CU Alumni Magazine On A Dirtbag Hippie Climber Guy...Me

Check out the article on yours truly in the most recent issue of the University of Colorado alumni magazine....
Although there are a few glaring mistakes...
1)Erik and I only climbed Everest once.

2)We didn't take the blind Tibetan kids up Everest...it was a satellite peak called Lhakpa Ri.

3)I wouldn't call myself a devoted liberal... let's go with socially liberal and fiscally conservative.


Otherwise, it's a fun read on the history of a self prescribed dirtbag hippie.
Enjoy!

Traffic Jam on Everest

Been reading quite a bit about the sketchy situation that is taking place on Everest this season. I just contributed to a NBC Nightly News interview with Brian Williams, so I thought it time to chime in here.

Four folks died last weekend as the first short weather window appeared on the mountain and created a "mad dash" attitude amongst the hundreds of commercial operations up there. A veritable conga line of folks were strung along the Lhotse Face all jockeying for position up at the high camp. The next night, the masses took off from 26,000ft towards the 29,035ft summit. Due to the excessive lines, inability to pass, extreme altitude and cold temps, folks were forced to essentially "stand around" for upwards of 3 hours waiting their turns. The four that died are suspected to have perished from altitude related illness and exposure, surely in part to standing in place for hours at a time at over 8,000 meters.

There are several well documented variables that are playing out there this season that are cumulatively at least contributing to most of the deaths there this year (10).

Primarily you have a large demographic of folks that have a strong desire to knock off the "7 Summits", which by default includes Everest. The only problem with this is many of the folks that seek out that objective have summited a total of 6 peaks...EVER...by the time they get to Everest. Many peak baggers these days fail to put in their apprenticeship prior to venturing up to the icy slopes of the Himalaya and arrive at Basecamp with minimal experience of how their bodies will react at extreme altitude and stress or even how to properly use their gear.

Now, I would never fault someone for setting a very high goal and set out to achieve it... but what is important to remind these folks is that lofty goals deserve a diligent amount of effort and work. Dozens of years in the mountains is important...understanding what altitude does to your body. Making decisions when you are ridiculously depleted. Establishing a sense of self reliance. These skills are only learned from years of working in the big hills.

Most of the Everest peak baggers are lulled into a sense of ease and complacency due to the fact that there are dozens of commercial guide outfitters that, for a lofty price tag will do everything for them except place their feet on the ground. This sets up a challenging dilemma for everyone. The Nepalese Ministry of Tourism will never turn down the huge money that Everest brings in to their impoverished nation (this year the Nepalese government reportedly issued around 340 permits at $10,000 each). The guide companies also have a hard time turning away such big $$$ (ranging from $25k up to $110k). And most frighteningly, the clients feel comfortable allowing the guides to do all the work and make all the decisions. There are plenty of stories out there about some dude or dudette with very limited experience making it to the top with just sheer conditioning and drive. What is typically not stated in these cases is how the guide provided all the critical decision making, life saving moves and logistical coordinating...which is what guide services do. I'm just not sure it's wise to coddle someone at 29,000ft.
You have the very young (13) and the very old (73) and I even heard...and I just can't believe this...a BLIND GUY summited Everest. What the hell? Must be easy.

Take all of the above issues and saddle them up with the fact that this season has been extraordinarily dry and windy on Everest. This has lead to very rocky conditions and lead to an excessive amount of rock and snow fall from the higher slopes which in turn has lead to several rock fall injuries this season as well as several abandon attempts simply due to the fact that the "route just wasn't in". My pals from the Eddie Bauer First Ascent team were attempting the very little climbed West Ridge and found the conditions to be horrific...mostly from poor snow coverage and high winds. That being said, these guys were bad ass for simply getting way up there and trying something VERY hard. Kudos to Charley, Jake, Dave and Brent.

