Climbing

Is Mt. Kennedy the Mountain of the Year?

/ Andrew Szalay

Mt. Kennedy of the Yukon. (All rights reserved.)

I started to feel like I was missing something significant. Alpinist Magazine had a feature on Mt. Kennedy. Then my Google alerts showed a lot of “chatter” about Mt. Kennedy and suddenly Gripped Magazine had an article. Was Mount Kennedy the Mountain of the Year?

Well, not exactly, but there are two stories, and both are worth talking about.

In 1965 Jim Whittaker led Senator Robert Kennedy on the first ascent of an alpine objective in Yukon Territory formerly named East Hubbard, renamed by the Canadian government that same year after the late president, John F. Kennedy, Jr. I’ve often dismissed the ascent as notable but not significant. David Stevenson made it more interesting for me than just notable.

David Stevenson was a member of Mt. Kennedy’s second ascent in 1977. He also wrote the long-form feature — a mountain profile — in Alpinist 67. The mountain was remote, and it has all the elements of classic David Roberts and Bradford Washburn far north American alpine adventures, including long slogs, shuttling, and no contact with the greater world for months at a time and being at complete peace about it. I read that stuff with nostalgia. (Does that make me weak, or subconsciously critical of my modern hurried life?) Regardless, the feature was excellent and worth the purchase or the subscription.

The second story was a new feature-length documentary will be released this fall (fall 2019) about the sons of the original climbers, including a candidate for governor, a band manager, and young mountaineer, repeat of the climb 50 years later, Return to Mount Kennedy. Like most other climbing films (or any film or movie for that matter), I won’t rush to watch it, but I am curious about how the film delivers on its promise to tie in a theme of conservation.

Mt. Kennedy isn’t the mountain of the year. Who am I to declare that? But that does give me an idea for this blog; perhaps I have mountains or climbers of the month that I can focus on here on the blog and social media? Well, it’s just a thought.

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Who is Nirmal Purja?

/ Andrew Szalay

North Doodle. (All rights reserved)

In March 2019, we saw the results of a press push. Some guy no one knew was going to try to make history.

Nirmal Purja claimed he was going to climb all fourteen 8,000-meter peaks in record time. Not in years, but months. The record had been over seven years. Purja wanted to do it over a single season. I shared the news on social media and the reactions were in alignment with mine, but more succinct:

  • “Bullshit on so many levels. Don’t give him the publicity he craves.“
  • “Impossible… I think it’s cheap publicity nothing more.”
  • “This shouldn’t even be ‘news worthy’ until he actually does the deed. Anyone can say they’re going to summit all 8000ers in a single year, but I’d bet money he can’t do it.”

Yet as of the end of July 2019, he has already made history by completing 11 of his objectives with only Cho Oyu, Shishpangma, and Manaslu remaining.

So who is this guy?

First of all, the thing he is actually most famous for is the May 23rd photo of the conga line of climbers heading to the top of Everest. Yes, it was from Purja’s Instagram account. He had already embarked on his journey, which he calls “Project Possible 14/7.”

Purja is Nepalise and served from 2002 through 2018 in the British military through the Brigade of Gurkhas and later in Royal Navy’s Special Boat Teams. During that time he became a member of the Most Excellent Order of British Empire, as the MBE after his social media handles indicate. (MBE is not knighthood; there are higher orders which are knights.)

Based on Purja’s Project Possible, he is an excellent logistical planner, and has a strong will. It appears to have drawn some significant resources including his lead sponsor, Bremont, a luxury watch maker. He is also supported by four experienced Sherpas. Jeff Moag talks about his team on their K2 push — and it really was sheer will and muscle — that got them to the top this season, possibly making rather than breaking Purja’s Project Possible 14/7.

What Purja has done to date has already been historic. The previous speed record was by Kim Chang-ho of South Korea at seven years 10 months and 6 days. He finished in 2013. The previous record to that was by Jerzy Kukuczka in 1987 after seven years 11 months and 14 days. His approach is innovative in concept, though not fitness or technology. Climbers have reached base camps by helicopter before. Mountaineers have climbed multiple 8,000ers in a single trip, though usually within the same expeditionary trip. Doing them all has surprised many, including me.

