Flyboys Keeping Me Safe...

Leading up to my departure for Nepal a couple months ago, I spent many waking AND sleeping hours considering the safety of the mission I was signing up for. I would be flying within the most magnificent and daunting mountain range in the world, conducting the highest and some of the most complex alpine rescue operations in history and doing it all in a helicopter with complete strangers. 

What could go wrong?

Well, I have to admit I lost a little sleep and probably sprouted a few more gray whiskers dwelling on an issue that was out of my hands. Just another affirmation that it is an absolute waste of time and energy to fret over issues that are beyond your control. 

I quickly eased into the helicopter lifestyle over the first couple weeks. The first ten flights or so I would grit down on the bumpier rides as the headwind would throw the bird around and up and down. Two months later it wouldn't even occur to me we were in the middle of bumpy ride as I was chatting and laughing with the pilot... until I took a look over at the passenger who would be fully gripped, clinging to a handle. 

The skills these men possess are extraordinary. To them it's like driving a sports car on the Audubon. Precision and skill... balanced with a centered calm. 

They handle themselves with the utmost professionalism and take courage and bravery to the next level. Their mission is to be of service and I have been honored to work with each one of them.

I flew 84 flights in 5 different helicopters with 6 pilots. Landed on just about every helipad in the Khumbu Valley. Landed at Everest Basecamp maybe 30 times... lost track. Landed at Everest Camp 1, three times and Camp 2, four times. Landed in bluebird weather as well as 30mph winds and sideways snow.

My life was in their hands everyday and they are sending me home intact. 

Thank you and Namaste gentlemen. Let's do it again next year. 

Thanks to Capt Andrew, Capt Chris, Capt Nischal, Capt Deepak, Capt Kiran and Capt Dave. 

‪#‎beofservice‬
‪#‎areyouambulatorybro‬
‪#‎happylanding‬
‪#‎timetogome‬

Everybody Goes Home...

I don't even know where to begin. The last four days have been a blur. Multiple 4:30am wake ups for all day missions. Guess I'll start at the last calm evening. 

The final week of the Everest season typically provides a fair bit of high mountain drama and this year has been no different. 

Hundreds of people all move up into position to summit around the same time. This is due to the weather window being fairly narrow and if you miss it, you're either stuck in screaming winds and cold or you call it and come home with no summit. Many teams feel this pressure and all line up at the same time to hit that precious week of low winds. 

A number of folks get in trouble and many of them don't have the moxie or the assistance of a world class guide to get down alive. Crowding, wind, cold and inexperience all play a big part in creating a total shitshow. This what we encountered the last few days. 

The weather forecast for the night of the 17th showed very high winds so we assumed that all the teams would see the same thing we did and delay arriving on the exposed South Col (Camp 4 @ 26,000ft) till the next day. Turns out, several teams went anyway. 

And this is when the wheels started falling off. 

The next day we began receiving reports of 24+ hr summit attempts, frostbite, exposure and severe altitude illness. We were hearing that clients and a few Sherpa guides were scattered and stranded above high camp and in big trouble. Many of those that did get down to the relative safety of Camp 4 began tearing through other teams' supplemental oxygen cylinders. Obviously this is a shitty thing to do and in my opinion, is not only worthy of an ass whooping, it's grounds for criminal charges. Stealing supplemental oxygen from climbers that are expecting it to be in place for their upcoming ascent or for use in emergencies is about as low as one can go in the world of mountain karma. It has happened before and sadly will happen again. 

We were hearing that Chinese, Indian and UAE teams were reporting several of their members were either broke off completely and requiring assistance or, in a few cases, unaccounted for. Anticipating such a setting, we had arranged for our stud Sherpa team to be in place at Camp 4 the next day to help clean up the mess and help evac climbers in need. Once the rescue request was made, our guys activated quickly. We got confirmation that an Indian woman and her Sherpa guide were "stuck" just below the south summit (28,500ft). At the same time that call came in, Lakpa and Nima Dorje were tending to a sick American climber that was the client of a fairly large operator on the mountain. They worked alongside the guide to nurse this fellow back to health and ultimately helped in lowering him all the way down to Camp 2. 

So that left Mingma and Nima Ninja to head up from Camp 4 to locate the Indian woman and her guide. For all intents and purposes they were essentially on the moon... and our guys would be their only chance of survival. 

