I'm climbing Denali next week!

Ok, I suppose I could stand to blog a little more haha. In short, planning started last year, I'm the expedition leader, and there are five of us, who all live along the Colorado Front Range, and so that's our team name: Colorado Front Range. We're climbing the standard West Buttress route which is about 16 miles and 13,000 vertical feet from basecamp to the summit. 

First the basics, how can you follow along? First, you can follow along on my Garmin inReach by this link: https://share.garmin.com/IsaiahJanzen Second, I also will be sending out tweets. There won't be any blog posts because unlike Nepal, I won't have my laptop and I don't expect any cell phone service.

If you want to know what the weather will be like here is a simple link: https://www.mountain-forecast.com/peaks/Mount-McKinley/forecasts/6194 and here is a slightly more complex one, but gives the raw data and data used by the National Park Service: https://www.mountainweather.com/mountain-states/alaska/denali/

Who else is going?

J: A climbing partner of mine since 2008. He had an opportunity to ski Denali in 2010 but only had 6 weeks notice and didn't have the money at the time. Skills: all things backcountry (skiing, camping, backpacking, stoves, etc.), by my estimate he's also maybe one of the 100 foremost experts in the USA on snow, the perfect guy to evaluate avalanche danger. Weakness: He's over 40, and has never been above 15,000 ft.

K: She's J's long time girlfriend and super strong in the mountains. She's the one that pulled me up Pervertical Sanctuary last August (and hopefully again in the future!) Skills: Just did the AMGA Advanced Rock Climbing Guide class and is very strong skiing and spending 16+ hour days in the mountains. Weakness: She's actually never been on a real glacier or above 15,000 ft.

S: We've been climbing together since 2012. I cried speaking at his wedding last summer (and no one got Coronavirus at it!) He performs well at many things, used to almost lap me in downhill ski racing, he races bicycles, and rock climbs harder than I do, and has led a Mt. Rainier climb. Skills: He's the only one other than me to have been above 15,000 ft. when he summitted Aconcagua a few years ago. Weakness: He hasn't actually done that much hiking and backpacking compared to the other four of us.

M: He's the 26 year old new kid, and the strongest of all of us. In the last two years he's been with me on a one day ascent of Mt. Rainier, the 39 mile Chicago Basin run, and the 42 mile Grand Canyon run, and the day I broke my ankle skiing. Skills: Young energy and fitness, if he wanted to pursue competitive running, he could probably surpass all of my personal records. Weakness: Rest days, he's definitely the type to want to get out and stretch. 

Last question, which comes up a lot, how dangerous is it? Honestly, I've read a lot of accident reports and I'm going to go out on a limb and say, not "that" dangerous.  What I mean by that is, yes, we're on glaciers nearly the whole time with crevasses that could swallow us, but there are five of us, and four of us lead grade 3 ice climbs. Which means the whole time we will be well under our technical limits. Crevasse falls, and falls while climbing unroped are the leading cause of accidents on Denali, so having five people roped together provides a lot of security if one person falls, the other four can work to catch the person. Additionally we're going in May before the crevasses have usually opened up. Three of us live at 5000 feet and the other two live at 8000 feet. So I doubt the altitude will be a factor. Just this winter we did a 13er and three 14ers together. On Mt. Yale in January we had temperatures around 0 Fahrenheit and didn't see a single other person on the mountain all day. So we've had good training. I do worry about the cold, we're prepared for -20F temperatures and -40F windchills but there is the chance we get hit by a storm that's worse. So those are the basic concerns: falls (specifically into a crevasse), temperature, and maybe altitude. As mitigation we'll rope up and take a rest day if the temperature is ever lower than -20F.

It's going to be a fun trip! I even have a few surprises in store on this glamping expedition that I'm excited to share pictures of after we finish.

Training on the "Lost Lake Glacier" April 17th, 2021

How to Run the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim to Rim

I'm going to write this partly as a trip report, and partly as a how to. I love doing new things, new mountain adventures like this, and I also really enjoy doing routes that I've done many times. There is a comfort in doing a route I've done before, mentally it's easier, and for big routes like this, all of the unknowns on the first trip, like water stops, knowing which sections are difficult and which are easy, are now knowns. So it's possible to go faster too. This was my first R2R2R, but I am already planning an April trip to do it again with a different friend.

Some very basic information, expect to run and walk 43 miles, ascend and descend 11,000 vertical feet, and experience temperature swings of 45 degrees Fahrenheit from coldest to warmest point during the day, with a maximum elevation just over 8,000 feet and lowest elevation of about 2,800 feet above sea level. While definitely a difficult "run" that is NOT for amateurs, it's much easier and safer than Nolan's 14 or running the three Chicago Basin 14ers from Purgatory ski resort, both of which I tried earlier in 2020.

Rim to Rim to Rim Route
Strava Activity: https://www.strava.com/activities/4239446262

First, camping and logistics. You're going to want to start early in the morning, we woke up at 5 AM with the temperature in the 30s on October 24th. Being in Covid-19 times we camped on forest service road 328 to avoid people in hotels to the west of the south entrance to the park. You can see it at the bottom of the map below. The dirt road actually goes for 20+ miles with dozens of free camping spots. They are primitive, so no bathrooms or running water. You could also get a hotel in Tusayan a few more miles south, there are at least four large hotels there.

Free camping on road 328 just south of the park.

We woke up, had breakfast, broke camp down, drove into the park, and then drove toward the start of the South Kaibab Trail, on Yaki Point Road. You can't actually drive down the road, they had a ranger stationed at the entrance and only park busses could drive down it, but there are pull offs just 200 yards from the road, so our one person support crew parked and M and I jogged a quarter of a mile up to the start of the trail. We took a quick bathroom break to let the coffee do it's work, and then at 6:45 AM started our watches as we plunged down the canyon. We ran down it too fast. The first mile was a 7:26, and we made it the seven miles to the bridge over the Colorado River in just under 58 minutes, that's too fast for my fitness. It gave me a little muscular tiredness that was unnecessary. When I do it again I'm going to ease off on the first 1/6th of the route, maybe 1:05 or so, and hopefully be in better shape too. 

Interestingly, I found the Grand Canyon to be disorienting, that's really the best word for it in my mind. M at one point said he had vertigo as he looked around on our run. To give an example, 2-3 miles into the canyon, I had of course been focusing on the trail and my foot placement, but we were at an easy stretch so I looked up and around to enjoy the view. I almost fell over! For a second I wasn't sure what was up and what was down. Mountains are like cones. On the way up they are in front of you and generally to the right and left with essentially nothing directly behind you, and behind you to the right and left. On the way down it's the opposite, the mountain is behind you with miles of empty space in front of you and to your right and left. But in the Grand Canyon, as you descend and look out straight ahead, there are cliffs in front of you and to your sides. It's just a strange feeling for people that spend lots of time on mountains.

There are multiple running potable water stops at Phantom Ranch, we stopped at the one closest to the bridge at 1:02 elapsed time for an average pace of 9:22. Of course, at this point everyone is feeling pretty great, and you really should because you're only getting started. 

The route is rather nicely divided into 1/6th sections of about 7 miles each. The next 7 miles are up a 3.9% grade to Cottonwood Campground. We ran it with cool temperatures probably in the 50s, and honestly, I think smoothly running this section is key to having a fast day. We covered these seven miles in 1:30 for a 12:22 pace. Apparently the running potable water was turned off on Friday, October 23rd, and we brought a filter and tablet to purify water, but it was still running so we filled our bottles and headed up to the North Rim. 

After two miles we passed the Manzanita camp, which also had running potable water. It is the last of the three potable water sources in the canyon going from south to north. We continued up to the North Rim, mostly walking with some running, and for those 7 miles my time of 2:31 had an average pace of 20:48. 

