck said. “And even when we got to the ranch where we left our bikes, we were kind of in the middle of nowhere—but we felt even more remote than we were because it had taken us so long to arrive.”

The route from Tatla Lake to the base of Mount Waddington traversed 55 miles, but there was no established trail. For nearly a week, Ernest-Beck and Speirs hacked and scratched their way through an immense jungle of Canadian wilderness while lugging around 100 pounds of food and equipment.��On the��fifth day of bushwhacking, Ernest-Beck lost his helmet. The setback��nearly broke them.

“We had started that day in the alpine and dropped into a valley called Pocket Valley, which is kind of the path to the base of the Scimitar Glacier,” he said. “We’d gotten back into this really thick slide alder and vine maple and at some point during that bushwhack, my helmet was ripped off my pack without me noticing.”

Langdon Ernest-Beck thrashes his way through the dense, forested approach to Mount Waddington. He still has his helmet, for the time being. (Photo: Ben Spears)

Ernest-Beck tried to retrace his steps to find the helmet, but ended up walking in circles. It seemed like the loss was a big enough disaster for them to turn back. “That was the worst night of the trip,” Ernest-Beck said.

Unsure of what to do, Ernest-Beck messaged his former climbing partner Jeff Hashimoto on his satellite phone and asked for advice. Hashimoto, 52, told the pair to get some sleep and take their journey one step at a time. If it felt unsafe to keep going without a helmet, he said, then they could always just turn around. “That was the best thing someone could’ve said,” Ernest-Beck said.

They slept 12 hours that night, and the next morning the duo felt mentally and physically recharged. They decided to push ahead. After another few hours of climbing they were able to see above the treeline. “The first time we got into the alpine and had a view, it didn’t take long for us to get super stoked again,” Ernest-Beck said. After so many days and miles of bushwhacking through tangled wilderness, the pair were beyond relieved to begin their trek over Granite Pass, across the span of several glaciers, and into the Waddington Range itself.

Ben Spears (left) and Langdon Ernest-Beck (right) after five days of bushwhacking. (Photo: Langdon Ernest-Beck)

After the days of hiking through dense foliage to reach the 9,900-foot Waddington-Combatant col, the climb to the summit felt straightforward by comparison.��“It took just under 30 hours,” Ernest-Beck said. “We got so lucky with the conditions.” Waddington is notorious for its fickle weather—the peak is regularly hit by storms off the Pacific Ocean that freeze the summit in rime ice. But when the duo reached the top, the ice was mostly melted, and the��pair were able to save time climbing the peak with a running belay, not stopping to pitch out sections.

Ben Spears trekking across the Scimitar Glacier on the approach to Mount Waddington. (Photo: Langston Ernest-Beck)

The crux of the ascent occurred when the two had to chart��a route across an intimidating bergschrund, a crevasse between the glacier and the base of the rock face, to get to the base of their intended route to the summit: the Angel Couloir. “We spent four hours in the middle of the night walking up and down it, trying to cross, getting into it and starting a pitch to the other side,” Ernest-Beck said.

After an hour of searching, they found a small cave in the ice. Speirs led a pitch into an ice chimney, shoving his body through an opening of solid water-ice to one side, and softer snow ice on the other. Eventually, they got through. “Ben was like, ‘Oh, I see the stars!’…After that, everything else was pretty smooth.”

Ben Spears climbing through an ice chimney toward the summit of Mount Waddington. (Photo: Langston Ernest-Beck)

Ernest-Beck has been to the top of all the tallest peaks in Washington State. He knows a good view. Even he thought the scenery atop Waddington was��special. “You’re close to the ocean,” he said. “You can’t see water, but you can see where the fjords coming in are. Huge glaciers as far as you can see. It’s probably the best summit view I’ve had. Zero sign of people.”

Well, maybe not zero. Several weeks after their ascent, the two learned that they weren’t alone on Mount Waddington that day. “A party actually gained the summit two or three hours after us,” Ernest-Beck said with a laugh. “They had gotten flown into a glacier on the south side of the mountain. One of the guys reached out to me afterwards and was like, ‘Yeah, we could hear you on the summit.’ I guess as we were hooting and hollering when we made it. We had no idea anyone else was there. I guess we weren’t that remote after all!”

Langdon Ernest-Beck (left) and Ben Spears (right) atop 13,169-foot Mount Waddington. (Photo: Langston Ernest-Beck)

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Leading American Alpinist Michael Gardner Killed in Nepal

POM Administrator — Thu, 10 Oct 2024 16:37:17 +0000

Michael Gardner died in a fall on Jannu East (7,468m), in Nepal’s Kangchenjunga region, on October 7. The 32-year-old was attempting a new route with longtime friend and climbing partner Sam Hennessey up the imposing North Face, one of the great unclimbed faces of the world. This was the duo’s fourth trip to Jannu East and third attempt at the North Face, having turned around in 2022 when their shelter was shredded by ice fall and in 2023 without good overall conditions for a proper bid.