It was 8pm and -20F. 

The next morning we woke to hear that our guys had found the 2 stranded climbers at just above 28,000ft. They were out of oxygen and water. Our guys provided them hot drinks and then, because of the disparity of extra oxygen cylinders, provided them their own personal oxygen masks. 

Talk about selfless. 

The woman was barely able to bear weight and required over five hours of labor intensive "short roping" down to Camp 4. Essentially they lowered her 2,000 ft down a snow slope with the occasional rock feature. 

At the same time these events were unfolding, we were getting word that a young Dutch male had died at Camp 4 after returning from the summit. There are plenty of news outlets reporting extensively on his plight so I'll just add that his sudden deterioration was another source of confusion and tension in the flow of communication between the players at Camp 4, Basecamp and Lukla. 

That morning I hopped in Andrews stripped down Dynasty bird and we headed to EBC knowing that we were about to have a massive day of evacs and full blown rescues. One by one, Andrew landed at Camp 2, loaded up a single patient and dropped them with me at EBC. Twelve round trips later we had evac'd a ruptured Achilles' tendon, 4 deep tissue frostbite cases, 2 altitude illnesses and our 4 bad ass Sherpas. 

At that point it was noon and the weather was starting to deteriorate so we flew back down the valley to Lukla with the most critical of our lot. The remaining evacs were ferried down by other helos and the most in need of acute frostbite care were ultimately flown down to Kathmandu.

That evening as we are eating supper, discussing the day's events as well as what the next day might look like, we begin hearing the storyline of an Australian female climber who was in the middle of a full blown epic above Camp 4 with multiple Sherpas attempting to bring her down. I received a call from Gordo at Basecamp around 8pm requesting medical advice to pass along to the team that was trying to stabilize this woman. It sounded like she was quite ill but had a solid support staff tending to her. We discussed a plan that was to be passed on to Camp 4 and agreed to communicate throughout the night should her condition worsen. 

Around 5am the next morning I got an update that she had made it through the night, was speaking and the rescue team was very shortly going to begin assisting her down the mountain. 

We had several more evacs to clear from EBC that day so Chris and I stripped the seats from Kilo Bravo and headed up towards EBC. As we turned up above Pheriche, we ran into a wall of wind and snow that bounced us around enough to where Chris called it and we headed back to Lukla to wait it out. The weather in this valley is unquestionably the most fickle and unpredictable as anywhere in the world. We hoped to wait out the weather and go rescue this woman either later that day or perhaps the next morning once the Sherpa team delivered her to Camp 2. 

As we sat in the teahouse waiting for the clouds to clear, we got word that the female climber had died during the descent to Camp 3. The effort to get her down that terrain was superhuman. I'm confident that everyone involved did everything they could to save her life.
I had never met this woman, but her survival meant a great deal to me. I wanted so badly to help load her on the chopper and take her down to Kathmandu. I visualized it the night before. But it just wouldn't be the case. Once again, countless media sources have provided commentary about the death of this young woman. I've got nothing more to add. 

The next day we heard that our Sherpa team had just arrived into Camp 2 with the Indian woman they had rescued from just below the south summit. It was time to go pick her up. An hour later, Chris and I had Kilo Bravo stripped down and ready for the trip to Camp 2. As this was Chris' first landing at C2, we decided to drop me at EBC so he could navigate the tricky terrain with the absolute lightest helo possible. I watched as he crested over the icefall out of sight into the western cwm in very shitty conditions. Five minutes later he came over the radio telling me he was on his way down with a fairly critical patient.
I hopped in the bird with Chris and finally laid eyes on the Indian woman. She was not well. Shallow respirations, thready pulse, sluggish pupils and lower extremity cold injuries. Sick.
We lifted off from EBC weighted down and booked it straight to the Lukla hospital. We stabilized her and ultimately shipped her down to KTM to address her frostbite therapy. She'll live to fight another day. 

I didn't know it at the time, but that would be the final rescue of the season for us. The few remaining climbers descended without issue and we went straight into beer drinking mode. 

It's gonna take me awhile to process this two month experience. I'll have to reflect on it and I'm sure I'll write a bit more. 

