Advice for becoming a good rock guide and passing your AMGA exam

AMGA Rock Program advice

The AMGA's prerequisites and description for the Rock Guides Program does not

provide specific "how-to" guidance in a qualitative way. A trusted mentor is a great place

to get advice about one's readiness for the various stages of the program, as well as

how to plan an effective progression with the separate but equal goals of passing the rock guides

exam and also being a good guide.

My position is that in all disciplines of mountain guiding, personal experience, raw ability, and

movement are the foundation of a guide's competence. Therefore to be a good rock guide, and to

pass an exam, a candidate should consider a holistic view of their competence as a rock climber.

In other words, the ability to help a client realize their goals, a guide must first be able to realize

their own. Mountain sense, and everything packed within it, are not acquired in a book or in a

course, but through a certain amount of varied repetition in a discipline.

It is important to keep in mind why the IFMGA (and therefore the AMGA) has minimum standards;

which is to ensure that guides are always operating within a zone of comfort. Eventually this tends

to be self-regulating, but the understanding is that all guides should have certain minimum

competencies. We all start at different points, have different strengths and weaknesses, and the 

history of rock climbing has shown that neither age, size, or gender play any significant limiting

role in one's potential as a rock climber. This fact should free our minds to unlock our potential 

through hard work, without excuses, and with an optimistic attitude.

Anyone who has been guiding for a length of time will know first-hand that having a wide-enough

buffer between what one attempts to guide, and what one's personal limits are, is important. Any

number of unforeseen factors can interfere with a person's optimal performance (and I don't limit

the term "performance" here just to physical, but also intellectual/mental tasks associated with

guiding), such as sub-optimal and unpredicted conditions on route, being offroute, being in a

compromised mental, physical, or emotional state, or any number of other surprises that do happen

to guides when out working.

Guides should always have a few "grades in hand," meaning, to be a few grades apart from one's 

top capability and what you are guiding, is a sure way to increase the likelihood of success and the

margin of safety for yourself and your client.

Of the disciplines of mountain guiding (rock, ski, alpine) the rock is far and away the most straitforward to

measure objectively. You can either climb a certain grade, or you can't. You can't

survive your way up a climb the same way you can down a steep ski descent.

Honest and accurate self-assessment is crucial to measured and progressive success, as well as a 

basic piece of info for forming the most effective plan. In rock climbing this means taking note of 

what one achieves in terms of routes climbed, how they were climbed (onsight, redpoint, flash, bail, 

ect., how many attempts) and then a clearer picture of oneself emerges.

The famous Alex Lowe quote, "the best climber is the one having the most fun," is a fantastic 

overall attitude to have towards climbing, but is not necessarily helpful to developing a concrete 

plan of improvement. In effect, the best climber is the one who succeeds in the most number of hard 

routes in the fewest number of tries, and in the best style. By this measure Adam Ondra is the best 

overall rock climber with well over 100 5.14d's, fastest ascent of the world's hardest bigwall climb, 

world cup champion in bouldering and route climbing, and the first ascents of the world's hardest 

sport climbs. 

But for use mere mortals, to be a certified rock guide means consistently and confidently onsighting

up to 5.10d traditionally protected climbs in the context of multi-pitch rock guiding. So what

follows is a basic prescription of what will give someone the minimum level needed to suceed as a 

rock guide and on their rock guide's exam. 

Most of the worlds best climbers use redpoint climbing (projects) to help achieve their maximum 

level. This in turn helps define minimum onsight. The two are inherently connected. The skills one 

learns while projecting hard routes are invaluable to the process of onsighting, which is usually 

what happens when guiding on a rock guide's exam and in real life. I am not expert, and no coach 

either, but here is a list of achievements that I think would set up anyone for success in terms of 

personal movement skills, mountain sense, and comfort necessary to succeed in the often stressful 

situation of being examined and more importantly, while guiding or doing a guide's exam.

The cliffnotes version is:

Personal climbing:

1) Redpointing to 12a sport and 11c trad minimum.

2) Consistently onsighting 5.11c sport and 5.11a traditional climbs.

3) Climb Half Dome Regular NW face in a day

4) Climb a grade VI route. (Bonus points for doing this in a day)

5) Focus on difficulty more than length

6) Climb on as many rock types and styles as possible

7) Climb with the best climbers you can

8) Train properly and specifically for rock climbing

Guiding:

1) Guide or mock-guide in as many different types of routes and rock types as possible

2) Focus on client care. This is the most important part of being a guide, and all other "systems"

revolve around it. 

3) SPI and rock instructor terrain should not be underestimated in terms of the challenges faced and 

the learning that happens there. Smaller terrain is probably the best place hone your "chops" as a 

guide. If you currently work a lot in these disciplines you are probably developing a solid repertoire 

of the fundamental skills. Rock guiding is not rocket science.

