The Great Outdoors
Jack Lynch: Biologist, Teacher, and Rock Climber
With his feet on tiny crystals and his head in the clouds, it’s just a normal day on the rock for Jack Lynch. When he isn’t rock climbing, you can find him teaching at Christ School, a boarding school in Arden, North Carolina. Aside from teaching, he is a dorm parent and leads the school climbing program.
“I would have never been interested in Christ School… that was what led me here… the outdoor program being so unique and interesting.”
Mr. Lynch credits his dad for imbuing in him the love of the outdoors. During his middle school summers, he and his father would spend weeks in Canada on fishing trips. “They were very no-nonsense, no-technology, out on a cabin in the middle of an island, in a river,” Lynch says.
After graduating from Colby College with a degree in ecology and evolution, Mr. Lynch worked as a biologist for the Bureau of Land Management, working out of the New Mexico desert. It was a prestigious position, but he wasn’t satisfied. “The whole purpose can feel somewhat meaningless. Sometimes the field work feels like you’re not really contributing anything.” This led him to pursue a teaching position at the High Mountain Institute (HMI), an organization a friend recommended to him while in college.
“[Teaching at HMI] was another seasonal job, but I just wanted to see if I would enjoy teaching.”
After enjoying his semester at HMI, Mr. Lynch moved to Idaho to be a teaching fellow (the equivalent of an assistant teacher) at Alzar. This was a natural change for him because HMI and Alzar are both semester long, outdoor education schools for high school students. The largest differences between the two are location and activities. The Alzar School explores Idaho and Chile, while HMI students explore the Colorado plateau and desert. While Alzar focuses on kayaking and backpacking, HMI focuses on backpacking and back country skiing.
There are a few adventures that stick out to Mr. Lynch, ones that he told me about during our interview. The most prominent of them was a climbing experience in California, on a famous route called “Open Book.” This route, on a large granite dome, is famous for being the first 5.9 multi pitch route in the United States, with Royal Robbins being the first to free climb it in 1952. Mr. Lynch and his friend climbed to the top, but they were tired and didn’t want to hike the long way down. They didn’t want to rappel down “Open Book” either because it is quite popular, and they didn’t want to rappel over people. Because of this, they decided to rappel down a nearby climb that they knew very little about.
When you’re rappelling, you are either looking at your belay device, the rock in front of you, or your partner above. You hardly ever look below you. They threw down their 70 meter rope, long enough for most pitches, and started rappelling. Mr. Lynch went first, but he didn’t see any anchors or good ledges. Eventually, he decided to stop and scout below. He and his climbing partner were forced to clip into bolts in side of the cliff and rappel off of a single carabiner.
“If I didn’t look down in that moment, I guarantee you I would’ve rappelled off the end of my rope and fallen.”
Although he made it down safely, experiences like this shaped his decision making. Mr. Lynch isn’t afraid of adventure, he is a rock climber after all, but he doesn’t take unnecessary risks. He makes it the safest he can, but still goes for it. This mentality has led him through life in all aspects: as a teacher, a mentor, and a friend.