For now... I turn my attention to putting a bow on it. It's time to go home. To my family.
‪#‎beofservice‬
Namaste. 

Go Save Jesus On Your Birthday...

Due to spotty (read... none) interweb, this is a post from last Saturday.
Today we completed a 24 hr rescue of 2 Slovakians that were trapped on the Southwest face of Everest. More on that later.
For now... May 7. 

The older you get, the less important birthdays are... right?
Well, this one was pretty important. 

I woke this morning only to remember that it was my birthday after seeing the date on my watch as I quickly pulled myself from bed to get dressed. We had work to do and birthdays were an afterthought. 

We received a call last night that there was an extremely critical climber circling the drain at Makalu Basecamp (19,100 ft). The report was that he was very close to death and everyone there was concerned he would not make it through the night. All the other important facts like age, gender, nationality, history or chief complaint were not filtered down to me so this would be flying in to the darkness towards an unknown situation. Pretty much par for the course over here. 

We spooled up the helicopter and were just about to lift off as a massive cloudbank enveloped the heliport in Lukla. The pilot turned down the engine and we watched in awe as the helicopter was instantly swallowed by white. Couldn't see 10 feet beyond the bird. 

And just as with most important things in life... the timing was quite auspicious. Moments later the bottom dropped out of the sky as a monsoonal rain pounded down for a solid 2 hours. If we had lifted off two minutes earlier, we absolutely would have never made it up to rescue this fellow some 10,000ft higher up and surely would have been shut down from returning to Lukla... and potentially a lot worse. We were grounded and would have to delay till the next morning. 

I went to sleep last night not knowing anything about this sick person that was surely having the shittiest night of their life. Perhaps he/she wouldn't even make it through the night. Maybe this person felt like we had abandon them. I tossed and turned wondering how alone and scared this person must feel. 

So this morning dawns with patchy clouds and no wind. I was fired up to get going and hopefully save this persons life. We spooled up again to go see what we would find some thirty nautical miles and a lifetime away from Lukla. 

Makalu is a stunning mountain a couple dozen miles east, southeast from Everest. It sits very close to the Tibetan border as a stand-alone sentinel almost to distance itself from the crowds on Everest. To fly there requires crossing one of several high passes. On marginal weather days it's advisable to start evaluating the succession of passes from lowest to highest... obviously using the the lowest one possible, only using the highest one as a last resort. 

As we crept up the valley, my pilot Nischal and I kept gazing out the right side of the bird to see if the lower, standard pass was open. Not a chance. Completely socked in. OK, higher up the the valley we eval the next option. Nope. Massive wall of clouds. Higher and higher up the valley we go. Past the last, highest village of Chukung. Then over Island Peak Basecamp and into a sea of clouds. Captain Nischal and I started referring to our strategy as "connecting the dots". He would fly a hundred yards and then find a little "sucker hole" and take it, each time gaining some altitude. We continued to climb... now over 20,000ft. I would occasionally catch a glimpse of some Himalayan giant out of the glass in front of me... just popping through a veil of clouds. We were heading for what I thought was the absolute highest pass over to the Makalu region and it looked fairly clear on our side. As we drew closer we both let out an audible "shit" as we saw the impassable cloudbank resting just on the other side of the pass. 

I thought that would be the end of it and we would turn back, but Nischal in his 18 years of Himalayan piloting said... "Let's try the very highest one. Our last shot." 

OK. Let's do it. 

We climbed another couple hundred feet and followed a massive, corniced wall as it hooked around to the north until a small nook appeared. The captain deftly crested about fifty feet over the ridge down the other side. The helo altimeter read 21,000ft. I could feel that the helicopter was straining at its max, cutting through the thin air with every rotor spin. 

Five minutes later we came in hot on top of Makalu Basecamp. Our patient was a mid 30s, Spaniard named Jesus that could not walk. With the help of the ground crew of Sherpa, I loaded him into the helo till he flopped into the back floor. I turned his oxygen mask up and told the captain that we were locked and loaded. He powered up the bird and I listened again as the rotors thwapped through the thin air. 

Jesus was a very experienced climber with five, 8,000-meter peaks on his resume. He had never had any physical problems in his 10-year career. Throughout the flight he continued to describe to me in Spanish how he was convinced he would have died within two hours of our arrival. He had been suffering from a very elevated heart rate and chest pain for 2 days and told me he was losing his will to fight. 