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Who Was the First Person to Free Solo?

/ Andrew Szalay / 1 Comment

Totenkirchl and the first first solo ascent. (All rights reserved.)

Have you heard of Paul Preuss before? Or what about W.P. Haskett Smith? Hopefully you were not in the dark like I was. If you were, let’s catch up together…

I stumbled on Preuss first while I was reading Mark Synnott’s The Impossible Climb and later listening to the podcast The Runout by Chris Kalous and Andrew Bisharat, I came across Preuss within weeks of each other. Paul Preuss was the first person to devote himself and promote a special climbing ethic that is like modern day free soloing.

However, as Mark Bullock pointed out over Twitter to me recently, W.P. Haskett Smith (1859-1946) started modern rock climbing. In the Lake District, he was increasingly drawn not just to the hills but the cliffs. And he attempted them without ropes or aid or any kind.

Kalous and Bisharat were talking about Jim Reynolds’ feat on Mt. Fitz Roy in Patagonia (which if you don’t know about, please click this) and they talked about Paul Preuss. Synnott talked about Preuss in providing a history of free soloing. Smith is seems to be overlooked as a free soloist because he is generally accepted as an rock climber so early in the game. Preuss on the other hand, was intentional, and wrote several essays on the about climbing ethics and the purity of free soloing.

Taking a closer look, I realized Preuss has been coming up more often since Alex Honnold free soloed El Capitan. However, the association with Jim Reynolds’ free solo of Fitz Roy might be more appropriate, however. That’s because Reynolds, like Preuss, downclimbed whatever he free soloed. Repeating Kalous’ and Bisharat’s wonderment, could you imagine if Honnold, after reaching the top of Free Rider, then started down climbing and had to reverse the karate kick and go back down the Free Blast slabs?

Preuss was born on August 16, 1886 and lived in Austria, by his Hungarian father and Austrian mother. His father was Jewish, which caused history to forget about Preuss’ contributions for several years after his death in 1913. He practiced and evangelized a pure form a climbing that was free of bolts and aid: free soloing.

Preuss wrote several essays (with an English translation by Randolph Burks available here,) and has consolidated his beliefs into six principles. These principles were first written in 1911 in the essay Artificial Aid on Alpine Routes: A Reply by Paul Pruess in Vienna. The essay is available in the link I shared.

  1. You should not be equal to the mountain climbs you undertake, you should be superior.
  2. The degree of difficulty that a climber is able to overcome with security on the descent and also believes himself capable of with an easy conscience must represent the upper limit of what he climbs on the ascent.
  3. The justification for the use of artificial aids consequently exists only in the event of an immediately threatening danger.
  4. The piton is an emergency reserve and not the basis for a method of working.
  5. The rope is permitted as a relief-bringing means but never as the one true means for making the ascent of the mountain possible.
  6. The principle of security belongs to the highest principles. But not the frantic correction of one’s own insecurity attained by means of artificial aids, rather that primary security which with every climber should be based in the correct estimation of his ability in relation to his desire.

Please go read Preuss’ translated essays. They’re worth the effort. (By the way, I had some difficulty downloading the PDF, so just read them online.)

So the answer, of course is W.P. Haskett Smith, if you say who is the first to free solo. But who was the first intentional and devoted free soloist? I think that title belongs to Paul Preuss.

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Sources: 1) Mark Synnott, The Impossible Climb, Dutton, New York 2019. 2) The Runout Podcast on April 12, 2019. 3) Wikipedia, primarily for life dates. 4) Pruss’ essays translated by Randolph Burks available here.

How Free Soloists Die According to Alex Honnold

/ Andrew Szalay

The Valley of Light. (All rights reserved)

I just finished my written review of The Impossible Climb: Alex Honnold, El Capitan, and the Climbing Life by Mark Synnott and published by Dutton in March 2019. The “big” review won’t be published until sometime after May 8th. That’s okay. There is plenty of stuff to share that didn’t fit into the 800-word limit.