The only humorous issue for me in this whole story is how on our summit night on Everest in 2001, all the other teams made it VERY clear they did not want to be around our team with Erik...assuming the blind guy would slow everyone down. Little did they know that Erik goes just as fast as everyone else on the type of terrain you encounter towards the top. I remember our expedition leader, PV telling the other teams..."yeah, you may want to avoid the night of the 24th. We might be really slow." That was some solid gamesmanship right there. We had summit night to ourselves. The only other humans we saw that night were these two guys that summited from the North side right around the same time we did. Otherwise that mountain was ours.

In any case, tonight another 100 or so folks are going for the top. I will send good warm and open space vibes to them as they push on.  May the stop lights remain green to the top.

Check out my contribution to the NBC Nightly News that aired on the 24th.

And Then There Were 4....

And No Limits is one of them!

As much as Erik, Ike and I wanted to provide an exciting finish for Episode 9, we didn't expect it to be quite the nail biter that it became...an all out sprint to the finish line against the Cops.

Episode 9 began the following day after our dramatic finish to oust the Cali Girls at the conclusion of Episode 8. So our excitement and sense of disbelief in how it all went down left us a bit drained, I believe. That being said, we were still committed to give it our all in Episode 9 and finish like men.

Paddling for hours in fast, large rapids was a ton of fun for us as well as ground we didn't have to run/hike on Ike's sprained ankle. We made up some time on the Footballers and found ourselves heading up the hill to the first challenge in 3rd place behind the Gyps and the Fabulous Crew. At this point it was clear to everyone on board that there was a split in the camp based on general disposition and approach towards the entire adventure experience. The Footballers and Fabulous Crew were cuddling up with each other and then of course we were very tight with our Gypsy bros. This was the way we broke down at the end of each day at camp as well as how the "hook a brother up" moments were distributed. We saw this illustrated clearly during the challenge that took place at the top of the hill with the word decoder. The Fab Crew straight up told the Footballers the answer (banks) and Taylor from the Gyps gave me a huge hint (where do you put your $). So...even though we weren't in to the "alliance" aspect of the game, it was taking place organically simply because we truly respected and enjoyed spending time with the Gyps...slightly less with Football and honestly, not at all with the Fabulous Crew. That being said, I did respect them for the job they were doing out on the course and actually mentioned this in my best Fab imitation on this episode. Some thought it was funny. Some not. I don't care either way.

Once we hit land...just as in Episode 8, No Limits was not willing to concede, however we were hobbled by Ike's ankle sprain and knew that it was going to take another colossal mistake from one of the other teams to keep us in it and our will to charge hard at all cost was not reasonable to ask of Ike. We watched again as all the teams passed us and we accepted our fate as best we could.

Then comes the caves and tunnels. Super fun and very Indian Jonesish. While scrounging around in the cave in search for one of the last remaining pottery jars, I watched as Rob from the Cops scooped the appropriate pot and jetted past me on his way to seal up the last remaining spot for the Final 4.

It was what it was though...

I continued my search, found the last pot and rallied my team out of the cave, across the water and overland towards the finish and probable showers and beers that night.

As we were loping towards the finish line I caught a glimpse of the strangest thing...the Cops, coming back towards us. Unexplainable. They should have crossed the finish line by now. They had at least a 15 minute lead on us. Why would they be coming back the other way...away from the finish. Well...something strange was taking place and I was going to gather my team and high tail it to the finish. See what happens.

As we picked up our pace we noticed the Cops were right on our asses...running as hard as they could. Which in turn made us fall into a full on sprint (as much as a blind dude and a guy with a cast on can possible sprint). Ike was like Forest Gump charging towards the line...bumbling along with his cast splitting into pieces as he ran.

Our finish in 4th that afternoon was one of the top 5 most exciting moments of my life. Pure joy and satisfaction...rolled in to a Jeffery victory dance inclusive of GPS spike on to the ground (much to the chagrin of the production staff at the loss of their $400 piece of equipment that I used like a football). It was intense and I have received countless emails, messages and tweets about how cool it was to watch a grown man do a celebration dance on national TV. My happiness was uncontrollable. We had done it again...pulled off the unlikeliest of all "victories" and were moving on to the Final 4.

And now we have come down to the final episode. An odyssey that began months ago has now come full circle. We will battle it out this Thursday with the remaining 3 teams to see who will take the prize.