We flew him straight to the Lukla hospital where his tears flowed freely. I told that him that today was my birthday and he had given me the best present ever. He gave me the opportunity to be a part of a renewal of life. I was a part of a team that gave him the chance to celebrate another birthday of his own. 

I can't imagine a more profound gift.
Well... that, and we got to rescue Jesus on my birthday.
Pretty dope.
‪#‎beofservice‬

Be Of Service To Your Own...

Yesterday’s morning radio comm began with a rather impassioned call from our team up at Everest Basecamp imploring us to get a bird up to Camp 1 as promptly as possible. A close friend of one of our 5 super-stud climbing Sherpas was at Camp 1 in dire straights. The evening before, while carrying a load through the icefall, this mid 20’s, highly experienced climbing Sherpa had an acute onset of left sided chest pain. The story we were receiving was that Ongchu Sherpa was writhing in pain, clutching his chest and gasping for air. And this dude was a stud… not some middle-aged, guided, western climber. This lead climbing Sherpa had multiple 8,000-meter summits under his belt including standing on top of Everest twice. His Sherpa brethren surrounding him were extremely concerned for him as he was clearly in overwhelming pain and from their perspective, close to death.

We absolutely needed to go get him.

And here’s where things get a little complicated… both of our helicopters were grounded down in Kathmandu getting their regularly scheduled maintenance. So of course during our mandated 4 hours of down daylight time, we have a “do or die” mission requiring a helo evac from 20,000ft.

Perfect.

Luckily for us there is another helo operation basing out of Lukla with a badass B3 bird and an even badder ass Kiwi pilot named Andrew. I had been intermittently chatting it up and swapping stories with Andrew during the month the two of us have spent flying on separate operations in and out of the Lukla heliport.
Good dude.
Sick pilot.

So let’s get to work.

Once all the operations guys made their deals and we were confirmed a go, Andrew and I high fived and started planning. We would strip all the seats out of the bird here in Lukla, clip me in via my climbing harness into a fixed cabin bolt and fire up to Camp 1 to scoop up this fella.

I have to admit that I was just a twinge skeptical that a healthy, mid 20s, super fit climbing Sherpa was having a heart attack… but the approach to medicine is always to assume the worse and work backwards from there.

The weather was manageable with gentle winds as the patient was loaded into the bird.

Then I got my first look at this guy.
He was sick and this was no bullshit.

The report from up high was bang on… true to the tale, as he collapsed into the helo he clutched at his chest and squirmed violently in pain. As I went in to move his sunglasses aside so I could more clearly see his face, he took a wild, scared swing at me. He was in pain, frightened and delirious.

The last thing you want in a helicopter is to have a passenger goin all UFC in the back of the cabin. I managed to get a quick exam in with some basic vitals and promptly loaded up a dose of Haldol. This would shut him down for the length of the flight and allow us to safely return down valley.

The 10-minute flight felt like an hour. Every minute or two Ongchu would appear to pass out for a couple seconds, requiring me to press him with a solid sternal rub after which he would pop up in another confused thrashing session. The Haldol helped to sedate him but he clearly still had some fight left hiding inside his pain and delirium. Each time he dropped out I prepared to begin CPR on him…but each time he would spring back to life.

I alerted Andrew of Ongchu's tenuous condition and how great it would be to get down valley as quick as possible. Then Andrew gave me a choice… fly at a higher elevation and arrive a minute quicker or stay lower in the valley and take that extra minute in flight time. I chose to get lower as quickly as possible as my likely diagnosis was starting to take shape in my mind and the higher altitude was not helping his case. I began to get a sense that this was in fact not a heart attack but an episode of coronary artery spasm, which is not all that uncommon with exertion at altitude. The process is just like it sounds… the coronary artery goes into spasm, which intermittently occludes blood and nutrients into the heart. It hurts and robs a heart of the thing it needs the most… blood. Typically these episodes don’t last a very long time but my guess was that the excessive altitude exacerbated this whole process.

It felt like we were in a rocket ship. Faster than I’ve ever been in a helicopter. Andrew very nonchalantly radios back that he has the helo pinned. 
No shit.
We are absolutely nuking down the valley.