4) Technical guiding skills can be acquired through rote practice. Buy the Mountain Guide Manual

and learn a lot of the stuff in it. Then learn how to apply it correctly. Even still, you don't need to be

good at everything in the book. But have a good handle on a few solutions for all of the common

situations.

5) Seek mentorship. If this means hiring an experienced certified guide to hone your skills then do

it. If you can shadow, do that too.

If you are not unquestionably at the standard of 5.10d onsighting the following route

pyramid is a helpful tool to mark progress and completeness of preparation. 

This generally fits for single pitch sport, trad, and bouldering. Every route pyramid should be

specific to each type of climbing. For example, one for sport climbing, one for traditional climbing, 

one for bouldering. Lets just say this one below is for single-pitch trad climbing, because that is 

most relevant to the AMGA rock guide's exam. Before taking an exam you would want your 

previous year's logbook to look like this at the absolute minimum if your goal is to ensure that 5.10d 

traditional routes will feel reasonable under the conditions you will face them in the context of a 

guiding exam.

5.11d (redpointed one of these in previous year)

5.11c - 5.11c

5.11b - 5.11b - 5.11b - 5.11b

5.11a - 5.11a - 5.11a - 5.11a - 5.11a

5.10d - 5.10d - 5.10d - 5.10d - 5.10d - 5.10d - 5.10d - 5.10d (generally onsighting this grade)

The top row is a grade that you have redpointed once. The bottom row is the grade that you can

usually onsight. In order to be at the very minimum exam standard you should have in your recent

experience (previous year) redpointed one tradional climb of 5.11d, or absolute minimum of 5.11c.

This would give you a small margin of ability to consistently and comfortably onsight routes at the

exam standard of 5.10d, while wearing a backpack, and occupying your mind of the complexities of 

client care on route such as gear placement, pacing, coaching, hauling, ect. 

Bringing up your top end will naturally bring up your bottom end. This is how it works. If you

really sit down and make yourself a route pyramid from, lets say, your previous two years of

climbing, if it doesn't look like this, or is lopsided in some way, you should pay attention to that. 

For some guides I imagine they don't do as much effort in redpointing/projecting on traditional 

gear. If one only goes out onsight climbing and either fails or succeeds, and never revisits/retries the 

pitch in light of failure, they are selling themselves short, and cutting off a well-known and well 

tested path to improvement.

Certainly, learning and practicing redpoint/project tactics on sport climbs is more convenient

because of the availability of safe sport climbing, more reasonable to do a larger volume of. In other

words, do a lot of sport climbing, both pushing your onsight capabilities and your max

redpoint. 

Because the standard is to be able to guide grade V routes (for full rock guide, or grade III for rock

instructor) you should strongly consider climbing at least 1 grade VI route, if you haven't already.

You can put the route grades (I, II, III, IV, V, VI) in their own route pyramid. If you want to step it

up further, consider climbing a grade VI in a day to ensure that you have a proven ability to be fast

and effecient both as a climber and with technical skills.

If I were to choose one rock climb in America which contains virtually every element of personal

movement and technical skills needed to be a certified rock guide it would be the Regular NW Face

of Half Dome in Yosemite. Its fair to say that a certified rock guide should be able to complete a

one-day ascent of this route with a partner of similar ability, at the time of their exam. It is one of 

the most historic and awesome rock climbs in North America, the start of the clean climbing 

revolution.

My best advice, nonetheless, is to invest heavily in increasing your max ability as early on in your

climbing/guiding career as possible. That is the piece of advice I most wish I had been given and

listened to. The above route pyramids are simply from which you can accurately measure your 

current abilities, and work toward improvement.

Lastly, there are tons of resources for improving at rock climbing. From personal coaches, to books,

to online generalized coaching programs, the list is endless. Here is a list of books that I and many

others have found valuable on the road to self-improvement:

-9 out of 10 Climbers Make the Same Mistakes, Dave McCleod

-The Rock Warriors Way, Arno Ilgner (because climbing is mostly mental, anyways)

-The Rock Climbers Training Manual, Anderson brothers

-Climbstrong.com, Steve Bechtel's website on which he sells training plans a books

-The Self-Coached Climber, Douglas Hunter

-Mastermind, Jerry Moffat's book on the mental side of climbing

I wish everyone the best of luck out there on your journeys.

Mid-season avalanche thoughts

 "...we want to draw attention to the fact that although experience is necessary to develop certain competences....having been exposed to the relevant risks and “got a way with it" is itself no good evidence to having acquired these competences. More generally, we want to caution against the inference that in most mountain sports, experience is by itself a reliable indicator of competence." 

