Cavalier: The Thin Line Between Alpinism and Assholism

Summit Day

We were three embattled men, joined by a rope whose slack was strewn irresponsibly across a snow slope, standing in a huddle yelling over the howling wind. Each of us had shed our packs for the final summit push--a group decision that left us with less weight, far less than the 130lb loads each of us had begun our expedition with two weeks prior. But less weight meant fewer options with which to resolve our current dilemma. As our rope team leader, Todd’s steady pace had led us up a total of 20,000 vertical feet over the past two weeks, between all the shuttling up and down to cache gear and acclimatize. Now he had struggled to a painfully frigid crawl. His body had given out, and his disbelief in the possibility of it so close to the summit became our certainty at what had to be done next. From the rear, I said it firmly, “Todd. You are done. We need to retreat.” The words fell on Todd like an anvil. He kept looking at the summit, only 600ft--the final 600ft--above and questioned why his body would not deliver as it had so many times before. The possibility that he had weakened over the course of the expedition; that the rigor of inhabiting such a cold and uninhabitable place for the past fourteen days had taken its toll and broken him; that despite having cut as much weight as he possibly could from his pack, he could no longer carry even his own weight up this final hill--was not something he was prepared to face. His will was no longer there, displaced by dismay at how it had been broken. And the struggle to refill himself with his desire to climb was as difficult as refilling his lungs with air.

From the rear, I said it firmly, “Todd. You are done. We need to retreat.” The words fell on Todd like an anvil. He kept looking at the summit, only 600ft--the final 600ft--above and questioned why his body would not deliver as it had so many times before.

I jarred him from his stupor, “We need to descend.” For the past two weeks, I had been careful to make suggestions, as my expedition style of climbing was a point of contention with my partners, both staunch advocates of a “fast and light” alpinist style. This time, I wasn’t making a suggestion. In that very moment, leadership of the group changed. I continued, “We have got to head back down to high camp. You are done. We can make another attempt when we get another weather window.” The patience afforded me by my approach--one that involves packing to live happy and healthy while in the desolate Alaskan environment--did not extend to Todd, who had excluded all items of comfort from his pack with Draconian restriction on the grounds of reducing weight. The suffering of the alpinist is meant to be short and sweet, but where long periods of acclimatization are requisite for summiting, it is neither. Todd disdainfully and resolutely replied, “If I go down to 17K Camp, I am not coming up this mountain again.” It was an ultimatum that left the team with few options. He could no longer climb, and he refused to try again at a later date. Todd continued, “You guys go up. I’ll return to the packs and wait.”

I could afford to gauge my other partner’s response to the suggestion without giving away my own--the ski goggles I wore to keep my eyelids from freezing together in the bitter cold also hid the hope restored beneath them.

I could afford to gauge my other partner’s response to the suggestion without giving away my own--the ski goggles I wore to keep my eyelids from freezing together in the bitter cold also hid the hope restored beneath them. Leif, the 19 year old from Hood River, Oregon was practically jumping at the suggestion. As a backcountry ski-mountaineering racer, he is no stranger to risk-taking. I immediately thought back to “Surviving Denali”, one of the climbing books I had read before we traveled to Alaska. The book, a compendium of incident reports detailing others’ fate on Denali, calls out one all-too-common precursor to catastrophe on the mountain: a party splitting up.

I cycled through the risks and mitigating circumstances as quickly as I could. The packs were dropped 300 yards away at the far side of the Football Field, a zone of compression that would be free of crevasses. In them, there was food and water with which to refuel, a shovel to dig a trench shelter in the snow, and both a Gore-Tex bivy bag and a heavy down sleeping bag in which to bed down to protect oneself from the -47F wind chill. I cringed for a brief moment at the memory of having to argue for the sleeping bag--that the condition Todd imposed for its inclusion was that I carry its weight up. I put the thought away with thankfulness that I had carried it and continued my assessment. The packs would be visible from the majority of the summit ridge, and the summit itself was no more than an hour round trip from the group’s current position on Pig Hill. The weather remained clear, consistent with the forecast I had received that morning via satellite messenger. It seemed the only factor in the situation that could compound the risk introduced by splitting up was Todd himself, whose capability of following through with his plan of returning to the packs was questionable.