I thought the North Rim was closed, and I was not sure there was any water, but when we topped out there was a water spicket 30 feet from the top, and two full parking lots on paved roads within 200 yards of the trail! M beat me up the trail by running much more of the uphill. When I got there we only stayed maybe 10 minutes so I could eat a little and drink some water, cold water from the spicket which was great! At this point we were already in trouble. I reached the top right at 5:00, although we had been aiming for 4:45. Neither one of us had been eating enough. I think M was at 600 calories, and I was very similar. I brought 1400 for the day, and I definitely had not had enough at that point. The problem was while my stomach wasn't revolting, it was craving mostly fat and a little protein, not the carbohydrate Shot Bloks and Jelly Beans that I had brought. So I could still eat, but my stomach was only desiring eating a single 33 calorie Shot Blok in a mile, instead of three of them in that mile. In other words, I still felt good on the North Rim at half way, but I knew that sub 10 hours wasn't going to happen and I needed to keep eating and drinking to avoid a bonk, but still thought sub 11 hours was possible.

We ran down from the North Rim, briefly stopping at Manzanita for a few minutes to enjoy having run a mountainous marathon and then we made a rather significant mistake. The potable water was flowing, and both of us had about 3/4 of a liter left, but instead of refilling our bottles, we decided, per the original plan, to refill back at Cottonwood Campground, where there had been water in the morning. Unfortunately two miles later at Cottonwood Campground, having covered those seven miles downhill in 1:37, the water spicket was dry, there was maybe 1 ounce that came out, and by that point we each had less than half a liter. We decided it was "only" 7 miles down a 4% grade, let's just go run it, and filter water if we need. Running 7 miles down 1,300 feet seems like the kind of thing you could easily do on a half liter of water. Well, the problem was it was now into the 80s and mostly sunny. Thank God there was a thin cloud for a good portion of this run because we quickly became dehydrated. (I was doing a fair bit of praying at the time, it's pretty common for me on these sort of adventures.)

This section from mile 28 to 35, while not technically the crux or the hardest part, is in my mind now, the key to the whole adventure. M and I both wore short sleeve shirts and shorts, and we didn't bring any long sleeve or jackets. So while the start had been freezing, it was perfect for this section, we were going as light as we could, which again helped us move quickly in the afternoon heat. However, because we were both dehydrated, our bodies were not craving the carbohydrate food we had brought either, which slowed us down even more. And once you dig yourself in a hole on an ultra run, even if it's not that deep, it's awfully hard to get out of it. Eventually, about three miles in, as I was having to sit for a minute every half mile or so in patches of shade we made the call to stop the next time the trail and river were close and in the shade. That happened about a mile later, when I was down to a few ounces of water. M had the filter and stepped over to the creek and filled one of my bottles. As I sat on a rock and gulped the half liter, my body immediately started sweating profusely. I had been sweating a little, but it just poured out of me as my body realized it was no longer in dehydration mode. I filled up another liter of water and we ran the three miles to Phantom Ranch. Along the way I had to pee, and there was not much that came out and it was not at all the color you want to see. 

I did a lot of mountain traverses and link ups this summer involving 8+ hour days. However, a mountain is quite different than the Grand Canyon. When you start in the morning on a mountain it is cold, and often stays a similar temperature as you ascend to the summit. With the cooler temperatures you might not need to drink as much or eat as much. However when you turn around and go down, the day has usually warmed up so you can shed layers, and drink a lot more, and eat any food you have left. When you reach a stream crossing between two mountains, it's often the warmest time of a traverse or link up, so purifying water and drinking it feels right. Rim to Rim to Rim is different. It starts out the coldest it will be for the day and immediately gets warmer as you descend. As you do the bottom section and go back up the other side, the temperature is relatively consistent for hours. When you are on top of one of the rims, it's cool and so you don't feel the need to drink as much. However, the second time you drop down into the canyon, it's afternoon in a lower altitude desert, and you need to drink a lot, and you really have to plan the water stops.

At Phantom Ranch we took a solid 20 minute break to drink and eat and sit down. Both of us were craving fat, like a milk or cheese at this point.  At this point 35 miles in with the crux of the route remaining, we both knew it was basically going to be a hike out, between the dehydration and eating less than 1000 calories each, we were not getting out of the canyon quickly. It took 3:41 from the time we stopped for water until reaching the parking lot at the top, a section we had run down in 1:01. Had we had better hydration and nutrition earlier in the day, we could have easily trimmed an hour off of that.

With 1.5 miles to go M carried the empty backpack of a woman who had twisted her ankle and who's husband was trying to carry her out. The two of them seemed pretty competent and self sufficient, apparently she had already limped something like 8 miles since twisting her ankle, and was almost at the top. With a half mile to go the sunset was dark enough I turned my headlamp that I had carried all day and not used so far. I turned around to see the people we had passed on the way up and there was a string of more than a dozen headlamps heading up to the South Rim in the dark. Lesson learned, definitely bring a headlamp to the Grand Canyon, I almost left mine behind.

I finished in a total time of 11:52, and moving time of about 10:31. I definitely want to do it again, in under 10 hours, I know I can do that. The April 2021 trip might be a more measured effort in the 12-14 hour range. At the top we had enough cell service for a text message to our support crew who drove up the road and picked us up. We drove into Tusayan and had drive through McDonalds, I devoured a milkshake and spicy chicken sandwich with extra mayonnaise, which I had also been craving. That was a first, craving mayonnaise They were delicious! We were all caked with dirt from the canyon, and spending another night sleeping in the dirt didn't sound appealing, so we booked a hotel in Flagstaff and drove there before showering and collapsing. The next day we drove the 11 or so hours back to Denver with many stops to stretch and walk a little.

What will I do differently next time?

• Start earlier. M and I are both somewhat fast, so aiming for sub 10 hours and a leisurely 6:45 AM start to running was very reasonable, and with him I'd do again. But with a slightly slower or less experienced group, I think leaving the South Rim at 5 or 5:30 AM is probably a good idea. For two reasons, one, it will help most people slow down on the descent because you would be running in the dark, and two, when night falls it's demoralizing, and so finishing in the daylight is highly preferred.
• Bring some fat and protein to eat. Specifically there are some one ounce cheese slices that are individually packed and bringing 2-4 of those would be a huge boost. Also, I'll probably bring some Mini Moo's half and half shots, they are only 10 calories each, but my body was craving them on this run.
• Drink more in general, and specifically refill my water bottles when I have the chance, like at Manzanita. 

What did we do right, that really worked?

• Short sleeves and running shorts with no backup clothing. Yes, I realize this is a huge risk to not bring more clothing, but for people who are really planning to do this 43 mile adventure, sub 4 hour marathon types, carrying an extra 8 ounces of spare clothing or even more will slow you down a little and you don't really need it.
• We brought headlamps, even if you only use it for 15 minutes like I did, it's worth it.
• Each of us had two liters of water capacity. Most of the time I only had one liter of water on me because many of the sections take 90 minutes or less, which again helped us move faster, but having the extra capacity of a second liter was used, especially hiking up both sides of the canyon on 2.5+ hour sections.
• Navigating is easy. Most of the trail is 4 feet wide, it feels a little like you have to try to get off the trail, but every year there are rescues of people that get off the trail and quickly get lost, which I would understand if you get off the trail because it can be disorienting.
• Living at altitude before attempting this. I've started to take for granted the last two years that I can just show up almost anywhere in North America and not worry about the altitude, where as people who live near sea level would struggle with hard exertion at 8,000 feet elevation.

Thanks for reading!

An Ultralight Ice Axe

I can't help myself. When an idea gets in my head that I can make something better, I go out there and make it. It's not super common, but it happens. Most of you have probably seen it, but if you haven't I designed a 2.5 ounce ice axe to be used on short steep sections of snow and ice, like you might encounter on a rock climb or a run in the mountains. I made some prototypes which worked exactly as intended, and now I'm offering it to anyone that wants one by funding my Kickstarter campaign: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/3ounceiceaxe/ultralight-ice-axe/

It's super niche, not for everyone, not for Mt. Rainier type of climbs, but for Rocky Mountain National Park type of adventures, and 14er adventures when there is still a fair amount of snow to cross. If it's something you might use I'd be delighted if you would be a part of this project, thank you!