The details of Gardner’s fatal fall are not yet clear, but Climbing confirmed that Hennessey has successfully descended. Partway through his descent, he intersected with a French team who was also retreating from an attempt on the North Face, and the group rappelled the final 700 meters together. A search via drone and on foot was not successful, but did locate some of Gardner’s personal equipment below the face.

Hennessey and Gardner had racked up an otherworldly list of standard-shattering ascents over their seven-year partnership. They were truly redefining fast and light alpinism, climbing Alaskan testpieces in fractional time (often in ski boots with skis on their backs to descend); but perhaps most importantly they were doing so quietly, with overflowing, contagious joy.

Mike is survived by his mother, Colleen, and sister, Megan. His father, George Gardner, was a storied Exum mountain guide who died from a fall while soloing the Grand Teton in 2008 when Mike was 16. Mike was beloved by all in his orbit, including fellow guides, clients, and athletes who were fortunate to call him “friend.”

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The word “legend” gets thrown around too much in our alpine-climbing circles. But if Mike Gardner didn’t earn it, then no one has. His style was all his own: a bushy mustache capping a wiry frame, usually clad in blue jeans and a pearl-snap shirt (often sleeveless), driving a beater truck and riding his skateboard everywhere from Ridgway, CO, to Nepal. Stories of Mike are the canon of barely believable (but nonetheless true) mythology: After just a one-hour introductory seminar, Mike nearly broke the U.S. breath-hold record, clocking roughly eight and half minutes; and made the Arc’teryx athlete team’s radar when, as a safety guide for one of their ski photo shoots, he offered to help, donning the athlete’s jacket and hucking a backflip for the camera to everyone’s astonishment.

Mike was a reluctant climbing “professional,” who, prior to signing with Arc’teryx, didn’t have an Instagram page nor a knack for self-marketing. “He wanted a guarantee that he could maintain his authenticity while pursuing climbing as a career,” Athlete Team Manager Justin Sweeny said. “I reassured him he could. And we started to build what was the most unique athlete relationship I have ever been a part of. … Mike’s legacy lives on through all the people he touched and his soul rests easy in the land of the giants.”

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I met Mike shortly thereafter at the Ouray Ice Fest in 2020. He hung around cragging and chatting with a genuine ease and openness, deflecting inquiries about himself and achievements toward his recent passion of skijoring (a competitive winter sport where skiers are towed by horses, dogs, or motor vehicles around a track), but the profoundness of his nascent achievements quickly shone through his quiet humility. “Climbed the Infinite Spur in ski boots and skied off the summit? Repeated Light Traveler in 31 hours?? Who is this guy?!” I asked myself and then the internet the next morning. The first Google result: a 2010 Powder Magazine article naming him as one of the “Best [20] Skiers in the World Under 18.”

He and Sam Hennessey continued ticking big alpine routes at a voracious pace, particularly in the Alaska Range. Teaming up with Adam Fabrikant, they sprinted from Kahiltna Basecamp up the Cassin Ridge��and in a single 64-hour push, walking across the tundra and catching the bus back to Talkeetna. New routes on Denali’s Isis Face, (also in ski boots, carrying skis), and the ��with Rob Smith, nothing seemed to stop them. In 2022, also with Rob, they climbed Denali’s route in 17 hours 10 minutes. It was Mike and Sam’s second route up Denali’s gigantic South Face, having made the second ascent of Light Traveler in 2018. This spring, the duo made the of the same face with Eric Haferman.

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It is a rote temptation to reduce a climber to a list of their ascents, and if there is one thing for sure it’s that doing so here leaves out a number of days Mike considered remarkable purely for the company he kept, whether adventuring locally in the Tetons or in the Himalaya. Nevertheless, it is an undeniable truth that Mike was among the greatest alpinists of our time, pushing the limits beyond what most of us could even conceive as possible.

On a day of sport climbing on Anvil Island during this summer’s Arc’teryx Climbing Academy, in between carefree whippers and ocean dips, Mike told us of his planned tattoo once he and Sam completed “the Jeast” (Jannu East): a fierce mapache.

Mapache Style (Raccoon Style)

adjective | ma·pa·che style

the style of alpine climbing in which you embody the spirit of existing on the fringe

Push into the dark forgotten corners.
Sustain on what you have.
Scrappy to the bitter end.
Life on the fringe. Eat trash, live fast. Mapache for life.

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After 50 Years of Friendship, These Alpinists Just Bagged (Another) Unclimbed Peak

Corey Buhay — Thu, 26 Sep 2024 22:16:59 +0000

Earlier this month, 68-year-old Mick Fowler and 74-year-old Victor Saunders pulled themselves onto the airy summit of Yawash Sar (20,532), becoming the first known people to stand atop the Pakistani peak. The two took a photo, frowned a bit at the mass of clouds blocking their view, and then turned around, descended the peak, and went home.