Leif looked to me to make the call--despite Todd having expressed no qualms about leaving me behind at the onset of the trip, none of the group had entertained soloing it. I agreed to go forward with Leif, but only after outlining Todd’s course of action: that he was to descend to the packs, bivouac, and await Leif’s and my return while eating and drinking. I made Todd repeat the plan back so that we were all clear on his understanding of the it. Leif pulled what he called “energy shots” out of his parka to assist Todd in his descent--some sort of steroid medication he was given from a doctor friend, saying that they would give Todd the boost he needed to get down to the supplies quickly. Leif and I then quickly reworked the rope for a team of two. All the time we were hurriedly doing it, Todd remained--still standing there, looking up at the summit. With the rope chores finished, Leif and I blasted up the hill to the summit ridge, nearly quadrupled the pace previously set by Todd. Time was of the essence now more than ever as a quick climb meant a quick reunion.

Denali’s summit ridge is a quickly thinning spine sharpening into the sky--there are six hundred feet of open air to the left, and a harrowing ten thousand to the right. But that was but a part of the churn of my thoughts as I traversed the knife edge leading to the summit.

Denali’s summit ridge is a quickly thinning spine sharpening into the sky--there are six hundred feet of open air to the left, and a harrowing ten thousand to the right. But that was but a part of the churn of my thoughts as I traversed the knife edge leading to the summit. I looked over to see if Todd had made it back--he had not. A moment of fear arose as I fruitlessly scanned the area below, my eyes darting back and forth between where we had parted with Todd and where we had parted with our packs. I could not find him below, because Todd was staggering behind us, unroped.

In truth, should his carelessly cavalier act have gone awry, he was forcing the responsibility of his rescue on Leif, me, and the mountain rangers.

It was a massive What The Fuck moment. There were other soloists on Denali, to be sure; plenty have climbed it on their own. But that was never our team’s plan--not going into the trip nor was it our immediate plan for addressing Todd’s problems. We had already--as a team--decided the best course of action given his condition. But that meant nothing to him. Alpinism to Todd meant options superseded plans, and Todd could not give up the summit despite his agreeing to wait for Leif’s and my return. The medication given to him to ensure a short trip to the relative safety of the packs now invigorated him to his own inconsiderate desires. In that moment, Todd felt accountable only to Todd. He was a cowboy, a lone soldier, beholden to no one. In truth, should his carelessly cavalier act have gone awry, he was forcing the responsibility of his rescue on Leif, me, and the mountain rangers.

Todd also did not consider how his stunt would affect the mood of his teammates. I hated him in that moment, and even Leif at 19 inherently understood how unwise the senior team member’s decision was. Reaching Denali’s summit was a silent moment, not because there were no words to describe the grandeur of the accomplishment nor because the vast and hermetic surround was so magnificent it rendered us all speechless. The hard-earned moment was silent because the words that would have surfaced would have been about neither. The obligatory congratulations offered were as awkward as the silence. So we sat there for the very short time that the human body can even survive in such conditions, in the same spot that so few others had ever and would ever sit, and tried unsuccessfully to keep alpinism turned assholism from ruining the moment.

Reflections

If that is not jarring to read, then we as a community have a troubling issue, and it is much broader than a single Denali expedition with some intra-team conflict.

From the beginning of the trip all the way to the summit, Todd had religiously applied his shortsighted alpinist mentality, but his adhering it on a mountain fit for an expedition mindset introduced a steady flow of subjective risk to the team. Given that mutually-assured safety is constitutional to roped travel, refusing a request from a teammate for a belay because “it’s not necessary here” or foregoing probing a tent site in a camp with a known crevasse risk because “someone else was already here” is at best irresponsible, and at worst fatal for the entire team. Each one of these types of scenarios occurred--some repeatedly--while we worked our way up Denali. If that is not jarring to read, then we as a community have a troubling issue, and it is much broader than a single Denali expedition with some intra-team conflict.

The issue is becoming hard to ignore. Being newly enthusiastic about mountaineering, I have gained a passing interest in the history of climbing. Looking back, trends tend to stand out to a fresh set of eyes. What stands out is that the evolution of climbing spearheaded by the seasoned professionals has led to a cavalier attitude by followers who see what we (the climbing community) have chosen to glorify. The sexiest parts of climbing filmography center around the daring involved in the endeavor.