Good Days

If you ever have the opportunity to break two bones and partially tear two ligaments in your ankle, politely decline the opportunity. I really don't recommend it. I ran a 20:55 5k, on a track, two weeks ago. Almost anytime 2009 through 2017 I would have lapped myself twice.

Saturday I ran over three 14ers, Shavano, Tabeguche, and Antero... and I felt so good my climbing partner M and I started up Princeton before thunder at treeline turned us around. It was clearly the best I have felt in the mountains in three years. The feeling was beautiful. While I was working hard, at all times I had the capacity to push the pace more than I was. That's how I want to feel in the mountains.

After our retreat I drove back to the awesome city of Longmont where I live. During the day I saw a total of nine rainbows, ten if you count a double rainbow as two, most on the drive back to Denver. As I walked up the stairs to my third floor apartment, after 10,004 feet of vertical hiking on 14ers, I was exhausted and ready for bed. It was a full day with a couple of my friends. As I get older I realize how precious days like this are, even if we get snowed and rained on like we did, we had some laughs out there, and S and M are two good friends I look forward to more time with.

What's the value in one ounce?

I'm in the market for a set of hiking poles. I have adjustable ski poles, which work great, but they aren't super light or very compact, measuring about 2.5 feet long when collapsed. Comparing non-adjustable poles there is a set of the aluminum poles at 12.5 ounces for $75, and essentially the same pair in carbon fiber at 10 ounces for $128. Over $50 to save 2.5 ounces!? There is a saying in bicycling that the cheapest pound to save is the pound around your midsection. Meaning, most of us could put in a few weeks of moderate workouts and eat a few salads to lose a single pound instead of spend another $1000 on carbon fiber bicycle accessories.

Back to the trekking pole discussion, the vast majority of the time, I don't see a need for trekking poles. In general I do for heavy packs or long easy snow stretches, where the slope is too low for an ice axe but you want something to keep balance and distribute the weight. However, in my ankle recovery, I've found I'm a bit more wobbly in some other scenarios too, in particular crossing logs over creeks. I've seen people fall in before and the past year I've had a few missteps and gotten a foot full of water more than once. As I learned on my recently little trek into the Chicago basin, especially with early season conditions, where you are wearing running or approach shoes, but spending a lot of time on snow, having some poles can be very nice.

I ended up buying the aluminum ones. You'll probably see them in a picture eventually. They haven't shipped yet.

Colorado Startup Life: Week 42

What a good week! It started Sunday at 1 AM. We woke up from a little hotel in Ashford and after some last minute packing and a midnight snack, headed up to Mt. Rainier for our one day attempt. About 4000 feet elevation we drove into the clouds and a light misting rain. 'Huh...' I thought.

We unpacked at the parking lot and headed up, into the light rain. Yep, that 35 degree kind of rain, just above freezing. It was okay as long as we kept moving because it was so light. Eventually we made it to the top of the cloud and the rain stopped, and then around 8500 feet we broke out of the clouds on the Muir snow field. The snow was perfect! It was very consolidated, but still snow and not ice. We were able to make quick progress. We started hiking at 2:30 and made Camp Muir at about 5:45.

Unfortunately J had an old back issue flare up and he decided not to continue. Then T was feeling dizzy and also decided not to continue. I looked at M and said, with a hint of frustration, "M do you still want to climb it?" He responded with an enthusiastic, "Yes!" So the two of us roped up and left Camp Muir around 6 AM. (It's normal to leave Camp Muir at like 1 or 2 AM on a two day climb.)

The route was in the best condition I have ever seen it in in my four attempts. There were few crevasses all of the lower crevasses were closed up. There is often a crevasse above Ingraham Flats that is all sorts of sketchy. About 13,000 feet the route split, with the previous trail going left and a new trail going right. We asked several parties which one to take, because we knew there was a new trail, but didn't know why. None of the people seemed to know either. So we took the left trail up which appeared to have X wands in front of it. Around 13,500 we went to cross two different crevasses, which on the surface each appeared to be to two separate crevasses 20 feet apart. However, from the right angle I could see down 100+ feet into the crevasse. We were walking over a snow bridge! I had M anchor me as I walked across, and then I anchored him as he walked across. Most crevasses seem to be less than 40 feet before you would hit a ledge, and many are only 15 feet or so before there is a ledge or the bottom. On those crevasses, in a worst case the one of us that didn't fall into the crevasse would simply be pulled toward the crevasse, however, in a 100 foot deep crevasse, both of us would probably be pulled into the crevasse... and that would be it. I can't believe the other teams did not see the danger of those two crossings!! They were two of the most scary features I have  encountered, because it wasn't immediately and superficially obvious the danger. We of course descended the new route, which was a little steeper, but no dangerous crevasse crossings.

The winds at the top around 11:30 AM were about 30 mph, which was cold and we stayed about 2 minutes, long enough for me to sit down, take a few pictures and a video, and then we headed down. The snow was a little soft on the way down, but not enough to really slow our progress. We made it back to Camp Muir about 2:30 PM and after changing clothing and a short break, made it down to Paradise about 5:00 PM, for a 14.5 hour round trip adventure! Not nearly as fast as the 8.5 hours I blasted it in 2016, but given my ankle and I'm not in as good of shape now as I was then, and M and I were on a rope team, it was a really good time. I told him after not to take this for granted as a normal Mt. Rainier ascent. There is nothing normal about doing that mountain in 14. 5 hours car to car. It's not a special or record setting climb, but it's like going from the 99th percentile to the 99.9 percentile in terms of most Americans mountaineering. I would estimate less than 10% of Mt. Rainier climbs are one day climbs. Probably 2-5%.

Monday we lounged around a bit before heading for Mt. Hood. Tuesday we woke from a little Air BNB at 2:30 AM and headed up hill, we started hiking at 3:45 AM, just minutes after another group, and maybe the last group for the day. However, we just started catching group after group. We made it up to the flat area at the Devil's Playground in 2:26, which is a crazy like 4000 feet of elevation gain from the parking lot. We just flew up the mountain. M and I were joined by his high school friend F for this, and F being fresh just pushed the pace on the hiking part. We then roped up and did the Pearly Gates, which was steeper than I was expecting, maybe 50 degrees and very icy. I even put an ice screw in, because there were crevasses below and I didn't want us tumbling down. We then made the top, and spent 10 minutes confirming it was the top because I thought it was 11,600, and our altimeter and GPS were saying 11,200, but it turns out the top is only 11,166 ft. We trekked back down, and M's crampon fell off three times, because he was wearing running shoes and hadn't adjusted the length tight enough. Each time we stopped for him to adjust his crampon, I put the pick of my ice axe in the snow and a clove hitch around the adze, it was a simple way to put an anchor into the ice for our little group.

Mt. Hood round trip took us 6:41, which was just a plain fun day. We were back at the base by 10:30 AM. Often these mountain days are brutal, difficult, painful, tiring, but Mt. Hood was not any of those, it was just fun. It wasn't that cold, it was steep, but not that steep, there were crevasses, but not scary ones.

Wednesday after sleeping in and touring Seattle a little I flew back to Denver. Hard day, rest day (or two), is a combination that I think really helps my ankle recover. It's hard on the ankle and then there is some swelling and then there is time to recover and get some blood flow into the ligaments that are still healing.

Thursday and Friday I was back at work. We're nearing this important time where we are certifying our product and delivering one to a customer, and it's stressful. We all want to make it as successful as possible, and whenever there is a miscommunication emotions rise. We'll get through this. We closed the first part of our series B funding this week! So we have runway to get us if not through 2020, as least through most of it. That's exciting because we will have our second product in testing at that point, and while our first one is cool, the second one is the real money maker. Our first product we have to sell about one per week to be profitable, our second one it's less than one per month.

Saturday I was pretty tired from the week so I went to the coffee shop and then went on a little 35 mile bicycle ride.

I don't really get summit fever.