One thing I had to share from Synnott’s book was how Honnold views the risk of death from free soloing. (Synnott calls this Honnold’s “homegrown statistic.”) According to Honnold, Synnot writes, “no free soloist has ever fallen while pushing his limits.”

Synnott quotes Honnold: “It doesn’t seem to be the way that people die.”

Synnott considered these free soloists from The Impossible Climb:

However, there are two that died free soloing

While this subject was morbid and covered only about a page, the book is still more about life and facing fear and the choices we make.

Go pick up a copy, I definitely recommend it.

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How Do You Follow and Support a SAR Thousands of Miles Away?

/ Andrew Szalay

Rope team. (All rights reserved)

Since Thursday, February 28th, there has been a search for Danielle Nardi and Tom Ballard on Nanga Parbat. They went missing while attempting a new route up the Mummery Ridge. To date, only a snow-filled tent in an avalanche path around Camp 3, where they were last reported, was found.

It’s hard to know what to do in these situations 7,000 miles away. So I do a lot of things…

I try to follow with interest, hoping their found, perhaps descending a whole other section of the mountain with an incredible story to tell.

I’m also the praying type, so I pray.

Actually, I have more things I try not to do:

I try not to make judgments. (“Oh, they’re gone.”) As long as there is a SAR underway, I try to stay positive. Because, what do I know. I’m not there. It’s on the other side of the earth.

They have friends and family. As Tommy Caldwell says in his book The Push, or Tim Emmet said on the Enormocast recently, only thoughts of how their demise while climbing (or wing-suiting, for Tim) would affect their family gave them serious pause and inched toward heartache. Family lives on and we live with them.

I try not to ignore it. Especially until it is resolved. These things are not trivial current events about a Chinese man-made archipelago or story of a concert on some island. It’s more akin to miner’s stuck in their mine. Except these guys were going for fun, and as professionals, let some of us 7,000-miles away live vicariously.

How do you follow these scenarios? Do they affect you?

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Winter Enchantment and What I Am Reading Now

/ Andrew Szalay
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What’s on my bed stand March 3, 2019.

Hi, everyone, from a snow covered Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Natalie and I took the kids snowshoeing yesterday. We all looked at these scattered dimples on the snow that looked like little oval shadows scattered across the snow. Droplets of water from melting snow up in the tree branches crashed into those craters. The changing nature of snow from hour to hour is worth pausing for a moment.

Well, I’ve got three things on my bed stand these days:

The Push by Tommy Caldwell (2017) — I am nearing finishing Tommy’s autobiography. (He’s so young, I am sure that there will be a second one day.) The first half answered many questions about Tommy’s life that I followed through bits and pieces in print publications, mostly Climbing magazine, in the early 2000s. He talked about being kidnapped in Kyrgyzstan (including the titled push), his marriage with Beth Rodden, and losing his finger. I didn’t realize how early he had been contemplating the route on the Dawn Wall. I’ll do a full review in a few weeks.

Alpinist 65 — Issue 65 just arrived in my mailbox this week. It has an essay by the great David Roberts, art by Sujoy Das, and a feature profile and history of climbing the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. I only started, but Katie Ives leads off with a fascinating essay that includes a reflection on a Hans Christian Anderson tale, The Snow Queen. (It reminded me of my early take on the Lion the Witch and Wardrobe; I was drawn to the wintry wonderland of Narnia for the enchanted conditions more than the dramatic saga.) It is on news stands now.

Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul  by Howard Schultz with Joanne Gordan (2011) — I am reading this for myself for my work at Habitat. I don’t go to Starbucks much, especially when there are many great coffee shops in our community, but this book deals with an organization’s core values, and what it means to hold on to them, especially in a crisis. We’ve been revisiting our core values and it has even made me consider what the core values of this blog ought to be.

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