I am not the only one asking the question, but it seldom gets an honest answer. When professional rock climber Emily Harrington was asked on the Joe Rogan Podcast , “Is there a concern in the climbing world of people who are seeing people like Alex Honnold and yourself become famous and get all this attention from these very dangerous climbs, and they want to perhaps accelerate their progress and jump right in and do some really risky things?”, she avoided the heart of the question, which bears with it some responsibility for how their feats are represented.

In the film Free Solo, a documentary about Alex Honnold’s free solo climb of El Capitan, a significant portion of the movie is dedicated to Jimmy Chin discussing how the legendary climbing film maker wrestled with the moral dilemma of possibly contributing to his friend [Alex Honnold] falling to his death since the act of filming the project implicitly pressures its attempt. But he never discussed the pressure filming the act would place on an untold number of viewers to push the bounds of their own climbing projects in order to gain recognition. The appetite for risk by the viewers, and thus the bar for risk acceptance by the climbers, is ever being raised.

I must admit that I, too, am intrigued and inspired by those pushing the limits of the activity, whether it be the boldness with which pioneers of climbing launched first ascent expeditions or the temerity required for what many now celebrate as the pinnacle of climbing exploits—chasing solo speed records. Their achievements even reach those within the upper echelon of climbing. The legendary Darryl Miller, retired Denali mountaineering ranger, said of Colin Haley’s solo speed record of Denali’s Cassin Ridge, “I believe most people will never understand why people like Colin Haley do what they do and never appreciate how good of an athlete he is. [Colin's solo adventures] tell me there are some unbelievable climbers out there who are operating on a level that I cannot even understand, but I sure admire.”

But, in harsh environments, the most significant predictor for success is the team’s ability to share burdens rather than eliminate them. This social approach, which is more tribal in nature than individual, focuses first on the team’s well-being.

I am not coming at this completely cold. There are some pretty significant parallels between the rope teams of mountaineering--the activity in which I have been immersing myself for the past two years--and the teams of adventure racing--the world I lived and breathed for seven years prior. In adventure racing, team members must travel together for the duration of the race. At any given point, the hindrances of any one team member become the team’s. With these realities, it can be tempting to believe that if all burdens were eliminated, then there would be no reason to slow down. But, in harsh environments, the most significant predictor for success is the team’s ability to share burdens rather than eliminate them. This social approach, which is more tribal in nature than individual, focuses first on the team’s well-being. Teammates that fail to do this—or worse, refuse to—are a cancer to team morale and inevitably doom the efforts of the group.

Alaskan crevasses could swallow peaks in the lower 48 whole.

Such a lack of other-mindedness marred my otherwise successful summit of Denali, during which those lessons from adventure racing were front and center in my mind, though convincing my teammates to attend to the lessons was a massive failure on my part. In planning, I was joined by two teammates, one older than me and one freshly out of high school. Both physically strong, self-proclaimed alpinists had laudable climbing resumes, built while living in the Pacific Northwest. I, on the other hand, had come through the formal training of National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), International Mountain Guides (IMG), and several mountaineering books as I built my own climbing resume summiting peaks in the Cascades, Sierras, and winter ascents in the Northern Presidentials.

All my sources of formal training--especially NOLS--teach conservative risk management practices and an expedition mindset to mountaineering that is a far cry from the “fast and light” approach that alpinists take. To be crystal clear, I am not here to advocate for one methodology over the other in either safety or efficacy. Each approach can be ideal in a variety of circumstances; even so, each has its inherent risks, which change with those circumstances. Darryl Miller, explains, “The expedition climbers can have a bad day with weather and other consequences (including altitude and snow conditions), but it will typically be more forgiving. But they are out longer, so they will be exposed much longer than those climbing with an alpine style. There is a trade off.”

On a rope team, different perspectives on which risks are and are not acceptable can be contentious even when the style of the climb is agreed upon. Since climbing style has fundamental ties to the types of risk the group will need to navigate during the climb, a sense of team camaraderie must take precedence here. Without this accord, conflict can too easily arise where it is least welcome--in the field.

At higher latitudes and with major bodies of water nearby, storm systems move in faster and colder. There are a handful of places on Earth that host stronger low pressure systems than those on Denali--systems that spawn powerful and extremely frigid storms out of the blue that blast those on the mountain in machine gun succession for a week at a time.