“We went to Pakistan, saw a mountain, climbed to the top, and came down,” Fowler joked. “Nothing much else to it, you know.”

Take the understatement with a grain of salt. The feat involved a weeks-long expedition into the Karakoram—the notoriously rugged range that borders the Himalaya and contains K2, the world’s second-highest peak—and seven days spent living on the side of the mountain.

On their best nights, the two slept in a tent wedged onto narrow shelves of rock and snow. On their worst, they slept sitting upright in their harnesses, with their legs dangling off the side of the cliff and tent draped over their heads for shelter. In between, they kicked steps and swung their ice tools up narrow ribbons of ice and walls of crumbling rock.

They had no map, no guidebook, and almost no route information—aside from what they’d managed to glean through their binoculars in the days before the climb.

Saunders and Fowler are used to such discomforts: both men are veteran alpinists, each with their own long resume decorated with first ascents and remote expeditions. But they’re also well past the age where most mountaineers hang up their boots.

Fowler is a cancer survivor, and Saunders is firmly in his mid seventies. So, what’s the secret? The two spoke to ��ϳԹ�� about their recent ascent, their long friendship, and their guidelines for living a long, adventurous life.

Yawash Sar, the peak Fowler and Saunders made a first ascent of this September. (Photo: Mick Fowler)

OUTSIDE: You two have been climbing partners for almost 50 years now. How did that friendship begin?��

Fowler: Ha, well, when we first met, we didn’t quite get along. I described Victor as an irritating little squirt, and he described me as an arrogant twat. So, I’d say it got off to a pretty good start. But we had a week in Scotland together doing some good winter climbs in 1979 and that’s when we began to appreciate each other more and formed a friendship that has lasted nearly 50 years.

Saunders: I found I felt more comfortable with Mick on more serious ground than I felt with a lot of climbers on easier ground. I think we instilled a lot of confidence in each other from the get-go.

Fowler: Yes, and Victor is an exceptionally confident chap. It’s quite difficult to ruffle his feathers. Which is a very valuable trait in a climbing partner.

The team poses at the base of Yawash Sar. (Photo: Mick Fowler)

What about Yawash Sar struck you as a peak worth climbing?��

Fowler: We’d probably first discussed it more than 10 years ago. There was a very small photograph of the mountain that had appeared in the American Alpine Journal taken by a Polish chap back in 2011. We both discussed it as a possible objective, but all sorts of things happened between 2011 and 2024—my health, the pandemic. All sorts of things.

Saunders: Aside from that photo, we didn’t actually see the route until we got into base camp. Until that moment, we’d seen the picture, but we didn’t know what it would really look like. We were both pleased to see that it looked shapely and steep.

Fower: We have a list of criteria before we climb a mountain. Ideally, it should have a wonderful unclimbed line that goes straight to the summit. It should be in an area neither of us have been to before, and in an area that’s culturally interesting. The climbing has got to be challenging for us but not too hard. Yawash Sar ticked a lot of the boxes.

Saunders and Fowler faced a range of conditions—including heavy snow on summit day. (Photo: Mick Fowler)

When you mention your health, you mean your brush with cancer, which I understand was pretty brutal. How has that impacted your climbing?��

Fowler: Ah, well, we were about to go on a trip a few years ago, and the doctor told me I had cancer of the anus, which is not what you want, really. So I did radiotherapy and chemotherapy and eventually the removal of my anus and rectum.

It’s not recommended, cancer. All that left me with a colostomy bag. Most people would think that’s the main problem, but for me the bigger problem was that I was too thin for the surgery to be convenient. So they had to remove all the fat from my buttocks and do plastic surgery, and that left me with no padding whatsoever.

That makes things like sitting down really uncomfortable. And then with the colostomy bag, the trouble is that on these big alpine climbs, you have your harness on all day and lots of layers of clothes. So it’s not so easy to maneuver when you start to have some output into the bag. But that’s just life, you know.

Saunders: On the other hand, in a tent, he doesn’t have to go out to take a poo. So there I am, having to hang on outside the tent in terrible conditions, tied onto the mountain somehow, doing my business off the side of the cliff, and Mick just laughs at me. He says “Ah, you should get one of these things, it’s much more convenient.” We spend a lot of time laughing it. We’re really just a couple of four-year-olds at heart, you see.

The two typically had to build ledges from rock and snow to get a platform big enough to pitch their tent.

What was the biggest unexpected challenge of the climb?��

Saunders: No bivouac sites. [Bivouacking means “ad-hoc camping,” typically on the side of a mountain.] There wasn’t any climbing that was outrageously difficult, but there were very few places to put a tent.

Fowler: Most of the time, we managed to arrange rocks in a vaguely flat way so we could pitch a tent over them. But we had one bivouac that was especially uncomfortable. It was a sitting bivouac, which was my worst nightmare, given the surgery I’d had. And it was very windy and the ledge we were sitting on was icy and slippery so we kept sliding off.

