And it’s a wrap… Lessons from an alpine summer
After three months of going around the Cascades, Colorado, Peru and Chamonix (for a tiny bit), my first alpine season is now over. I’m in Colombia for a couple of weeks before going back stateside to spend the fall rock climbing. Lessons and learnings will definitely become clearer over time, but I wanted to write some initial thoughts before becoming a dirtbag climber and forgetting the joys of ridge climbing, crampons, sugary snow, quick-snap soloing decisions, and general misery that comes with the alpine.
While these lessons come from my experience in the mountains, looking at them I realize how directly applicable they are to business in general and startups and entrepreneurs in particular.
Everyone finds alpinism/mountaineering physically and emotionally miserable at some point. (aka, Don’t be a punk and don’t quit)
Unlike most activities people love, I would not characterize mountaineering and alpinism as particularly enjoyable. Objectively speaking, I think of it as an absolutely foolish and miserable endeavor. Long days, crappy accommodations, uncertain decision-making, full exertion, and sometimes ridiculously high-stakes in case you make a mistake. Rather than explain it myself, I found this excellent chart from Chris McNamara (an amazing big wall climber — and entrepreneur — in his own right), which summarizes perfectly how I and others feel when we go on an alpine climb.
One of the biggest realizations this summer was knowing that most people go through that mental and emotional process. Don’t get me wrong, there are times when you are in perfect flow, swinging your tools and front-pointing with no difficulty while enjoying a stunning sunrise. However, there are multiple times where you are terrified, exhausted, confused, and frankly just completely baffled at why you do these stupid things. A few times this summer, I even tallied how much I could get for my gear if I decided to quite after getting down. Especially as a relative newcomer to alpinism, it’s refreshing to hear other folks share their experience when undertaking a difficult climb. Not many people undertake activities where a key part of the experience is undergoing that degree of physical and emotional pain.
Decision-making is critical — and you have to do it often, under uncertainty, and with high-stakes consequences.
I’ve mentioned this before, but one of the starkest differences with rock climbing is that you are always adjusting your approach and protection based on the level of risk, your level of comfort, and the need for speed to get off on time and safely. This means you are constantly making decisions — do we rope up? do we climb this together? do we pitch it? do we put the rope away and solo this? Is this crevasse really impassable? Am I comfortable going through this terrain known that a fall — however unlikely — will likely have fatal consequences? Are those clouds harmless or a harbinger of a storm to come? I’d gather that, depending on the situation, you can find yourself making a decision or two on the hour.
As critical as decision-making is learning how and when to stick with your decisions. It’s very easy to second guess yourself and revisit your decision every two seconds when conditions are not ideal (and we did this when attempting Mt. Shuksan). Something I’ve found incredibly useful in avoiding this is to have a clear milestone whenever you make a decision — e.g., we will climb for another thirty minutes and then assess whether to go, let’s get to that overlook and assess weather.
Corollary: High-stakes means no regrets.
In any activity, it takes a while to learn your true performance envelope. In fact, I don’t think you can ever really learn it, but you can definitely improve your awareness of your abilities over time. This is particularly important in alpinism, as knowing whether you can successfully do something or not can have serious consequences. Especially in situations where you are walking either unroped or without protection, where a fall can have awful consequences for both you and your partner.
One approach, which I’d argue prevails amongst younger folks, is to constantly push against the envelope and hope for the best. Most of the time, this will both work out ok and will meaningfully accelerate your development as a climber. It is also, however, a great way to increase the odds of something going majorly wrong. Given that I’m not looking to become the next Colin Haley or Ueli Steck, I‘d rather not tempt fate that way. This does mean that I occasionally turn around from situations where my skills could straightforwardly lead me to the top. Yet, you can’t regret making those decisions. Objective number 1 is always to get back alive.
Gear matters. Really.
I have a very good friend who, as far as I can tell, is both amused and mystified at my relative obsession with gear. He’s also primarily a sport climber who carries about six locker carabiners and enough water to last for three days if we are ever in a pinch. And the truth is that as long as you are sport climbing or cragging, the gear you have won’t really matter unless you operate at the cutting-edge of the sport (e.g., 5.13+ or so).
However, in the alpine, gear can make a real difference, primarily in terms of weight. When your approach is a steep snow slope with multiple thousand feet of vertical at altitude, every once matters. Over the course of the summer, I went from lugging a full 70L pack for an overnight trip, to carrying a 45L pack for a 4-day trip with fuel and food. And it mattered. Big time. It meant I went from carrying 50–55lbs to a more reasonable 30–35lbs or so. This is also the case on summit days, when shaving a few pounds will definitely help you get to the top. Obviously, lightweight gear tends to be more expensive and less durable, but definitely worth the investment — even if you are not going up K2.
I’ll aim to have a post up describing my gear choices in the next few days, as I think they were critical in getting me to the top more than a few times.
Goals also matter.
This sounds obvious, but it is not quite so simple. A lot of times, climbers (myself included) will just go to an area and “see what we can climb.” I find that I train and climb meaningfully better when I have a specific goal in mind.
Lastly and most importantly, it’s all about the team
I cannot think of another activity where you meet someone one day at a cafe in a mountain town, and then you head out the next day with him/her, sharing food, supplies and a tiny tent. Perhaps most disconcertingly, you then proceed to literally place your life in their hands for the duration of the trip. Crazy. And yet it works. However, it takes a bit of time and effort to find the right partner. Looking at my summer and previous experiences, here are the most important traits that my partners share.
- Trustworthy and honest. I can’t overemphasize its importance. It starts in how you portray your climbing experience so far and becomes more important during the trip.
- Opinionated but open-minded. A big one that some might miss. You want a partner that has strong opinions, as that increases the chances of getting to the best decision. You want someone who has a view on whether there is avalanche danger, whether we can dig a bivvy here or not, and so on. You want someone who is comfortable having opinions in the absence of clear data. Yet, this only works if that person is open-minded enough to change his/her mind if needed.
- Cool-headed and humorous. Goes without saying. In any sort of high-stakes situation, you want folks who can communicate, figure out the next steps and get it done. A bit of humor — even or especially of the dark variety — goes a long way.
- Self-aware.
- Knows when to push and when to back off. To me, this is the pinnacle of good partnership. You want someone who knows when you are ready to retreat, lower, or bail, but also someone who gets to know you well enough to know when to push back and give you that extra 0.1% of motivation that will get you to the top.