It is important to understand we were not attempting to set any speed records on Denali. Denali is to most a three- to three-and-a-half week self-supported climb blighted by infamous weather. North America’s tallest peak is located at the 63rd parallel north, a couple hundred miles from the Gulf of Alaska and a couple more from the Bering Sea. At higher latitudes and with major bodies of water nearby, storm systems move in faster and colder. There are a handful of places on Earth that host stronger low pressure systems than those on Denali--systems that spawn powerful and extremely frigid storms out of the blue that blast those on the mountain in machine gun succession for a week at a time. While taking on an ultralight mentality is certainly possible, it is generally agreed that the climb is best suited for an expedition mountaineering approach. It is said that “you don’t climb Denali; you camp to the top.”

Be that as it may, my teammates were both staunch alpinists—both talking incessantly about whether it would be better to modify store-bought gear to be lighter or if more weight could be shed by fabricating the equipment themselves. The younger of the two, despite having grown up in Hood River, Oregon, and being an avid ski mountaineering racer, had never undertaken a mountaineering expedition for longer than four continuous days. To highlight this, his approach to meals was rooted in the idea that one could build a menu for the day and after refining it to as minimal weight as possible for the calories, monotonously repeat it every day thereafter. Because he was not alone in this mentality, I alone bore the burden of proposing alternatives to it.

Spartan living conditions in inhospitable environments and eating the same repetitive regime of food ad nauseum can grate on the resolve of even the steadiest of climbers.

To the alpinist carrying the absolute minimal weight of equipment and food, multi-week climbs can easily turn into sufferfests. Spartan living conditions in inhospitable environments and eating the same repetitive regime of food ad nauseum can grate on the resolve of even the steadiest of climbers. Westman shared his wisdom on the matter, “The thing that younger generations of climbers should understand is that single push style is not always the best or safest way, and not always the most enjoyable. Some of my best experiences have been bivying on routes, taking a measured pace, without the pressure of trying to escape the mountain in one huge push.”

We were lucky to endure a tiny snow flurry on Denali, known for its arctic blizzards.

To the expedition climber, staying healthy and happy is foundational for success in the field. Yes, what is necessary to meet the “healthy and happy” metric is on a sliding scale. But to assuage excessive criticism from the “fast and light” crowd, this does not mean climbing in luxury. It does, however, mean packing what is necessary to maintain one’s basic needs in the field. Abraham Maslow, known primarily for his hierarchy of needs, explained motivation through a pyramid of cumulative needs people are motivated to meet. In order to have the motivation to pursue those higher-order needs--safety, friendship, and respect for others respectively--one must sufficiently meet the more foundational needs. Alpinists pushing the limits of “fast and light” on longer climbs run the risk of the most basic of needs in Maslow's hierarchy--the physiological--going unmet due to poor sleep, nutrition, clothing, and shelter. Without meeting these physiological needs, mental and emotional fatigue set in. Subjective risk then heightens as these weary climbers are more likely to make poor decisions with regards to safety and become more self-serving. This is precisely what occurred on Denali with my colleague.

While on Denali, there arose a recurring conflict between my older teammate and me that followed a repeated pattern. During times of fatigue and the agitation that often comes with it, what I will refer to as “rope discipline” would be thrown out merely because maintaining it was inconvenient.

Rope discipline, or the consistent and methodical approach to minimizing risk to the rope team members, is especially important during times of impatience or exhaustion. In fact, that is precisely when it matters most. There are of course exceptions. For example, when timeliness has a greater bearing on risk, such as when attempting to avoid an incoming blizzard. But on the whole, refreshing crevasse rescue skills before an expedition, belaying one’s teammates in and out, utilizing pre-placed running protection, and probing snow bridges and campsites in crevassed areas before untying from the team should all be robotic.

But anyone who has carried a 70lb pack while dragging a 60lb sled as is generally required at the onset of a Denali expedition knows that the rules of travel change.