We make the call to bypass the helo pad in Lukla and head straight to the Lukla hospital landing pad. I knew the local hospital had all the staffing and equipment to handle a potential cardiac patient and was an hour closer than traveling all the way down to Kathmandu.

Andrew requested the tower hold all other aircraft as we blew over Lukla and dropped down onto the hospital LZ.

We carried Ongchu into the ER bay, got him settled into a bed, hooked up to monitors and I officially handed over care.

Yesterday afternoon I ventured back over to the hospital to get the final diagnosis. Dr K.C. confirmed my suspicion… no signs of a heart attack but we both agreed that his heart was indeed sick and he was in need of further cardiology follow up in KTM today. That quick 10,000ft descent relaxed that coronary artery and his heart began to normalize.

Our Sherpa crew felt this one. They were scared for their friend.
It’s another clear illustration… altitude is no joke. It’s the invisible assassin. Can take a strong man or woman and drive them to their knees.

I’m very satisfied looking back on this one. Our team showed how well it could perform at a high level with absolute situational awareness.
No down days in the Khumbu.
‪#‎beofservice‬

These Mountains Shook A Year Ago

These mountains shook a year ago today. And they shook hard. 
Just like everyone else, I woke to images of frightened Nepali men, women and children screaming and fleeing from devastating rubble and tragedy. The depth of the tragedy was still too fresh to appreciate but it was clear... this was an immense national disaster that would need solid international support to recover from. The people of Nepal, that I cared so deeply for, needed help. 
For the next week I tapped into every resource in my Rolodex trying to find a medical team that had a mission that matched my desired intentions... to serve the countryside of Nepal. It was clear that plenty of assistance was flooding into KTM and the Khumbu Valley. I was more concerned with the rural areas that weren't on the major trekking routes. The village clusters that have to walk miles for even the most basic medical attention. Those same villages build their homes by simply stacking rocks and mud with the occasional bag of mortar mixed in. These are the homes that crumble with major seismographic events. This is where medical assistance was needed and this is where I wanted to go.
MB says I paced around like a caged lion that week, waiting to connect with the right team that had an open slot.
As good networks do, mine provided me my wish. I was ultimately connected to a non profit called @nycmedics. Our light and fast team of docs, PAs, RNs and medics identified the most remote, most effected regions we could and we flew in.
In the month on the ground we treated close to 800 patients as tremor after tremor shook us.
A year later I'm back in Nepal working search and rescue in the trekker/climber saturated Khumbu Valley. But my thoughts are with the beautiful villagers of Langerchet and Towal. I wonder how they are a year later. I hope they are happy and healthy. And I hope the ground is stable underneath them.
‪#‎nepalearthquake‬ ‪#‎nepalnow‬ ‪#‎beofservice‬

Some Days You Just Don't Climb

There was essentially no movement on the mountain today. A day of remembrance. A day to reflect.

2 years ago today, thousands of tons of ice released from the west shoulder of Everest, cascading down into the icefall. It was still early... just after 6:30am. A couple dozen high altitude workers, most of them Sherpas, were shuttling loads through the broken up, mish-mash of seracs and crevasses.
In one horrifying moment, 16 men were killed and another 9 seriously injured. 

This event once again highlighted the perilous work that our Sherpa friends and colleagues take on each year as hundreds of climbers ask for passage onto the flanks of Everest and Lhotse. Without the undaunted work of these skilled, brave men... barely a western climber would stand on top and celebrate the hard earned summit. It's because of them. And I am grateful to them for their courage, skill, humility and perseverance. 

The weather today reflected the somber mood. Cloudy and cool with rain down low, snow up high as hundreds of extended families across Nepal mourned... from Makalu to Mustang and throughout the Solokhumbu. Prayers were sent to the heavens and memories were shared. 

Tomorrow... it's back to normal. Perhaps though, with even more reverence than before. 

We will continue to stand by... helicopter at the ready. Hoping we aren't called on... but ready nonetheless.
‪#‎beofservice‬

Summit Night… The Microcosm of Life

It’s 1:30 in the morning and you’re wide-awake. And it’s not because you’ve been partying balls and have the munchies. In fact, you’re lying in your sleeping bag, in a tent at 16,000 ft with a slight headache that just won’t seem to go away no matter how many grams of Tylenol you ingest. The guy in the tent next to you is crushing logs so deeply you are convinced he is wrestling a wookie…. which makes your lingering insomnia even more frustrating.