Saunders: We used the tent fabric without the poles and hung it over ourselves like a sack. It was a very cold night with just enough wind that, without the sack, we would have had hypothermia. I don’t think either of us slept more than a half-hour or so.

Mick Fowler poses on the summit of Yawash Sar. (Photo: Mick Fowler)

Many of the alpinists we interview for ��ϳԹ�� are in their thirties,�� forties, or even younger. What’s your advice for staying in the game so long and continuing adventures late into life?��

Fowler: For me, it’s been very important to make time in my life to do what I love, which is to go mountaineering and go climbing. A happy father and happy husband is one who’s had his fill of mountaineering. But within that, I’m very careful with my choice of objectives and with my choice of climbing partners.

Choose a reliable, safe climbing partner like Victor, and more than anything, carry on having a good time and living the life. I think we’ve also always chosen routes that are going to give us the most pleasure. We’re not looking to climb things just because they’re the hardest—that doesn’t come into it at all.

Saunders: You grow up, you get less arrogant with age.

Fowler: I do?

Saunders: Yes, everyone does. Even Mick. You get the hard edges knocked off of you as you go through life. And you start to prioritize enjoyment, and the people you’re climbing with.

Fowler: I would also say that I don’t think this partnership is going to end anytime soon. We already have more plans.

Editor’s Note: The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

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Cory Richards Was Too Depressed to Get Off the Couch. Then, He Summited Everest Without Oxygen.

Miyo McGinn — Sun, 07 Jul 2024 10:00:47 +0000

Climber and photographer Cory Richards’s most famous photo was the result of an event that nearly ended in tragedy.��In 2011, he was caught in an avalanche while descending from the first successful winter summit of 26,362-foot Gasherbrum II. He took a self-portrait of his distraught face, framed by goggles and a snow-crusted beard, that later appeared on the cover of National Geographic’s 125th anniversary issue. For years afterward, he continued to have a prolific mountaineering and photography career. Richards struggled with PTSD after the avalanche, and is now an advocate for mental health in outdoor athletes; he speaks candidly about being diagnosed with bipolar disorder as a teenager, as well as the trauma he experienced climbing.

Below is an excerpt of Richards’s forthcoming memoir, ,��out July 9, from Penguin Random House. The events in this chapter begin in the winter of 2016, following Richards’s divorce from his first wife and a months-long assignment for National Geographic in Angola, while he trains and climbs Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen.��

(Photo: Penguin Random House)

The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within

By Cory Richards

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The TV is on, but I’m staring at a pair of fake eyelashes on the windowsill. I don’t remember where they came from but I see that they’ve been there long enough to collect dust. Divorce is confusing. In death there is finality. In divorce the living become ghosts and it’s easy to be haunted. Africa was brutal and illuminating. As difficult as the whole process was, I came home tired but hopeful and ready to move on, but moving on will take time.

There are days that I don’t leave the apartment and watch TED Talks between champion bouts of Family Guy reruns while looking at my phone and willing it to ring. Life isn’t bad, it just feels empty, like I’ve lost something and I don’t know what it is or where to look. It isn’t just the void of my marriage but something deeper and formless.

Depression is sneaky and sometimes we only really see its depths once we climb out. It’s hard to realize how deep you are when you’re transfixed by the crumbs on your belly. I also feel a strange sense of guilt for being depressed at all and at the same time it feels impossible to escape. People of all walks of life have experienced deep despair; some people just have to get up and work in spite of it in order to survive. I know it could be much worse and I feel more guilt that my legs just won’t move. Telling a depressed person they need to get out and be active is like telling an insomniac they just need to count some sheep and go to sleep. I look at the eyelashes again.

On a Tuesday the phone finally rings and Adrian Ballinger asks, “What are your plans this spring?”

I don’t even have plans for the rest of the day. “I don’t know,” I say. “Watch Family Guy?”

I’ve known Adrian for a decade. He’s handsome with dark features, light eyes, and freckled skin that’s seen too much sun. His ears are big and his cheeks seem stretched between his angular jaw and cheekbones. He’s relentlessly optimistic and laughs loudly and often and loves coffee. We like to call him “Stick,” which is short for “Stick Bug” because he’s tall and skinny, and I can vaguely see him on the other end of the phone when he says, “Do you think it’s time?” I know exactly what he is talking about but look at my watch anyway.

Four years ago, after far too much alcohol and too many hours awake, we’d made a plan. I’m listening to his British-Boston accent bending r’s into w’s and staring at myself in the mirror with the phone to my ear. He’s talking about climbing Everest without oxygen and I’m happy he can’t see the body I’m living in.

The toothpaste splatters block one eye and Adrian waits for an answer. Before fat Cory can say anything, athlete Cory hidden underneath speaks up and says, “Yes.” I pause. “But I’m, like, chubby and smoking a lot of cigarettes.”