Two of the people I have been hiking with recently talked about how they each get summit fever, and it scares me. I told both of them, "Don't attempt Everest yet, please." I really don't get summit fever much any more. I did, when I was somewhat new and felt I needed to get the summit to build up my climbing resume. But after enough bad weather days and a couple close calls high in the mountains, and reading enough accident reports, I don't really care about making the summit like I used to.

I like mountaineering, climbing, hiking, skiing, and being out in the mountains on difficult terrain in general. The summit is just a pile of rocks and snow, and they all basically look the same. The main difference is the size of the Longs Peak or Devil's Tower summit plateau vs a much smaller one like Crestone Needle or Mt. Everest, the same way some parking lots are larger than other parking lots.

It's interesting, the number of times in the last few years when I've been within about 500 vertical feet of the summit and been ambivalent about making it to the top. I would not have guessed this is a mental state of a climber. I used to think everyone wanted to get to the summit on every attempt. But now I realize that the process, the climbing itself is most of the fun. I've been on the top of well over 100 mountains above treeline, and while I will keep going after summits, I have no problem turning around near the top if conditions aren't right.

People will keep dying on Mt. Everest.

It's in the news again, people are dying on Mt. Everest. I'm not surprised. The photo that is being circulated this year (https://www.outsideonline.com/2397164/everest-summit-traffic-jam) of the summit ridge traffic jam is pretty crazy. For perspective, when I summited at 4:35 AM on May 21st, 2016, there were three mini groups of 2-3 people each ahead of my Sherpa Tshering and I. In other words, my ascent was totally unencumbered by traffic. I have always had more traffic on the Casual Route on Long Peaks than I did ascending Everest. However, on the way down we passed the approximately 35-40 other people who summited Everest from the south side May 21st, and 40 is a very manageable reasonable number. Even 50 or 60 is probably no big deal, but when I see 80+ doing it on the same day, that's just too many.

Because Everest is the tallest, it's going to keep attracting people with the time and the money... and not necessarily the experience. I don't have a lot of sympathy for most of the people that die on Everest, the way I do for starving people in South Sudan, disabled veterans, Ebola victims, victims of gun violence and car accidents. When you go to an 8000 meter peak, you need (in my opinion) to think about all of the different ways you could die, and how that would affect people you are leaving behind, and then either go or don't go. Maybe 5-10 percent of the people that show up at Everest basecamp every season leave and go home when the full reality of the possible consequences (their death) hit them. I respect that. It's better to realize that when you are within a half mile of camp two or in the Khumbu ice fall than on the summit ridge.

That harsh attitude being said, there are some accidents, such as people who die alone in their tent of a heart attack or a pulmonary embolism, that do make me feel sympathetic. Especially since last year, when I had a pulmonary embolism, what if I had another one on an ordinary day at base camp? You can't predict that.

What are some possible solutions to reduce crowding and deaths?

• Extend the season. With better weather forecasting, instead of waiting only for the eight perfect days a year we need to start using those days, and then the next best eight days, and probably extend the season into June a week or two.
• Limit the number of climbers each day. It would not be that hard to put a human check point 200 yards outside of camp four where the fixed ropes for the summit start, and limit it to 60 or so people per day. Since you don't want to start a fist fight, people (Sherpas and Nepalis included) would be banned for life from getting a permit if they went past the check point after 60 people. (While it can be confusing to identify people in down suits, it's not that hard.) I realize this sounds nearly impossible to have a staff of say four people at the south col for a month, but with increasing helicopter technology it would not be impossible to drop off oxygen bottles. Plus, there are plenty of loose rocks at the south col, a makeshift stone hut could be built to protect a little area from the wind. Difficult? Yes. The potential to save lives? Yes. The possibility to do fascinating human research? Yes, definitely.
• Start fixed ropes on another route, probably the west ridge. Actually, you could avoid the deadly Khumbu ice fall by going straight up to the ridge from base camp. I guarantee that announcing fixed ropes on the west ridge would attract a higher caliber of climber, because it will be hard, it's steep above 7000 meters. At this point, anything that takes the pressure off the south col route would be good.

The Mountain Opportunity List

I've not put a list down in writing before because lists get people killed in the mountains. The 14 8000 meter peaks have killed hundreds of people, and dozens of people with more than five 8000 meter summits. How can a person with five 8000 meter summits put himself or herself in a position to die? There are old climbers and bold climbers, and despite what people probably frequently think of me, I plan to be an old climber. On Saturday, hours after I stood at the base of the Bastile Crack in Eldorado Canyon, a free solo climber died falling off. So for my whole climbing career up until now I've resisted a list, because I don't want to die, or take such a high risk, to stand on top of another pile of rock and ice.

I'm putting the list out now so that when other people want to do one of the same things they can invite me along if they are looking for a partner, or push me to organize an expedition and take him or her along. I've gotten to the point where I have so many climbing partners around the world, I can't keep track of what everyone is doing, wants to do, or is qualified to do. Plus, as I get older, doing all of these things while I am still very able looks like it might not be possible and I'd just like to attempt as many as possible.

In Pakistan (the coolest, most interesting, mountains I'd like to attempt):

• Gasherbrum IV, any route, but the Southwest ridge first ascent would be super cool!
• K2 (without bottled oxygen of course)
• Trango Tower (Nameless Tower if there is any confusion)
• Gasherbrum I and II... in one push

In the USA:

• Mt. Rainier
• Liberty Ridge
• Willis Wall, any route
• Mt. Hood
• Mt. Baker
• All Colorado 14ers in the winter
• All Colorado 13ers (There are about 630 of them and I've done around 50)
• All the lower 48 14ers
• Lead the whole Casual Route on the Diamond (likely summer 2019)
• Sykes Sickle on Spearhead (likely summer 2019)
• Petit Grepon, any route (likely summer 2019)
• Tetons Grand Traverse
• Denali with a ski descent
• Epinefrine at Red Rocks near Las Vegas
• Nolan's 14 (attempting summer 2019)
• Mt. Massive and Mt. Elbert loop via the ridge with Oklahoma and French Mountain
• John Muir Trail
• The Appalachian Trail
• The Nose on El Cap... in a day
• Wind River Range in Wyoming, any technical route

In Canada:

• Becky-Chiounard on South Howser Tower
• Northeast ridge of Bugaboo Spire
• Anything on Snowpatch Spire
• Anything in the Adamants
• Howse Peak, anything on the East Face

South America:

• Aconcagua
• Anything in Torres Del Paines national park

Europe:

• The Matterhorn
• The North Face of the Eiger
• The Dolomites, any long route

Islands in the Ocean:

• Ball's Pyramid
• Mt. Otemanu on Bora Bora
• Bicycle up Mauna Kea from the ocean
• Skellig Michael a first ascent
• Faroe Islands a first ascent

Antartica:

• Cross the continent, without motors, via the South Pole

Greenland: 

• Any route grade V or longer

Because "everything" I want to do seems super dangerous to most people, I have my limits and here are the mountains or routes I will not even attempt because they are simply too dangerous for my comfort level:

• Annapurna, all routes
• Lhotse the South Face
• NW Face of Devil's Thumb in Alaska

Finally as a disclaimer, there are lots of routes and mountains where I'm open to attempting them, but everything (route conditions, partners, political situation, etc.) would have to be nearly perfect. Nanga Parbat and a lot of ice climbing routes, like M16 on Howse Peak, fall into that category. As I recently showed on Pikes Peak May 4th, 2019, I'm not afraid to turn around even in good weather if it's not my day. This list is not definitive, there are other very interesting things out there to go up and down. It's simply a list of things, that given the opportunity, I'd like to try. 

It was stupid and I did it anyway.

I cried in church this morning during the sermon. The topic was Jesus on the road to Emmaus, "walking" with two of his disciples.

Yesterday I tried to hike up Pikes Peak via the Northwest Slopes route, about 14 miles round trip. I failed.