Philip A. Ebert and Theoni Photopoulou, "Bayes’ beacon: avalanche prediction, competence, and evidence for competence"

After my first winter season in the Alps (2012-2013) I was both dazzled by the terrain and amazed by the access to it. There were many lessons I learned and many days spent in massive terrain here with clients and on personal trips. I guided all sorts of off-piste and ski touring days and taught a few AIARE 1 avalanche courses. As a new guide to this area it was hard to resist using the approach to stability forecasting and risk management I am used to from North America and apply it here. But the approach in Europe is much different; both among guides and among recreational skiers. The following are my observations about what I have learned, what I feel is missing here is Europe, and what I think we can all do to stay safe in the winter snowpack while riding.

Terrain and Access: Chamonix has the better lift access to steep and extreme terrain than any other place on the planet. Period. This is why we are all here and why so many visit. This is the focal point of steep skiing and general radness. This is where the bar is set. These facts have both positive and negative effects on the behavior of riders here. On the positive side we are shown what really is possible to do on a pair of skis or a board. We can engage ourselves in engaging terrain on a more regular basis here than most other places. The term extreme skiing gets overused in the media but I think a fair definition is riding in which a mistake will, or probably will, result in death. And by this definition the Aiguille du Midi offers the closest access to this kind of skiing I have seen. Over the bridge, click in to your skis, take a left and BOOM, you are on the famed Face Nord of the Aiguille du Midi, making turns down the Eugster, Mallory, Frendo...pick your poison. These routes are so popular now that they are practically mogul fields when conditions are good. That does not detract from their seriousness. The results of a fall are no different if you are the first of the thirtieth person down. 

The scale for rating avalanche terrain (explained here http://vimeo.com/8850652) says that most of our terrain here in Chamonix is challenging or complex. In other words this is a very bad environment to begin one's apprenticeship as a traveler in avalanche terrain. The complexity of the snowpack in terms of its variability over terrain and how that relates to stabilty and eventually, how that all relates to our choices as riders out there, is a very difficult calculus to perform. Even for professional forecasters, guides, ski patrollers, and pro skiers, synthesizing all the available information and formulating an educated choice about how and where to ride is, at best, difficult. For recreationalists trying to make sense of it all can be an overwhelming task.

Snowpack: Snowpack can be divided into 3 basic categories (and yes there are other esoteric categories related to arctic regions but in general these three cover areas that have seasonal winter snow coverage). These are: maritime (coastal in Canada), Intermountain (or transitional), and continental. These are not discrete and neatly sectioned types of snowpack. They blend into each other from region to region, season to season, and within each season. The type of snowpack depends largely on average seasonal snowfall (HS height of snowpack) and average temperature. To make a gross simplification; snowpacks that are thick and warm, like near the coast in the US or Europe typically get lots of snow and have very few persistent weak layers. When they do get persistent weak layers, they tend to gain strength quickly due to warmth and low temperature gradients as their thick snowpack drives the strengthening process. In the Western Alps here in Chamonix we tend to have reasonably thick snowpacks with generally warm temperatures. Therefore the average here is towards stability, and the instabilities that we tend to get are of the short-term variety: windslab, storm slab, loose wet, and loose dry (sluff). These short-term instabilities come and go quickly, are fairly easy to predict and observe with the naked eye, and are generally easy to manage with good terrain choice and travel techniques. 

Long-term instabilities, known formally as persistent weak layers, include, "Persistent slab" and "deep persisted slab," and are caused generally by faceted snow grains which formed in the snowpack at some point and were later buried and overlain by a slab of stiffer snow. These persistent weak layers are harder to observe, can vary greatly in their spatial distribution over the terrain, and also can leave very few obvious clues as to their existence in a particular area, though their destructive potential (potential to bury a person) can remain very high over a long period of time.

Right now in the alps we have persistent weak layers lingering and we are all struggling to fully understand their spatial distribution and to then forecast how they will react as the season progresses and more load is placed on them through snowfall and skier traffic. 

In the alps it is fair to say that riders, both professionals and recreationalists, have been getting away with riding in complex terrain on a daily basis for most of the season, year after year after year, is because of two main factors. 1) We generally have an EASY snowpack to deal with and 2) Skier/boarder traffic does play a major role in reducing certain instabilities in very popular terrain that is commonly skied. This second factor is known among avalanche researches but is very poorly quantified. In other words the existence of tracks on a slope does not necessarily have any bearing on whether that slope is CURRENTLY safe to ski or not. It depends on a variety of factors that must all be weighed together, synthesized, and then a decision made.

This year in the alps we have a snowpack consisting of many persistent weak layers, a DIFFICULT SNOWPACK, which are highly variable in their spacial distribution and their general stability. This is part of why so many people have died already this year and why more people will probably contintue to die. Which brings me to the next point of discussion...social/human factors.