“You have until April.”

The mountain in question (Photo: Cory Richards)

The next morning I call my friend and mentor Steve House and ask if he’ll step in as my coach. He’s one of the best and most respected alpinists��in the world, and if anybody can give me a shot at this in three months, it’s him. He agrees and I hang up the phone and then go to the gym and stay there for three months. I bike or walk up hills slowly, keeping my heart rate below 150 beats per minute while breathing through my nose. Steve says it will increase my aerobic capacity and mentions something about “fat adaptation.” I think I’m fat enough, but he explains that the term refers to teaching your body to use its fat stores by training fasted on long endurance days. At altitude it’s hard to eat, so it’s important that my body knows where to look for energy when I’ve run out of candy bars and burned through my love handles.

I’ve called myself a professional athlete for a decade but I finally understand what it means. There’s no glitz aside from crawling into my bed knowing that I trained as hard as I could. The only glamour is sleep. There is no time to smoke or drink or fuck. But because there is a light at the end of the tunnel, I’m more hopeful because I’m driven by purpose. A certain amount of loneliness is necessary in the service of an objective. It’s different from the vacuum of depression. I think if I’m going to be isolated either way, I might as well use it as a space to grow toward something.

Some days I’m embarrassed at how slow I have to walk to keep my heart rate low. When I do burpees, my torso jiggles, and I check the mirror every morning for bigger muscles and a smaller belly. Steve tells me to be patient, to train slow to go long, and reminds me, “It never gets easier, you just get faster.”

I wake up at 5 A.M. and pull on long wool socks and insulated running tights and stack on all my warm layers. I fill collapsible jugs with gallons of hot water for added weight in my backpack and scrape thick ice off my windshield without gloves. I listen to AC/DC and Rage Against the Machine while driving through the darkness to the trailhead. When it’s snowing, my headlights make the flakes fly past in streaks of white and it looks like I’m in Star Trek. On these days, the trail is empty and I see no one for hours. They are the same trails and the same day over and over and over.

When it’s too cold to train outside, I spend five or six hours on the treadmill with a backpack, reading King Leopold’s Ghost or The Looting Machine. Sometimes I watch Game of Thrones on my phone and fantasize about marrying Daenerys Targaryen. Who hasn’t? Anything to pass the time. Anything to keep my mind occupied. When I’m frustrated, Steve calmly reminds me that “it’s better to be consistent than talented” and I say, “I’d like to be both.” He laughs and replies, “Wouldn’t we all? Control what you can. Fuck the rest of it.”

My legs get faster. My heart rate goes down. I climb 9,000 feet on Monday and 11,000 on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.

After three months my muscles aren’t any bigger, just tighter, and I’m disappointed because I look nothing like the men and women I see on the cover of the magazines in the grocery store when I’m buying arugula. I sit on the floor and listen to my brittle tendons crunch as I roll them out and wonder why growth and improvement always hurt so much. The burpees start to feel less like torture and more like release and the crumbs on my slightly smaller belly are quinoa instead of chips. I’d kill a bunny for some chips.

By the time I get on a plane to Nepal in early April, my brain feels different. Everything seems brighter and the clouds of depression have parted around the summit in my head. I wonder if this is how a phoenix feels as I look at the shrinking flames around my feet and hope the lack of oxygen at the top of the world will starve the fire completely.

Climbers descend from 27,500 ft. on Everest’s north side. (Photo: Cory Richards)

After ten days of acclimation, Adrian and I traverse the broken terrain of the Rongbuk Glacier and listen to ice crack and break as boulders crash down from the fresh glacial scar and the ground under my feet feels new. It’s broken and unsettled, toppling over itself and uncertain where it fits.

Two hours later we perch on the broad spine of a broken black slate and drink tea while we stare up at the mountain. I see exposed ice and small tendrils of snow swirling off a dark ridge. But the swirls aren’t small because the mountain is still five miles away and the ridge is 10,000 feet above us. We finish our drinks and Adrian drives us toward advanced base camp at 21,000 feet. He walks in long strides and tucks his thumbs in his shoulder straps as I struggle to keep up, questioning if I’m strong enough to do what we’ve come here to do.

After two days in advanced base camp, we start the pulse of acclimating, climbing high, sleeping low. Climbing higher, sleeping low. Sleeping higher. Climbing higher. It’s the rhythmic demystification of the Himalaya and the same method I’ve used on every high mountain. I remind myself that every climb feels impossible until you stand on top. So I memorize the steps and colors of the ropes and crevasses and always try to run under the big hanging ice cliff that guards the saddle of the North Col.

Ten days later, we sit in a hot tent at 23,031 feet and sweat. The interior can get to 75°F during the day and plummet to −20°F overnight. We drink Soylent, a supplement mix that tastes vaguely like pancake batter, while making Snapchat videos that fulfill our sponsorship commitments and tell the story of the climb in real time.