Pikes Peak Strava Activity

I did a two mile hike with 500 feet of elevation gain and loss last Saturday and I was making great progress this past week, so I thought there was about a 30%-40% chance of actually making the summit. Which is enough for me to try. Plus, I have 26 14ers left to do, and I want to finish them this year which means taking advantage of good weather days before all of the snow has melted or I am 100% recovered. Pikes Peak is the easiest one I have left within a four hour drive of Longmont. I announced my intentions for a 14 mile 8-12 hour adventure to my coworkers and six of them decided to join me!

I left my apartment at 3:30 in the morning, stopped at a coworker's apartment in Longmont at 3:45, another coworker's in Louisville at 4:05, another coworker's in Broomfield at 4:20, and then another coworker's to change vehicles in Westminster at 4:35, and then the seventh coworker in Highlands Ranch at 5:15. The seven of us carpooled down to the trailhead getting there about 7 AM and starting hiking shortly after. I quickly led us on a wrong turn wasting about a half mile. Initially the trail was good. Stable footing, very shallow grade. I was feeling great! Out with friends on a beautiful day, life is good! My ankle wasn't feeling too bad, and the adrenaline of attempting a 14er was coursing through me so I wasn't feeling all the pain.

Near treeline the route became very steep and only one of the six people with me know how to properly flat foot and break trail, so either him or I led, which tired me out and put my ankle at poor angles, which strained it more. It was a struggle, but it was okay. I've had worse. I put myself about at a D in terms of how I was doing. When we crested the broad ridge the trail leveled out a bit and we made good progress, but even some slight downhills were torture on my ankle. I had a few moments where I choked up and my eyes watered. I didn't exactly cry, but I was close. There were a lot of emotions going through my head.

The last year has not been totally delightful. I had a pulmonary embolism, which can kill people. Fortunately I am here, and my dream for nearly a decade of being on the USA 100 km team was fulfilled, but I was unable to even run 9:30 pace consistently and it is not a race experience I want to repeat. Then I broke my leg and strained my ankle ligaments. The recovery is going excellent! People can lose their foot from especially bad ankle crush injuries. My mom is battling cancer. It seems to be going very well, but this past fall it was not going well, and people die from cancer. Another relative had cancer and a different relative had a health scare last summer, all in the past year. My mortality and fragility has been fully reinforced. Are my competitive running days over? Is going to high altitude too great of a risk for me? As I was doing this difficult and painful thing yesterday I was on cloud nine, high from the prospect that I could still go into the mountains. Why me? And I mean that in the most positive way, that others will never experience even the minor mellow hike I experienced yesterday. Plus it was only eight weeks after a serious injury. Even with all of these adversities, I have the ability to hike from 9,700 feet up to 13,000 feet over 6.5 miles on mostly snowy terrain. Why has God so blessed me with these great abilities?

We reached the first road crossing and I was still optimistic, however in the short less than half mile section to the next road crossing we went up and down on snow that led to some post holing and my ankle just couldn't take the irregularity. I felt like an F, I had failed, it was time to call it quits, at approximately 11:30 AM. One of my fellow hikers is recovering from a metatarsal stress fracture and he called it day too. We hitchhiked down in a rental car thanks to a nice couple (including a helicopter pilot) from Utah. The two of us spent the rest of the day bumming around Colorado Springs down town, eating, drinking, and napping in a park with the homeless people. As we grew worried about our friends we finally heard from them at 7:30 PM, only an hour from when were were planning to call Teller County search and rescue. They all made it down safe! Despite it being harder than they expected, they summitted and had fun! I was afraid when they picked us up at 8:40 PM for the drive home that they would want to kill me.

One of my [probably genetic] gifts is acute inflammation. My body will swell up and then recover quickly from traumatic things. My ankle yesterday afternoon grew, probably a quarter to half inch in diameter due to the twisting on uneven ground. However, today, after getting some sleep, and icing it it actually doesn't feel too bad or look terribly big. It's still clearly bigger than my right ankle, but it's been that way for eight weeks. I'm going to wear the ankle brace most of today, because I can feel my ankle is weak, but frankly it feels better than I expected after the stupidness that I put it through.

So this morning in church, when the sermon was on Jesus walking with two disciples on the road to Emmaus, I cried. For years I've through of my running, especially my long runs, as dancing with God and I think of hiking and climbing in the mountains as spending my time in the greatest cathedrals in the world. Yet today, I felt for the first time that my limping slow walk is also with God. He meets us where we are at, when we are hurting and desperate and sad, and doing things which are probably detrimental to ourselves.

I feel that these many experiences I have had in the last year are a lesson to me that my time on earth is limited. I need to speak out. I can't stay silent. I can't leave things until tomorrow. No guarantees that I actually make any changes to my life, but I am definitely thinking about the big things I want to accomplish in life and doing them sooner rather than later.

Winter 14ers are Super Hard

I tried to do San Luis Peak from the north, the standard summer route. I couldn't even get to the trailhead.

Snow Drift on the Road to San Luis Peak

I tried three times, in four low with the differential locked on the Toyota Sequoia I was borrowing from a coworker and still only made it maybe 15 feet into the 60 foot long drift. Fortunately I was able to back out every time. I was something like 25 miles down dirt roads at this point, with 10 miles remaining, which is pretty far out there as far as Colorado goes. So I turned around and headed out without trying to force myself through the drift. I didn't want to slide off the road to the left where the snow was most likely deeper.

The next day I tried to do Sunshine Peak after camping just south of Lake City. (I had a electrically heated blanket in the Sequoia and a -20F sleeping bag so the -4F temperatures overnight weren't too bad, I just had a sore throat the next morning.)

I followed tracks up to treeline at 11,800 feet, and then there was a small slope to cross, maybe 25 degrees steep, which is not very steep, and pretty low for avalanche danger. However, there was about a foot of moderately consolidated snow over a very weak layer at least six inches thick. Prime slab avalanche conditions. There was no sign of avalanche in the trees below me, however, the two people I was with at the moment did not have snow shoes or skis like I did, so I would have had to go on alone. It's not worth it. I skied up maybe 50 feet to a bit of whomp, whomp, whomp from the upper layer collapsing the lower layer, and my skis still sinking in six inches. Avalanches creep me out. So I headed down.

In Pakistan in 2009 I really liked how everyone was rather cooperative. After a snow storm we would wait one or two days for the snow to settle and avalanches to clear themselves. Everest is a little more hurried, people will climb the day after a snow storm instead of wait for the avalanches to clear. People die in avalanches every year. As frustrated as I get about failing to summit a mountain, I get even more frustrated when people take risks that seem excessive to me. There is always risk, and avalanche risk is a huge part of mountaineering, and the reason I will never try Annapurna.

Point being, stay safe people. The mountain will be there in the future, will you?

I Need a Mountain Vehicle

When I moved to Colorado I told myself I would not get a new vehicle until I got stuck twice. Then I said not until I max out my IRA in whatever year it happened to be. Then I said not until I get my pilot’s license. Then I said not until I can pay for the car in cash, because I have never had an auto loan and I don’t want to have one. Then I said not until my startup closes a round B of funding. The point is, there is a never ending list of other financial priorities that are important. Vehicles are depreciating assets. The money put into them is not returned, unless you drive for Uber or Lyft or plow snow or something like that. However, a vehicle, like a plane, is a time machine. It can transport you and your stuff from one place to another in a much shorter time than if you bicycled or walked. 

Saturday I got my car stuck, and then seven hours later driving through a snow drift on a dirt road I tore two plastic under body panels.  In both situations the most modest four wheel drive SUV would not have had a problem. On my drive out of the mountains my brakes started really squealing, which was nearly a $700 repair at the local Honda dealership (I wanted to get the right parts for my somewhat unusual car). 

New duct tape on this side and a bent panel on other side.

