Mountains calling

The Strenuous Life

It’s Everest season. Just this week, the year’s first summits of the world’s highest mountain took place with more scheduled in the days to come. Mid-May allows for the jet stream to (hopefully) move off the summit and the barrage of ice and snowstorms to subside.

It’s a tight window, but one opened just enough for the adventurous to slide through.

Mountains call. It’s probably due to the very clear achievement when they’re climbed. Summit and you’ve met your goal. I remember my childhood of scampering up Pinnacle Mountain—the 700-foot hill in Central Arkansas. Still today, I climb it and breathe the air crisp with altitude and clear with scenery.

I’ve competed in the Pikes Peak Ascent twice. Compete might not be the right word. I struggled through and survived the Ascent as runners snaked their way up trails to the 14,000-foot peak. Lack of oxygen and a lot of overexertion made me delirious. My wife picked me up at a ranger’s station. “You look awful.” “I feel awful.”

“Did you win?” She asked, smiling, knowing I was closer to the back of the pack than the front.

“Yeah, I only fell three times. I didn’t pass out. I made it to the top. So, I won.”

She patted my arm in a patronizing way, “Whatever keeps you going, honey.”

We once took the razor’s edge route up Lone Peak in Big Sky, Montana, an 11,000-foot hike mostly on hands and knees. My wife and I shook with exertion as we eyed the 1,000-foot drops on either side of the path. Loose rocks made the climb dangerous. We held our bodies close to the mountain, hugging it to squeeze out the fear.

Footsteps came up behind us and I turned my head to see a shirtless man, probably in his mid-70s, running up behind me.

“Hey guys,” he said. “Enjoying the Peak?”

“It’s terrifying,” my wife said. “You get used to it. I’ve run it every day for the last 10 years.” He stopped long enough to assess a route around our bodies splayed on the tight edge.

“You’re kidding me. If you take one step in the wrong direction you’ll die,” my wife said.

“Nah, you won’t die, but you’ll wish you did. Those are some sharp rocks. Have a great day!” He stepped over us with ease and continued running.

My wife looked at me. “I hate that guy.”

Every year, I keep track of Mount Everest climbing season through Outside magazine and various blogs that detail each expedition heading to the summit. Everest is 29,000 feet. Climbers are fond of saying that’s cruising altitude for most commercial jetliners.

“Please tell me you’re not checking on the Everest folks again,” my wife says as she walks by, my face buried in the glow of a laptop. “Yep.”

“Anyone interesting this year?”

“Some guys are trying a new, dangerous route that includes a 6,000-foot shortcut.”

“Why would anyone do that? Climbing Everest just doesn’t make sense to me.”

My wife is intelligent and confident. She sets and accomplishes goals easily. She doesn’t need a mountain to achieve. For others, mountains in their literal and figurative forms beckon.

One Everest Arkansan is case in point. Jeff Glasbrenner was raised in Wisconsin and has lived in Little Rock for years. He lost part of his leg in a farming accident as an 8-year-old boy. The doctors told his mother he’d never run and he should avoid outdoor activities as they’d be dangerous for him. Glasbrenner didn’t listen. After competing in triathlons, playing competitive wheelchair basketball, and consistently challenging himself, Glasbrenner fell in love with mountain climbing.

“I was told I couldn’t do a lot after I lost my leg. Everest is the highest place on Earth,” he told me recently, describing the simple equation.

Rising to a challenge. That’s good fuel for a full spirit like Glasbrenner’s.

In 2016, after being fitted with a special mountain-climbing prosthetic, he attempted to be the first American-born amputee to summit Everest. He balanced on ladders to get across deep crevasses. He slogged through ice and snow. He used his special crampon prosthetic to lift him up the mountainside.

And then, he stood on top of the world.

“It was the most amazing feeling standing on the summit. It was a time of reflection, for the people who got me there—the Sherpa, my family, my friends who believed in me.”

Now, Glasbrenner has set a new goal—the Explorers Grand Slam. That means conquering the world’s Seven Summits and skiing the last degree of the North and South Poles.

He’s halfway finished.

This year, a record number of climbers are attempting Everest, and the summits continue. There’s something gratifying knowing that people like Jeff Glasbrenner dare to do so.

Even sitting in Little Rock, just 300 feet above sea level, a mountain can mean much more than just an adventure. Mountains beckon us to achieve.

Like Jeff Glasbrenner’s determination, they entice us to stand for a challenge.