On top of the tossing and turning in your stinky sleeping bag, you are racked with a cocktail of feelings and emotions.

Excitement, Fear, Uncertainty, Nervousness, Self doubt.

All percolating in your sleepy head.

This is a typical scenario for most folks as they prepare for a summit attempt on a mountain with any substance to it. I have seen it play out for over 20 years…including last weeks Kilimanjaro expedition.

This was another good one…

As I typically do, I had planned out the staggered times of departure our team based on observed pace over the previous week. Alpha team would depart at 3am and I would depart with Bravo team at 4am. I downloaded expectations for the clients, established contingency plans for potential evacs, arranged my African guide team in the order that seemed most effective… and so on. Dot all the “I”s; cross all the “T”s.

Then we step off…and it all changes. As usual.

Within 10 minutes from camp I noticed that one of my strongest returning vets from last year’s Whitney expedition was dropping off the “peloton”. I spent 30 minutes with him, trying to get him fired up and coax him into lock stepping with me as I watched the rest of the 24 clients slowly pull away up the hill by the light of their headlamps. His legs just felt heavy and his motor wasn’t firing. We’ve all been there. It just wasn’t his day. We both knew it.

But this wasn’t the guy I expected to drop off early.

Alas… strange things happen up high.

As I left my guy in the competent hands of my assistant African guide, I charged up the hill to join the rest of the team. And all was back to normal. The cacophony of folks pressure breathing. The shuffle of the dirt and rocks. The chant of Swahili song. All sounds that are so familiar to my ears on Kili summit nights.

And then…

“Shit!!! Shit!!! It’s out again!!!”

From 10 meters up above, I knew immediately whose voice it was and exactly what he was referring to.

It was Rick and he was reacting to the fact that his wife, Tina, had her shoulder dislocate. Again. This time at 17,500 ft.

A week before, in the midst of the pre departure excitement of arriving at the gate and preparing to step off on this grand adventure, Tina had lowered herself down from the Landcruiser using her left arm in a stressed angle and suddenly…

Pop!

It was out. First time ever.

Now I've put a lot of shoulders and hips back in place over my 20-year medical career but never on Day 1 of an expedition at the entry gate, literally minutes before we were to step off on a 7 day expedition.

With about 2 to 3 minutes of manipulation, I was able to reduce the shoulder back in place. She showed her grit and strength during the procedure and once she was slinged up and and her pack was handed off…she acted as if nothing had even happened.

The women are stronger. No doubt.

Back at 17,500 ft the sun had just crested over the horizon, Venus was glowing red in the low sky and the coldest hours were behind us. The backdrop couldn’t have been more magnificent… but the levity of the dislocated shoulder was significant.

We all breathed together. Calmed down as best we could. Situated our bodies to get good position on the shoulder and arm. And I got to work. There are several approaches and techniques for reducing shoulders and sometimes they are all needed to finally get it back in. This was one of those cases. I attempted the approach I was successful with 7 days prior. Nope. No matter how hard I yarded on Tina’s shoulder and how much pain I subjected her to… still out.

She went to a deep place. A deep meditative place that takes skill and experience to reach. A place that most of us won’t know. I watched my wife go there during her 18 hours of natural childbirth.  I’ve seen a handful of climbers go there during rescue operations off of Alaskan peaks back in the day when I was working SAR in the Range.

But a weaker person would have crumbled into a sloppy pile of blubbering shit. Tina did not. She stuck with me as I changed my approach. Again and again.

Thirty minutes went by and it was still out. I had run through my bag of tricks.

Forty-five minutes now and I was getting scared. Every minute that went by meant that the musculature and tissue around the shoulder joint were clamping down and making it progressively harder to reduce. If we would have been in the safe confines of an emergency department, we would have sedated Tina and administered some muscle relaxants to drop the head of humerus back into it’s joint space.

But instead, we were leaned up against a rock in the dirt at sunrise close to the summit of one of the “7 Summits”.