My opinion is you should buy a vehicle for the 98% of normal driving that you do, and then rent or carpool for that 2% of driving that is different from your normal routine. I’m not sure how best to define the 2%, is it 2% of days that you encounter a particular situation, or is it 2% of miles driven? Either way, I drove about 250 miles this weekend and 12 of those (about 5%) were on dirt with snow on top, and another 10 (4%) were on very snow covered paved roads where I slid around more that I would prefer. Also, this is the second day in December I have encountered these kind of conditions, and going by the 2% of days I only get seven days a year to encounter these conditions. And there are essentially five months of winter road weather ahead, meaning probably 15 days I encounter snowy dirt roads and another 15 days of simply snowy paved roads, and that’s not counting the dirt roads I drive on in the summer. 

In other words, my super efficient car, just isn’t cutting it 98% of the time. It’s just so efficient in every manner, insurance, fuel mileage, oil changes, spare parts, and parking that getting something else is definitely going to up my spending on transportation, which I don’t want to do. Plus, I’m a bit of an environmentalist and in part for me that means driving a vehicle into the ground and getting the full value out of it. While there does need to be a demand for new vehicles and things in general to have an economy, we can help reduce our environmental impact by using things longer instead of simply throwing them out at the first sign of wear. There is a finite supply of iron, chromium, lithium, and every element on this planet. They are all big supplies, but they are not unlimited. We can’t consume large quantities forever. (I realize I just addressed reduce and reuse, but didn’t mention recycle, even though recycling is a dramatic improvement to the exploitation of land for mining. In particular lead, aluminum, steel, copper, nickel, and zinc are all recycled at a rate greater than 50%.)

There are two general ways to approach getting a new vehicle, as a replacement all around vehicle, or as a second vehicle that is only used for the special occasions, which in this case would be going to the mountains or driving through snow storms. I’m open to either. Since insurance is so cheap on my insight, and it gets great mileage, I’ll probably keep it as a commuter car for during the week. The thing is, if I get a nice vehicle, something I like a lot more, then I’ll get rid of the Insight and just drive the one vehicle all the time. 

So, recommend a vehicle for me. 

Vehicle requirements:

• All wheel drive (four wheel drive with locking differentials is a plus)
• Minimum 6 inches of ground clearance (more is generally good)
• At least 10 mpg
• Minimum top speed of 55 mph
• Cash budget of $5,000 (credit budget of $30,000, but you need to really sell me on it because a Vans RV-4 airplane is only $45,000)
• Road legal

Colorado Startup Life: Week 12

Super late this week... because I've been lazy, but week 12 was good. I ran and exercised 22.7 miles, if you count my alpine touring skiing and hiking miles as running, 14 if you don't.  I'm struggling with the darkness. Multiple times now I have driven home from work, with 15 minutes of twilight remaining and instead of quick changing and getting out the door for a little running in the light, I lay down on my floor and open up my phone to see what happened today. Next thing you know, I'm hungry and decide to make supper instead of exercise first. After that there is a low possibility that I exercise. I still might, and have a number of evenings, but it's not likely.

Work is going well. I'm responsible for a variety of things, among them a small joint, which unfortunately grew larger. I was under constraining the FEA model and when I constrained it a little more, it needed to get bigger. The problem is this is aerospace and weight matters. Plus, the old size was the maximum that was available from several vendors and when I made it bigger, suddenly I was into a custom size joint, which is of course more expensive. Costs are so radically different than I am used to. Some of our parts we estimate at $100 per ounce. I'm used to $2-4 per pound.

I finished the week taking a ski trip up to Breckenridge. I reattempted and successfully climbed Mt. Sherman!

About 13,850 descending Mt. Sherman

About nine miles round trip and a little over six hours. I did get to ski maybe three miles, but quite a bit was too thin to ski. Only 26 14ers to go!

Saturday night as we hung out in Breckenridge two things happened which had not happened before. First, some of you will laugh. My friends have a soon to be four year old and a six month old that stayed with us, and at one point I had to leave the condo and scan in the two people that went to get dinner. As I'm putting my shoes on to go the four year old walks over and wants me to carry her down. I'm pretty sure there was a look of terror on my face. I hesitated and said we should probably ask her mom, who walked out of the room seriously five seconds before. At which point she gives me the look of 'if-you'don't-pick-me-up-I'll-cry' so I looked at my other friend, who thought it was funny, and I carried her around for the next few minutes. It's actually pretty tiring, my arm was tired for a good half hour after maybe five minutes of carrying her around.

The second thing that happened was really cool! My good friends T and L got engaged!!! We're all kind of walking around the Christmas lights around Breckenridge and suddenly he's down on one knee! They've been together for six years, and have seen each other through some rough times. I've been giving him a hard time for a year and a half about marrying her. They are so right for each other. That doesn't mean they won't fight, they have their differences. I had never seen any of my friend's proposals so that was fun. It was also interesting because I had talked to both of them about getting married and their reservations in the past. It's hard to be patient sometimes, but looking at T and L's relationship, I think it needed to progress this slow.

Free Solo Movie Review

Saturday night at 6:30 I had a call from my friend and climbing partner T in Denver. “Hey, L got called into work tonight, and I have two tickets to Free Solo at 10 PM in Denver, do you want to go?” 

I replied, “Yes…” and then we talked for ten minutes about possible things to do before 10. 

We get there, go into a packed theatre, and just before the move starts a guy gets up on stage. As he started talking I had the thought, ‘This is really unusual. I’ve never known a theatre owner or manager to say something about above before a showing. This guy seems kind of attached to the project. It couldn’t be Jimmy Chin could it?” And by that time in my thought processHe said he was Jimmy Chin!!! Real and in person standing there on the stage! As he walked out he was shaking a few hands and shook my friend T’s hand! I’m not as starstruck as I might have been years ago, but still, with the movie playing on dozens of theaters, he was at the 10 PM showing at the Mayan in Denver!

Jimmy Chin at the Mayan Denver 10 PM, September 29th, 2018

In summary, Alex Honnold free soloed, which is to say climbed entirely without a rope or rock climbing gear except shoes and chalk on June 3rd, 2017 the climb Free Rider on El Capitan. It was in the news so for my climbing friends this is very old news. The movie is about Alex’s process leading up to such a climb. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture-exploration/2018/09/alex-honnold-jimmy-chin-free-solo-yosemite-el-capitan-explore-through-the-lens/ I really recommend you read that National Geographic article linked above, because if you are only focused on the four hours of him climbing the thing, you’re missing the much larger picture. 

In many ways I related to the film. The comment that struck me hardest was when Alex said maybe he was not the person to do it. He said something like, “Maybe it will be someone in the next generation, or someone that doesn’t have anything to live for.” Most of the theater laughed after that line, but I didn’t because I related to it on a different level. Before every expedition I go on, I prepare myself for the possible outcomes, including death. I don’t want to die, but there is a real possibility it could happen. I imagine it’s something like going into battle. You hope to survive, but there are no guarantees. Some might even say that you will be more effective (in battle) when you give up hope of surviving. I’ve seen that in movies, not sure that successful soldiers really have that attitude. Point being, when I go to these mountains, and dying is a realistic possibility, the desire to climb the thing outweighs my desire to preserve my life. And I don’t know how you tell people that. They didn’t really get into that fatalism in the movie, but after seeing it I am sure that in the decade leading up to the climb Alex spent time thinking, ‘would it be better to free solo El Cap and die immediately after, or live a long life without trying?’ Of course, that’s a hypothetical, and in the years he spent thinking about it he of course realized absolute hypotheticals rarely exist in real life. 

It was interesting to see that his amygdala doesn’t really react to fear like a normal person. I have a lot more fear in my life than I did ten years ago, but I would be curious to see where I stand. Of course, Alex is on another level, like multiple levels beyond anywhere I am, but I think that this movie might help non climbers understand most climbers a bit more. 

Side note, Mark Synott taught me aid climbing back in December 2008 in New Hampshire and it was interesting to see him in the movie. I have been in his house, met his wife and seen his three kids getting ready to go ski. I bring this up to show how small the climbing community is. Also, I think people might watch this movie and try not to relate to it at all, or distance themselves from the characters, but these people have families, and their kids go to public school, and they shop at the same grocery store as you. 