As an alpinist, the risk on seemingly innocuous slopes may not be obvious—after all, being light lowers the likelihood of a fall due to losing one’s balance or a foot blowing out. But anyone who has carried a 70lb pack while dragging a 60lb sled as is generally required at the onset of a Denali expedition knows that the rules of travel change. Maintaining the “fast and light” alpinist mentality when your rope team is anything but fast and light is not only inapplicable; it is foolish. A misplaced step that is quickly and easily corrected by a lightweight alpinist could instead mean a fall with the momentum that comes from an additional fifty pounds. A foothold that is good for him or her break loose under the weight of seven days worth of food and supplies. A snow bridge that gives the alpinist cautionary pause is very likely one that would collapse beneath a fully-loaded expedition climber.

In our case, rope discipline was all too often deemed superfluous and cast aside. This mostly arbitrary judgment was merely a facade for what was truly expedition fatigue resulting from the underlying alpinist style employed by my teammates. The same fatigue, which led one of them to assume a general disregard both for his teammates and his own safety while topping out, could be traced back to countless other lapses leading up to the befouled summit day--lapses that more resembled assholism than alpinism.

Even so, it ended okay for us. In our case, we crested Denali fourteen days into our self-supported expedition, largely due to our responsiveness to the weather. While we reached our goal of getting to the top, the alpinist mentality that had twisted into something far less elegant during our trip nearly cost us the expedition twice, and without question endangered a member of our team during our summit bid.

But, maybe I am naive. I have only been involved in mountaineering for the past four years, after all, and many have received formal training from NOLS and the instructional community. It may be that others walked away with different takeaways from the same lessons in risk management. Certainly some feel a yawn coming on at the beginning of a seminar discussing the pros and cons of different campsite probing strategies. Perhaps the value in formal mountaineering courses lies solely in the technical skills taught within—not in the instruction for how to wisely apply them. That perspective may be a perfectly valid one.

In its ideal form, being on a rope team comes down to growing a love for mountaineering by respecting the individual endeavor of each member.

However, when we come together on a rope team, our perspectives on what it means to safely ascend the mountain also need to come together. In its ideal form, being on a rope team comes down to growing a love for mountaineering by respecting the individual endeavor of each member. The experience I had endured on Denali simply did not grow mine. The perspective that I had to deflect--one that carried with it a cavalier attitude celebrated in the climbing films but lacking any of the informed risk calculation behind the scenes--is an example of alpinism gone awry.

I am not saying that alpinism does not have its place. Nor am I saying we must discontinue how we market mountaineering—I suspect the inherent risk of the activity is one of the reasons many are drawn to it in the first place. However, I do think we need to be better stewards of our knowledge of different approaches to mountaineering—educating in various styles and methodologies of mountaineering and decrying dogma that one works best in all situations. Mark Westman sees a more moderate style emerging in the future, “I believe that the cutting edge lightweight gear combined with the recognition that prolonged sleep deprivation is not safe will steer the predominant style into a middle ground. Fast, light, but not completely devoid of safety margin.”

Further, while it is understandable that careful rope discipline and risk management strategies in mountaineering do not make for great television for a large swath of audiences, they do represent the details of the sport that intrigue more interested people. Given that the latter group is more likely to actually move on to climbing mountains themselves, hype films giving a complete picture of mountaineering are more responsibly planting the seeds of mountaineering in the future. I was encouraged by the last two big wall climbing documentaries I viewed; each successful film explained and dedicated a large portion of screen time to the more mundane aspects of route exploration and setting while telling the story of the epic accomplishment that eventually resulted from it. The films’ success was a testament to the climbing world’s ability to market itself more substantively than a single glory-filled summit shot would allow. For the ever-growing numbers of people weary of the age of insta-ADD, this “360” formula for telling a story is a welcomed, richer experience.

We need to celebrate equally the daring and the calculating nature of mountaineering, both the hazard inherent in the activity and the risk management necessary to survive it.

As mountaineers, we should use the same formula not just in our advocacy for mountaineering but also in our instruction of the next generation of climbers. We should include in our elaborations both the expeditionist’s and the alpinist’s approaches to climbing and the nuances of each. In my case, my teammates’ rejection of the possibility that the “fast and light” alpinist approach might not be best for tackling Denali prevented them from considering trade-offs during our expedition. After all, mountaineering—like much of life—is very much about trade-offs. As a community, we need to highlight this fact. We need to celebrate equally the daring and the calculating nature of mountaineering, both the hazard inherent in the activity and the risk management necessary to survive it.