The idea to use Snapchat as a real-time storytelling tool came from Adrian’s girlfriend, legendary rock climber turned Himalayan star Emily Harrington. Now #EverestNoFilter is trending on the platform and hundreds of thousands of people are following the climb. Thousands of messages of encouragement, music recommendations, trolling, and the occasional picture of breasts flood our inbox. The connectivity of social media feels satiating and it also seems to blur and confuse motivation. But social media is ubiquitous now and at times it seems more important than the climbing itself. The premise of telling the story in real time is to offer an unfiltered and authentic look into what an expedition like this takes, but I quietly question how anything on social media can be authentic.

#HairByEverest begins to trend because my unwashed, sun-bleached hair makes me look homeless and Adrian’s looks like he’s just been electrocuted. People start posting pictures of their babies with wild hair and tagging it #HairByEverest and I like the playfulness of it all.

Adrian Ballinger preparing to descend from 25,000 feet on Everest’s north ridge after a sleepless night in a storm. (Photo: Cory Richards)

It’s May 24, 2016. I’m 36 years old. My alarm goes off at 12:30 A.M.��but I’m already awake because “sleeping” at 27,224 feet is like “meditating” at a Metallica concert. Adrian’s headlamp comes on first and I shield my face for another minute of staring at the tent ceiling. It occurs to me that I spend a lot of time staring at different ceilings.

Eventually I sit up and start the stove, exhaling clouds that collide with the steam rising from the water. I wonder about matter changing form and how heat can make liquid levitate. Invisible currents make the vapors rise and swirl in the light of the headlamps. I look again at the ceiling and see all my breath from the sleepless night frozen in a sparkly frost. Gas becomes solid. I wonder if the altitude is getting to me and vacantly drag a finger in a line, watching the crystals fall onto my sleeping bag and melt.

I’ve been awake for 18 and a half hours, minus the 30 minutes when I managed to hang somewhere between sleep and wake, trying to forget about the sharp stone jabbing my left ass cheek. It will be five and a half more hours before the sun rises. I unzip the door just enough to see the thick stars of high places. My eyes trace along the uneven edges of the last 1,811 feet of Everest’s northeast ridge rising above me as a heavy black triangle.

I tuck back in and watch the steam in the tent and remember the past five months and the 36 years before that and everything that brought me to this place at this time as Adrian and Pasang and I prepare to leave for the summit. Pasang has joined the summit push for the sake of safety in numbers. Everything is done in silence. I no longer think about which boot or glove goes on first because I know it doesn’t matter. The only thing that can get me from here to there is my breath.

We leave the tent together and follow our familiar circles of light. The route climbs shallow snow to a steep series of wide granite cracks that lead toward the ridge. We check in with each other every half hour. Can you feel your fingers? Toes? Are you drinking? Eating? How does your head feel? Lungs? Are you slurring? Are you vomiting? What’s your name? Where are we?

Gradually the gap between Adrian and Pasang and me widens and I stop communicating by voice and start calling to them over the radio. After three and a half hours, the space between us has widened far enough that I feel alone and all my concern of not being fit enough has been swallowed up in the darkness. I’m not behind them, but ahead.

Adrian’s voice comes over the radio in slurs and tells me that he’s too cold and moving too slow to continue. He and Pasang are turning around.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” he says quietly.

“Do you want me to come with you?”

“No. Keep going.”

The communications are short and labored. But this was always the plan. If one of us couldn’t and the other was still strong, we’d separate. The team’s doctor, Monica Piris, who’s monitoring our climb from advance base camp, takes over the conversation. She’s spent many nights just like this, sleeping on the uneven floor of a dining tent curled up next to a tangle of cords and radios��and solar batteries to keep it all going as her team plods through a dangerous and foolish darkness. It’s her job to keep us safe, to keep us moving, to keep us alive regardless of whether we’re climbing up or down.

I half hear her voice as I fumble with a rope. “Adrian, I need you to get back to the tents at high camp as quickly and safely as possible. When you’re there, please put on oxygen to get the blood flow back in your hands and feet and brain.” An indistinguishable mumble, half wind and half words, fills the air and I realize that Adrian is riding too close to the edge.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come down?” Mumble. Monica answers instead. “Cory, how do you feel?”

“Good. My left pinky is tingling.”

“Keep fucking going! Adrian and Pasang will be safe. Go now. Go fast. I’ll talk to you in half an hour.”

The radio goes silent and I turn off my headlamp and sit. I listen to the breeze brushing across me and feel the wet collar of my down suit against my face. I am alone. I have no oxygen and no backup and no safety net other than my body and an honest accounting of myself. There are five other climbers somewhere on the route, but I can’t see or hear them. My life is apprehended in the confluence of breath and wind.