Again, the movie is mostly about Alex’s process leading up to the climb and less about the actual climb. Frankly, Alex was a super professional about the climb. I’ve never prepared for something with the specificity and intensity that he prepared for this climb, it was inspiring! I felt a bit inadequate after watching the movie, and if it wasn’t 50 degrees and misting today I would go out and climb something!

Finally, what’s next? Trango Tower! I mean, it’s obvious to me. However, that is less of a pure athletic feat and much more of an objective risk than climb Yosemite’s dry sunny walls. In other words, in Yosemite the granite is solid and accidents due to the rock falling apart are rare, but Trango Tower is not solid. Other possible options include The Nose on El Cap. It’s a little harder. El Cap, and Yosemite, is unique because the weather is so good and the rock is so good too. The obvious next steps, more alpine, taller, like stuff Ueli Steck did, but more rock climbing have such higher risk factors. So I don’t know what is next for Alex. I hope to run into him at Red Rocks near Las Vegas now that he has a home there. 

It’s a good movie. You should see it. Sure to be one of the best documentaries of the decade. 

Colorado Startup Life: Weeks 0 and 1

I'm sitting outside at a Starbucks... that doesn't close until 10 PM... a 15 minute walk from my apartment... in Longmont, Colorado. It's emotional. I mean, I feel like I have arrived. I feel like, the me that I envisioned back in college has happened. To my back the sunlight fades over Longs Peak and the rest of the mountains. To my front is a Pho something restaurant.

September 14th I moved into my apartment in Longmont. September 15th my friend J and I climbed Long Peak. Unfortunately my lung issue is alive and well and it took me 11 hours car to car. That's pretty slow for me. Back in 2006, just walking, I did it in 8.5 hours. Sunday the 15th I took him to the airport and laid on the couch the rest of the day.

I'm convinced it's a lung issue, and most likely pleurisy due to some sort of infection around the lungs. That being said, for the rest of September I'm on my old insurance with my former employer, so I'm waiting until October for my new insurance to kick in to restart the doctors visits. If I start blogging more, I'll write a whole lot about this breathing issue. In short, the oxygen isn't getting to my muscles. I've had two blood tests, a tick panel, lead check, electrolyte check, two chest x-rays, mononucleosis check, EKG, stress test, and an echocardiogram. Everything came back normal or negative. The biggest surprise was that I have had mono! I turned myself into a germaphobe back in high school when a bunch of my friends came down with mono in a few months. Well, I must have had it back when I was a baby or something, because in my memory I never had it.

Monday the 17th was my first day at my new job. I had a lot of fear. Would I be able to contribute? Would the work be too different than what I have done the last eight years? They're going to discover I'm an incompetent imposter!

HAHAHAHA!!!! Day one was fairly uneventful, but by day two I was being rather productive. One of my first tasks was to knock out about a dozen drawings. I was knocking them out quickly, and on Wednesday or Thursday, I did five from scratch in one day! Plus, I sit between two people who are directly out of university this spring, and I end up getting to answer questions about CREO already! In short, the fear I had about not creating value has gone. Instead, I have the realization that people aren't just going to give me work tasks, I'm going to have to create them myself. Which isn't bad at all, I've already started mapping our current processes.

My title is Product Configuration Engineer. Technically, it's Senior Product Configuration Engineer, but I'm not sure how I feel about the senior part. I'm happy that my experience is recognized with the title, but I'm a fan of the more egalitarian title because I know I stand to learn things from my coworkers who are only four months out of university as well. What exactly is a configuration engineer you ask? Well, I was hoping you could tell me, haha. I think I'm the 27th employee at this three year old aerospace company and I know their only configuration engineer.

I know configuration engineer means a few things. I will eventually own the top level product assemblies. I'm on the design side, not the test or manufacturing side, although I need to work with them quite a bit. It falls to me to define, or at least take a leading role in defining the systems and processes needed to scale the company from what they have now (which is very basic) to something that conveys all the right information to all of the right people within the company about our products  (our parts). It's a difficult problem. Put too much process in place and it's onerous and as one of my experienced coworkers said today about having to use a specific software "I'd quit". On the other hand, don't have enough process, and mistakes will get made. In fact, a few mistakes have already been made to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars in wasted parts. In short, I feel I am perfect for this job! It's an opportunity, to define the company process and structure for part workflow, that I would not have for another ten years at a large corporation. Informally I've thought about structure and organization for years. Now, I get to do something about it.

After work every day I was pretty tired so I didn't do any running or bicycling. I basically went home, called my parents or my sister and ate dinner and went to bed.

Saturday my friend L and I went and hiked Mt. Princeton. She out hiked me, and she's a nurse who has known me for 10 years, so knew that was not normal. At the top of the mountain my pulse oxygen percentage was 65%. When I told L, she said, "And you're conscious!?!?!" My lowest on Everest in 2016 was 59%, and I say that when it gets below 70% that's not so good. Fortunately by the time we were back in the car on the way down it was up to 88%. Some of that I attribute to not being acclimated yet, but most is due to my breathing problem.

My week starts on Sunday and ends on Saturday. Not sure how long this series will last. Over the last 2.5 years I've basically gotten out of blogging, but I miss it.  If anyone is new to my blog, I don't post names unless I ask the person ahead of time, usually just an initial. I try to respect everyone's privacy,  both individuals, and my employer. Generally speaking, if I feel that telling a story will violate someone's privacy, I won't tell it unless I feel some sort of moral obligation to warn others.

Goals for the next few weeks: Get my breathing issue figured out. Exceed expectations at work. Pay all of my bills on time. Work through sending my thank you notes to my previous coworkers.

Crying on the Mountain

I just went to the memorial service for Tim Valentine, a strong Christian who died last Saturday when his Extra 400 (N13EP) crashed shortly after take off. He was flying with another pilot and three passengers to the Ponca City pancake breakfast fly in, which happens the first Saturday morning of every month. The coworker friend of mine who owns a Cessna 150 and I have flown there twice for breakfast on a Saturday. Plus, Tim's parents in law sit beside me in church every Sunday. And he was involved with Boy Scouts, where another friend and coworker is the scoutmaster. So it hits close to home despite the fact I never met him.

As I sat there and they talked about his adventure taking, flying, scuba diving, travels, and even mentioned his view from the mountain top, I cried. I realized that a lot of crying happens in the mountains, but it rarely gets talked about back on the plains. The mountains push us mentally, emotionally, and physically to our breaking point. There is a lot of joy there, because it's a difficult accomplishment, but there are also a fair amount of tears. Tears because you are tired, hungry, thirsty, bleeding, scared. Tears when an avalanche kills 16 people and you see the bodies. Tears because you just went through something mind blowing that you know you won't totally be able to describe to people. How do you describe the hanging belay at the top of the 5.10 pitch on the Casual Route on Longs Peak?

Point being, take the lows with the highs. Don't just cry for the person who died in a plane crash or on a mountain, also celebrate that person being in the airplane and on the mountain.

Deescalating the Anxiety

In the past month there have been three instances where I consciously deescalated the anxiety of a person or group. One at work, one in the Bugaboos, and then one I won't mention the situation. I've done this for years, but only recently have I been able to articulate it.

What does it mean to deescalate? According to Google/Safari It means to "reduce the intensity of (a conflict or potentially violent situation)." Anxiety on the other hand I think of as self induced stress.

First I'll tell the Bugaboos example. The second pitch on Pigeon Spire my climbing partner comes up over the ridge to the belay and the look on his face said "I'M FREAKING OUT!!" So I asked him on a scale of 1 to 10 how much he was freaking out, and he said "SEVEN!! ... six." So I tried to get him to relax a bit by looking out away from the rock and potential fall, at the gear, taking a drink, and telling him how well he was doing, making a joke, and basically having a comforting demeanor myself. When he saw how unfazed I was he calmed down, and really enjoyed the rest of the climb. Those are standard ways to calm a person down, a more advanced tactic is to escalate the fear briefly for a minute or few second even, because showing that it was all a rouse, an act, often gets a person too scared to laugh, to actually relax a bit and laugh. However, that can backfire and I've been sworn at before when I misjudged that tactic.