In somewhat of a last ditch effort, I positioned Tina head to head with me, standing, facing me. I held her forearm with one of my hands and with the other I slowly continued to manipulate her shoulder. I closed my eyes. I prayed. And the Great Spirit, she listened.

Clunk.

It was back in.

Slowly I applied a sling and swath and started into the conversation with Rick and Tina about the next steps.

Clearly Tina was headed down. But what about Rick?

Rick is a tough dude. He is like me in the sense that his character is to summit. When he attempts something, it will get done. This is who he is. He was born to summit.

I offered to take Tina down and let him go up with the team on stand on top.

After a quick consult with Tina, he told me there was no question… he would accompany his wife down.

I was more than impressed with this decision. He chose commitment to his wife over his own aspirations. He chose to be a servant leader.

Bad ass.

OK…get them packaged up and set up with an African guide for the descent and get back to work with the team… who were now an hour above me on the mountain.

As the adrenaline of the shoulder incident ebbed from my body, I kicked it into a high gear and caught the team within 20 minutes.

And it was then that I realized I was smoked. My heart pounding out of my chest. My energy levels clearly effected. Not something I wanted my clients to take note of.

I shelved it as best I could and methodically walked the remaining steps to the summit of Africa.

The joy and satisfaction was palpable. Within our coalition we had a blind vet, a vet with 1 foot, several other injured vets, a 66 year old woman that had never camped before and over another dozen folks that represent straight up Americana.

I was proud.

But then came the descent. Often times the hardest part. Physically and metaphorically. We must return home and share the story of the journey with those who weren’t with us. This is not easy. How do you capture the feelings and emotions that are only gleaned from battle with yourself and the elements?

Summit night captures the spectrum of the human condition.

That’s why we keep searching for it. We need to feel alive. And when the landscape changes in spite of our best efforts, we feel the most alive.

Upward

Jeff

Seek The Fear. Then Pocket It.

I’ve always looked a little kooky at snowboarders as a group.

“Yeah, that’s cute… you in your baggy snowpants and flannel shirt scraping down the mountain and flattening out the bumps that us skiers worked so hard to carve out”. 

Snowboarding has always seemed like a little brother sport to skiing in my eyes. That being said, many of my close friends were/are knuckle draggers as well as my wife of almost 12 years.

But the thought of me, with 35 years of skiing under my belt, strapping into a board and sliding sideways down a mountain was as conceivable as me driving a pink Prius around the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Not happening.

Then, last weekend, my 9 year old asked to take snowboarding lessons while in Steamboat. Then that same 9 year old asked me if I was scared to learn how to snowboard.

Dude called me out.

Cool your jets, punk. It’s on.

And before I knew it I was strapped into a board and sliding sideways down the bunny hill right beside him. 24 hours later I was “carving” down a steep slope next to my wife with a big fat grin on my face… all the while trying to contain the fear that was trying to bubble over with each toe-side turn.

Turns out, going toe-side and heel-side (carving from front to back) are pretty sketchy maneuvers when you’re not accustomed to doing so. I suppose it comes from the inert fear of slamming your fragile little noggin down on the hardpacked snow at a high rate of speed.  At first, each turn leaves you feeling exposed. But as with all things… it progressively gets easier. Every time you succeed at a turn you get more and more comfortable with it.

That is, until you catch an edge… and before you can even let out a pathetic, high pitched “Oh, shit”, your ass and back of your head slam into the snow simultaneously causing a resounding shock through your entire body.

Then the fear sets in so that you don’t go and do the same thing again.

Self-preservation.

Don’t go and do the same thing that just catapulted you into the snow again.

What… are you an idiot?

And thus I was reacquainted with my old friend fear or, as my amigos down south say, “El miedo”.

Fear is an evolutionary response to a threat.

Fear is designed to keep you alive. Epinephrine is injected into your body in large volumes when you’re stressed or fearful. Too much of it is unhealthy. Extended exposure to epi or cortisol is bad for your kidneys, your skin, your hair, and your emotional happy factor.

However, small doses are good. That noteworthy metal-like taste in your mouth just as you commit to a scary action… it reminds you that you are in fact very much alive.

Yummy!!!

Scary shit has been happening to us as a species for thousands of years. Historically it revolved around being chased and eaten by a saber tooth tiger or perhaps a few thousand generations later, it was running from a pillaging Norseman that was chasing you down with a bludgeoning hammer.