An hour later I approach the legs of a lifeless body hanging upside down in a tangle of rope. Tufts of loose feathers push through the torn suit, fluttering. I think of all the friends and people I’ve known who are no longer and lose count because my brain is too slow. I think of all the bodies I’ve seen on this climb and all the others in various states of decomposition and wonder again at matter changing form.

Sometimes they have faces. Sometimes they have mustaches and beards and eyelashes. Sometimes they’re hooded and hidden, as if they’re sleeping. Other times they have fingernails and their exposed flesh is yellow and black. Their skin is freeze-dried against bones that stick through, mummified after they took off their mittens in their final delirious moments. Their body and brain became confused and lied, telling them that they were warm and safe to shelter them from an opposite truth. Hormones and chemicals saturated their minds, creating a definitive hallucination to comfort them as they took their last breaths. This is the agreement you make with high mountains. Here the sliver of space that separates life and death is immediate, implicit, and yet totally incomprehensible.

My fingertips scream from cold as I unclip myself from the rope, reaching over the body and connecting myself to the line on the other side. I take a single step and walk further into life than the body behind ever made it.

When the sun finally rises, the summit pyramid is washed in fluorescent pastels and my pinky doesn’t tingle anymore. I take out my phone and try to film, annoyed at the intrusion. But the battery dies from the cold, and I’m relieved that the final steps will be just for me.

I don’t know how much time passes between this and the moment I sit down on the summit. An hour? Two? When I take the final step, there is nothing and no one and literally everything on earth is below me. I reach as high as I can and touch space. There is no place left to go. In some fundamental way, I’ve exhausted the search outside myself for anything that might make me whole. But I can’t see this now. For seven minutes I sit in silence and my awkward mind is literally the highest point on the planet.

Two climbers atop the third step on Everest’s northeast ridge just after sunrise. (Photo: Cory Richards)

After 40 hours without sleep I walk into advance base camp. The air feels thick and humid here. My heartbeat is slow and my mind is too tired to race, unable to comprehend the place I’ve been and how something so powerful can be so brief. I’m exhausted but restless and forget to go to bed. The world already knows what happened because, up until the final steps, they’d watched me. For his part, Adrian is as outwardly excited as everyone else but I can see how much he wanted it and how much it hurt to fail so publicly. I can see how much humility is required to let me shine. The depth of his character is revealed behind his skinny, chiseled face. He is more resilient than I ever could be.

A week later we’re in New York City and 2.3 million people are watching Adrian and me, with slightly gaunt eyes and sunburned faces, sit across from Gayle King on CBS This Morning. I wonder if the cameras can see the dry flakes of skin peeling from the tip of my nose. Later in the day, we sit across from Charlie Rose at his iconic wooden table and tell the story of the climb until he refocuses the conversation on what I’d disclosed about my mental health.

Just before the summit push, my anxiety peaked. I was overwhelmed by the climb, attention, and exhaustion. And, because there was no one else to talk to, I told a million people on Snapchat because that’s what the world does now. I’d matter-of-factly disclosed that I was bipolar and anxious and depressed and that everything was getting to me. I talked about being scared of the climb. Scared of failing. Scared of being scared and what that meant. Sending the videos into the world, I’d wondered if I was oversharing in the pursuit of attention. But even if I’d wanted to recant, it was too late. By morning my public persona had begun its transition into a spokesperson for mental health and the story behind the now infamous self-portrait from Gasherbrum II was slowly seeping out. Private became public. Superhuman became human. And, through the conceit of “no filter,” something mysterious became less so, inviting everyone into a much more real experience.

So when Charlie asks, I open up and speak candidly about the avalanche, PTSD, and bipolar because it seems natural. I can feel that it’s somehow important to break down the wall around me.

More interviews and TV follow. More press. More questions. More answers. When we finally unload a heap of tattered duffels on the curb at Newark Liberty International four days later, the expedition has generated over two billion media impressions.

I say goodbye to Adrian and Emily and walk to the gate, equally relieved and uncertain to be flying “home.” The world has shapeshifted again and I feel far away from the mountain, where things were less noisy, less frantic, more basic, and more meaningful. When the nice lady in a silk scarf with wings on her blue lapel leans over my seat and says, “Welcome home, Mr. Richards,” I wonder what she means because home is somewhere in a tent where the only planes are the ones that fly overhead and up there the captain is saying, “If you look out the window to your left, you can see Mt. Everest.”

After the divorce, the success of #EverestNoFilter is intoxicating. I float through days and weeks and am filled up when strangers thank me for speaking so candidly about my brain. While climbing Everest without oxygen is special (less than two percent of summits), it’s not new. It’s been done. For me, the accomplishment and celebration seem to be centered around something else. Suddenly my weaknesses are being celebrated as my strengths and I wonder if Achilles might have lived forever if he’d taken more care of his heel. And still I’m filling the inescapable space inside of me with the mountain itself because from it I can speak truths that I’ve held onto for too long.