Second we had a day at work where everyone seemed on edge and stressed out, myself included. So I told everyone how well they were doing, we went for a little 10 minute walk around the parking lot, and again I tried to tell a couple jokes to lighten the mood. It's easy to get the idea that our little thing we are working on is so critical, and the reality is it can wait, the world isn't ending. I think it worked, the mood was a little better an hour later, and the next day people were in pretty good moods.

So, when you see that others have fear and anxiety that might be preventing them from accomplishing the task at hand what can you do?

• Be calm, speak calmly, don't express your emotions with yelling and anger.
• Tell a joke, not a crude hate filled joke, but something light to ease the tension.
• Compliment the person with the anxiety. It's hard to be stressed out when people are telling you you did a good job on something. 
• Give the person something else to focus on, a small easy to accomplish task, that only takes a few minutes, like coiling the rope on a rock climb, or emailing me the contact information for a certain person at XYZ factory.
• An advanced technique is to briefly escalate the anxiety for a few minutes, a facade really, but in the business setting use something that is clearly out of your influence or irrelevant to the project, because you cannot "invent" a true problem, like you can while rock climbing. Then deescalate quickly so that the person with anxiety thinks, 'well at least this is not as bad at that terrible thing happening!' Here is an example: not scared person, "Uh oh... I think the rope might be cut." Scared person, "WHAT!?!" Not scared person, "Sorry, my mistake it's fine, it's just the way it was coiled there. We are fine, look this rope is rated to hold 6000 pounds and it's in perfect condition."

Trip Report: The Bugaboos 2017

For years I have wanted to get up to the Bugaboos. They hold a number of "classic" climbs on great rock, they are remote, and the approaches are real mountaineering challenges, not the gentle trails of California and Colorado that lead to the base of many climbs. However, they are notorious for bad weather and "epics" which is to say people having a much longer day than expected due to any number of reasons.

Like any big trip the preparation started months ago. Fortunately, work gave us July 3rd and 4th off, so taking just three days of vacation meant nine consecutive days off! First I had to attend my cousin's wedding in Wisconsin, which was great! My grandparents from the other side of the family even drove over form Minnesota to have a couple meals with us too! Sunday afternoon I flew out of Madison and arrived late in Calgary, although at 10 pm there is still plenty of sun in the sky at that hour early in July.

Funny story about climbing partners... I almost always have trouble getting people to actually come on a trip. Trips are expensive, they take vacation time, they are dangerous and there is a very real possibility that weather will shut the whole thing down so you go home without completing the route.  I started by inviting the eight most experienced climbing partners I regularly climb with, and three were interested, however, as the date approached, no one was ready to commit but me. So I went ahead and bought my plane tickets. I've spent plenty of time soloing in the past and I'm sure I will in the future too. If you are going to climb a lot, you are going to solo sometimes. What that means is that I travel very fast on non technical terrain, but rope soloing is a pretty slow process, so I end up being pretty conservative about the difficulty of routes that I do. Anyway nearing a month remaining until the trip none of my main climbing partners had bought a plane ticket so I offered the trip to one of my new and less experienced climbing partners... and he actually said yes. If he had not said yes I was going to open it up to all my Facebook friends, because frankly, even a very basic climbing would allow us to do more than me by myself.

Monday we woke up and went for a little 5k run then started the drive through the Canadian Rockies, Canmore, Banff, and the 45 km dirt road to get to the trailhead. As we left the plains of Calgary and entered the mountains around Canmore and Banff I stared at the wall wondering, 'what is so special about the Bugaboos that I've never even heard of any of these mountains that are far more accessible and still huge looking?' It's a good question, until about two minutes before the Bugaboo parking lot when the modest Hound's Tooth comes into view.

Photo from the hike between the parking lot and Conrad Kain Hut with Hound's Tooth in the background.

The parking lot is at 4700 feet, and most of "the Bugs" are in the 10,000 to 11,000 foot range. The Conrad Kain hut is at 7320 and so there is a big of a hike, just under 3 miles to get there, which takes about two hours.

Tuesday we tried the Kain Route on Bugaboo Spire. Unfortunately, I led us off too far to the left and we ended up on the west face and I was standing on top of a giant attached flake with no noticeable cracks, bolts or pitons for 30 feet of challenging climbing. About this time two guys that did the northeast ridge route came down the rappel route, which overlaps the Kain route at that point, about 25 feet to our right. It was getting into the afternoon so we rappelled the last three rappels and then scrambled down simul-climbing with a rope because there is some exposure in places.

View from our highest belay ledge with Snowpatch Spire below us.

Wednesday we planned to go up on Ears Between on Donkey Ears, part of the ridge on Crescent Spire, which isn't much of a spire but a long ridge. We went too far to the right, did a different route, decided to rappel the back side when we got to the top. Then we got the rope stuck while rappelling off a rock horn, and it took a long time to get it down, but we didn't leave anything behind! We trekked out and what we hoped would be an 8 hour sort of day was more like 10 hours of mini epic in great weather.

Getting ready to mini-epic off of Donkey Ears ridge with Snowpatch and Howser Towers in the background. 

Thursday was probably the highlight because we actually summited Pigeon Spire. A 5 AM wake up, 6:05 AM start from the hut and then a long day hiking to the base and climbing the whole thing. I should mention, we roped up and had gear in the whole way up and down. Most groups seemed to solo, or be tied together without gear in, which frankly is a bit dangerous because a fall off the ridge would most likely be fatal. However, a group from Montana climbed in the same style as us and I think gave Jake a little confidence that they had some fear too. Here is the summit video I took as I belayed with one hand and operated the camera with the other...

Here is a video we took on the way down from the upper Vowell Glacier showing all of the main spires in the Bugaboos.

Friday we slept in again, after a little bit of celebrating on Thursday night, and hiked up to the base of Lion's Way, but we were exhausted by that point of three long double digit hour days in the mountains and decided to head back down to the hut to read and play games. Oh I napped so well Friday afternoon!

Friday night we had a small celebration of sorts in the hut with our new friends. What a great little place! And for those that aren't familiar I typically do not mention people by name unless it is a pretty public person, or I asked the person in advance, so I won't publish specifics about my awesome new friends.

View looking out the front widows of the Conrad Kain Hut at Sunset.

Saturday we woke up, had breakfast and hiked out. We headed to Golden where we ran into IFMGA mountain guide Jonny Sims who then took us paddle boarding near the head of the Columbia river for a couple hours than over to a friend's house for some grilling and jam band music making. I would totally recommend you check him out for a trip if you are into this sort of thing. A bit surreal really. Are all Canadians so nice? Nice or not we were invited to move north by several different people, which doesn't happen in every country on every vacation.

A few more notes on the week, we had amazing weather! Look at this forecast at the hut, it's what really happened:

Sun!

I was stunned how many women were at the hut or on the mountains! Seriously, usually in the mountains it's 80%+ men, and this time I think it was close to 65%+ women. I was stunned. It's great! It's nice to see more ladies out in the mountains.

It's light all the time up here this time of year! Seriously the sun starts coming up at 4:30 AM and finishes going down around 11:30 PM, and oh yeah, we had a full moon this week too. However, the mosquitos are pretty bad, even as high as the hut.

Panorama from high on Bugaboo Spire showing Conrad Kain Hut, Snowpatch Spire, Pigeon Spire, and the Howser Towers

And yes, I would go back again!

Expedition 2017: The Bugaboos!

Jake and I will be out of cell phone range until Saturday night and if you want to follow along, you can track up via Garmin: https://share.garmin.com/IsaiahJanzen

I will also have Twitter updates from time to time, and probably a blog post when we finish. Tentative schedule is the 5.6 on Bugaboo Spire, 5.8 on Bugaboo Spire, 5.8 on Snowpatch Spire, and by that point, if we do those three routes... we'll see.