Nowadays… it’s less consequential.

Maybe it’s the threat of your boss firing you from your unsatisfying but necessary job. Or perhaps it’s receiving a $200 speeding ticket for going 55 in a 54 (thanks Jay Z).

Our moments of fear are cordoned off these days. We have to go seek out fear in our sterile society. We pursue activities like BASE jumping, mountain climbing, dirt biking and skydiving to get those archaic moments of true fear. To get flooded with epinephrine and cortisol. Then go home and relax on the couch with a beer in hand.

In my 20s and half of my 30s I sought out every opportunity I could find to get scared on rock faces and mountains all over the world. Fear was my friend. It was a drug and I was addicted. I used to love those idiots from the early 2000s with their “NO FEAR” stickers on the back of their jacked up F-150s. I would always think, “I’ll show you fear, dumbass.”

Then a wife comes along and it changes a slight shade.

Then a kid comes along and whoa Nelly… shit gets put on lock down. For no other reason than “I don’t want my kid to grow up without his daddy.”

As we get older the safety cocoon gets softer and pillowier. It’s easier to accept comfort and complacency. Why mess with comfort? Why risk my life? Why risk a broken bone? Takes 5 times as long to heal as it did when I was in my 20s. Even when it does, the arthritis will be a bitch. Not to mention… my achin back.

It’s easy to feel fear and back down. Our ancestors relied on that reaction to sustain our species. But now we live in a time when fear is designed and once we find it, we have to suppress it. Ironic for sure.

I made a conscious decision when I turned 40 to fight complacency tooth and nail. Even though I knew I would never climb the same scary shit I did 15 years ago, it was up to me if I wanted to keep my instincts sharp and stay emotionally engaged with my environment. I would have to redefine the pursuits that would keep me challenged and excited. Part of that equation was to feel scared when doing an activity.

For me it came down to picking up a new sport every few years.

Five years ago it was kitesurfing.

Talk about fear.

After a half dozen hours of lessons I decided to save money and just figure it out on my own in the dark depths of the Sea of Cortez. I remember physically trembling those first few times out solo.

At first I was holding on tight. Scared of getting hucked around by the kite. Scared of getting dragged under water. Scared of getting chomped on by a sea critter.

Then I let go. I quit holding on so tightly. I embraced the movement and pocketed the fear.

Once the fear was released the joy filled its place.

Five years later… kitesurfing is my absolute favorite activity on the planet.

This year, it’s snowboarding.

I noticed clearly this past weekend that when I held back due to fear, I would promptly be thrown forward or backward. Quickly. Painfully.

I realized after my first bumpy run (read ‘crash filled’), that in order to make these turns, I had to let it rip. I found myself sitting at the top of the run saying out loud, “Don’t hold back. Don’t be afraid. Go hard in to the turn. Commit to the heel-side turn.” Once I embraced that, I was off. Carving. Cruising. Fast.

Not to say I didn’t fall and bust my ass a few more times. But I felt the motion and I was hooked.

Clearly there are unhealthy versions of fear. The hours you lay awake in bed worrying about this thing or that. The things that you can’t control. Those issues that seem monumental at 3:00am but are more manageable when you are up on your feet with a cup of coffee in your hand. Fear based culture is disseminated 24hrs a day by mainstream media. Sociopolitical behavior is controlled by the fear mongers  on CNN and Fox News. This is unhealthy fear.

Healthy fear is based on courage. And courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is doing that thing that scares you the most. Having courage to risk failure. Being courageous enough to fall down. Hard. And then get back up. Stretching yourself whenever you get the chance. Not necessarily with X Games sporting pursuits. It doesn’t have to be kitesurfing and snowboarding. It’s whatever you want it to be. But it has to scare you. Expose you. It has to contain doubt and a sense of the unknown. This is healthy fear.

Fear needs to be healthy. It’s primal. It’s one of the missing pieces of our primitive make-up.

See if you can remember the last time you were feeling absolute fear. That your life or limb was in ‘perceived’ danger. For most of us, it’s been awhile.

Go find that fear. Learn a new sport. Take a chance. Go toe-side. Get spooked a bit. Then pocket the fear.