So here comes the exciting part...

We will be hosting a Finale extravaganza with our Gypsy brothers here in Boulder to celebrate both teams making it to the finale. We could think of no other way to spend this exciting night than with 500 of our closest friends, family and Gypsy Bros. Executive Producer Lisa Hennessy will be joining us. Multiple bands, lots of beer, food, silent auction items and 6 dudes telling all sorts of EI stories...most of them true. And the best part about all of this...ALL proceeds go to our Soldiers To The Summit project as well as the Gypsies non profit of choice, Feed the Children. We are fired up to funnel all of this finale energy into efforts that are bigger than us as individuals and perpetuate the goodness that has brought us to this point in the adventure.

Please find all the info necessary to purchase tickets on our Finale Party link or if you are unable to come, simply make a donation.

Thanks for all of your support over our journey this summer. It has been such a hoot to watch it play out with all of you.

This will be one for the ages. I can't wait to see what happens!!!!

Now That's Trust

Imagine this scenario...

You are blind. And I mean lights out blind. Not visually impaired. Not, "I can see some shades of light, maybe a few shapes". No...you are dark as night blind.

You are told that it's time to jump off a cliff into some water below. Initially you are unclear as to how far the jump is. Maybe it's 10 ft...perhaps 20 at the most. No big deal. Kind of like a high dive at the pool. You've done that before. You can do this.

Then your buddy tells you to follow him to the edge of said cliff. You can hear the raging water below. It sounds like it's REALLY far down there. Like REALLY far down. You can feel space all around you...below you. Your buddy scoots up to the edge of the rock to take a peek down and spurts out a "Well alrighty then...my goodness...it's like a 40 footer...but it's cool, its cool."

"What?"

"It's no problem dude. You will do this. You will do this. Chances are good you're gonna live through this."

Any rational person would say "you are absolutely out of your mind". I mean come on... I can't see where I'm going to land. I might flip over and land on my back or head. 40 ft is a LOOONG way down. A lot can go wrong in 40 ft. No way man.

Well I suppose Erik IS a bit irrational. He's also got balls of steel and trusts his bro unconditionally.

I have been guiding Erik on mountains and rock faces all over the world for close to 20 years. Together, we have navigated what many folks would consider some of the most challenging and deadly terrain on the planet...much of it requiring VERY precise communication, a profound level of trust and a willingness to execute with everything we've got.

You scootch over to the edge. Stand up. Hold your buddy's hand and count it down...3. 2. 1. Launch!

Commercial break.

This was a great episode of Expedition Impossible...lots of drama, excitement and fun challenges. The production staff did a great job putting this all together (shout out to you Shooter). You can imagine the complexity of putting together such a huge operation. Quite impressive.

After the jump we moved on to a very cool zip line and straight into a very sneaky challenge where attention to detail was mandatory. Ike took this challenge on and as he headed off to retrieve the key I hollered out to him a specific detail about our symbol. Turns out...it was a critical piece of the puzzle. Ike nailed it and we were off to the 4th class rapids.

Going in to the rapids was the only time during the entire adventure that I was actually a bit nervous. The water safety guys had come to me prior to the put in and stressed very clearly that there were MANY opportunities for folks to get hurt on the upcoming stretch of water...and more specifically, Erik could get in big trouble here. I would need to be razor sharp. I wasn't worried about me being able to navigate the water....however I was genuinely concerned whether I would be able to get Erik through it cleanly. Well...our descent wasn't particularly pretty...Erik did take a few swims...but we made it down. And we passed a few teams along the way and came in 3rd for the stage. Not bad for such a challenging stretch of racing.

As we came across the finish line, Erik's voice was still trembling with adrenaline. I had lost my voice from hollering out commands on the river for hours. Dave says that Erik is a real life action hero...and right on cue I put out a "yep...he's Superblind". Straight up.

Previews for next week show someone sustaining a significant ankle injury...speculation that it's broken. Ladies and Gentlemen....meet my man Ike. He's a stud and you are about to get to know him. It's getting real now.