I also know once the shine wears off, an emotional deflation will ensue and the comedown will be equal to the high. The next four years of my life will be devoted to trying to regain the same summit. I’ll stand there again, but it will never be the same.

The post Cory Richards Was Too Depressed to Get Off the Couch. Then, He Summited Everest Without Oxygen. appeared first on ��ϳԹ�� Online.

A Climbing Party of Eight Got Stuck in Mazama. Then Came the Snow.

jstern — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 18:52:39 +0000

A recent story about a search-and-rescue mission in Washington State highlights an important lesson for rock climbers. When attempting your first multi-pitch route on a big wall of rock, it’s best to keep your climbing party small.

According to the Methow Valley News, on Tuesday, May 21, a group of eight climbers from Illinois and Indiana attempted to ascend a long sport climbing route on the Goat Wall in Mazama, Washington. The party started climbing at 7:30 A.M. and were still only two-thirds up the route (at the top of the seventh pitch out of 11) when the sun began to set. By the time the group called the Okanagan County Sheriff’s Office at 10:30 P.M. to initiate a rescue, it was dark.

Zach Winters, a Okanagan County Search and Rescue (OCSAR) volunteer who was familiar with the route, called members of the climbing party in Mazama to try and coach them to descend on their own. Unfortunately, the climbers lacked experience on routes that big, and they “should never have been up there,” according to another member of OCSAR. None had ever done a multi-pitch climb before, Winters said to the

Winters and two others arrived on the scene around midnight and began to help, but the weather then took a turn for the worse. Spring conditions��in the North Cascades can be unpredictable, even in late May. A storm rolled into Mazama��as rain turned to heavy, slushy snow, forcing the climbers to take shelter in a small cave near the ledge on which they were stranded.

Meanwhile, rescuers arrived at the top of the Goat Wall via an access road with food and supplies and began fixing ropes to descend to the marooned party. Snow and ice jammed the ascending devices of the OCSAR members, slowing their progress as they made their way up the climbing route.

Rescuers helped six of the climbers rappel more than 800 feet to the ground. Two party members didn’t feel comfortable descending, so the SAR team used a pulley system to haul them up to the top of the route.

Winters and one of the two climbers were tethered together for the ascent, according to the Methow Valley News. It was a long and difficult process to haul them the remaining 600 feet—at times, they were simply dangling in space, Winter said.

The mission stretched overnight, through the morning, and into the next afternoon. It was not until 5:30 P.M. on Wednesday, May 22—a full 34 hours after the climbers started the route—that all eight were safely on solid ground, said OCSAR coordinator Rick Balam.

What We Can Learn from this Debacle?

I’m well versed in the quixotic nature of planning a destination climbing trip from the Midwest. I went to college in Illinois, and as a newer climber I learned many skills on by reading books and advice on the Internet. I used what little free time I had during the winter to test those skills on big routes out west. I read Chris MacNamara’s How to Big Wall Climb my freshman year and spent a few weeks climbing ropes strung over Chicago lamp posts and learning to build haul systems before driving to Zion National Park to aid climb a few big walls.

So, when I read that this party had “spent a year researching the Goat Wall,” before actually attempting it, I partially understood their predicament. But just looking over a route on a few times isn’t actually preparation. There are ways to practice big-wall skills in a climbing gym or at small crags prior to your ascent.

I report on a lot of SAR calls (and recently have made a few to help other parties in the field) and this Mazama debacle is one of the weirdest rescue stories I’ve ever heard. There are a few important lessons to glean from it.

The biggest one is to keep group size small when tackling a big climb for the first time. Eight people was far too many for an attempt of this size.��Details are fuzzy on exactly what rope systems the party used, but even if it was four teams of two (which would probably be the most efficient way to climb a moderate, safely-bolted sport climb such as the Prime Rib route on the Goat Wall) or if they stacked more than two people per rope. But in any case, if you’re climbing at or above your limit, take two partners maximum.

The next lesson is about weather. The North Cascades often experience snow and rain in Late May, yet this party still attempted a huge multi-pitch climb during this window. While the snow wasn’t the cause of their rescue, the party wasn’t quick enough on the route to nail their weather window. That resulted in a complicated rescue. A smarter choice would have been to push the attempt to later in the season.

And finally, choosing the right route for a multi-pitch newbie is crucial. This group chose a 11-pitch route that is 1,500 vertical feet—that’s probably far too difficult a rock to learn how to do a multi-pitch climb. This is a totally different skill set from cragging or gym climbing. Learning to be efficient at belay changeovers is a vital skill when you have to do it 11 times. Just an extra ten minutes fumbling at each belay will cost you around two hours over the course of the whole route. Find a two pitch route to dial in your skills.

The post A Climbing Party of Eight Got Stuck in Mazama. Then Came the Snow. appeared first on ��ϳԹ�� Online.

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A Climbing Party of Eight Got Stuck in Mazama. Then Came the Snow.

What We Can Learn from this Debacle?

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