Social/Human Factors: I am very glad I did not learn to deal with the winter snowpack and forecasting avalanche hazard in the Alps because I really think people gain a false sense of security and knowledge here. In other words I don't think most people have much of a concept of how serious the terrain is they are accessing on a daily basis and its destructive potential under the right (or wrong) circumstances. It is not expected as an alps skier or rider that we will make our decisions about where and how we are riding based on our knowledge of snowpack and to make a personal decision about stability. In fact that is the job professional forecasters, therefore the average recreationalist is expected to read the avalanche bulletin and behave accordingly in the mountains.

Through a combination of social factors many people do not treat the stated avalanche hazard accordingly, and they don't travel in a way that reflects understanding. The problem with not using the advice of the bulletin is you must have specific knowledge of terrain and snowpack that allows you know that safe conditions DO EXIST on the route you are choosing and on the terrain your route is exposed to. You must have a high degree of confidence in what you think you know and have NO UNCERTAINTY. So essentially what is happening here in Chamonix is a combination of people getting lucky and people skiing on skier stabilized slopes that gives peoplea false sense of what slope configurations (aspect, elevation, angle, exposure) are in fact stable and safe.

Statistically we can make a bad decision about slope stabilty, ski it, and get away with it a very high percentage of the time, maybe as high as 99 percent. It all depends on the character of the avalanche problem. But even if you can get away with a mistake 99 percent of the time, that means 1 in 100 times you won't. Those are very bad odds for people who plan to spend their lives in the mountains. Therefore seeing tracks or your friends or other guides going places and skiing slopes is notnecessarily proof that those are good decisions. 

So when we see Facebook photos of our friends shredding sweet untracked 40 degree slopes every night we think wow there is stable snow out there! And it might very well be true. But in most cases we don't know where they were, what they knew about the snow, what their plan was, their level of risk acceptance, ect. We are being socially conditioned on a daily level to accept higher and higher levels of risk every year. Skiers are getting better and better. We know for a fact that riding ability has absolutely zero necessary correlation with avalanche forecasting and avoidance skill set. A simple way to restate this last sentence: many more people can get themselves into avalanche terrain now than before and these people might know nothing about the hazards they are subjecting themselves to or they might know enough to get themselves into trouble. And this phenomenon is only increasing.

Spending one season in a place like Chamonix or elsewhere can certainly teach a person a lot. But having experiences without subjecting them to a framework of critical thinking and observation will only take us a little ways towards competency as travelers in avalanche terrain. This is true for anyone: professionals or recreationalists. Place your decisions in a framework of critical thinking and open communication among your partner before you go, while you are out, and just as important, once you are back. We have all made mistakes, I continue to make mistakes, you will continue to make mistakes. Luckily our mistakes are not commonly punished by being buried in an avalanche.

The key is to have a good self-awareness of our own abilities and knowledge, and self-assessment. Otherwise we cannot learn and cannot move forward in a constructive way. And lastly give your mistakes a reasonable MARGIN OF ERROR. This means that the more UNCERTAINTY you have about a particular slope, the more conservative you need to be about the decision to ski it or not ski it. If you are the staring down an untracked Glacier Rond what factors will influence your decision? What if there are five tracks? What if there are 40? Is there even a difference?

One of the main social factors that drives bad decision-making, as far as I've observed here in the alps, is scarcity, which is another way of saying that people always want fresh tracks and therefore push further and further afield to get them, or don't take enough time to gather appropriate information before dropping in because if they don't, someone else will. 

The human/social factors and group behavior play huge roles in both staying safe and getting into accidents. Within the American Institute for Avalanche Research and Education curriculum that I teach in my level 1 avalanche courses, we put a huge emphasis on making decisions in a proper way and having excellent planning and error correction throughout a day in the mountains. Some of the most dangerous days I've had in the mountains have been in larger groups of mountain guides. The common thread behind the bad decision-making was a lack of a pre-plan, a lack of critical evaluation of hazard BEFORE we left for the day, and a lack of any general plan. Wherever you ski or live how many times have you just met at the trailhead or ski lift, all of the sudden your friend brought another friend, the group is a little bigger than planned, there is no objective discussed, you just go "have a look?" That is usually when accidents happen or the set plan gets thrown aside. 

What we can all do

-Educate ourselves. Take a class appropriate to your level (AIARE 1) and apply that education accordingly and appropriately. The learning process never stops for anyone in the world of avalanches. Avalanche accidents are almost always the fault of the victim or someone in the victim's party. Ignorance is not an excuse. 

-Be self-aware. This is a good time in the season to give yourself a good assessment of your skill level as a traveler in avalanche terrain. This has nothing to do with your skiing or riding level. Like any activity target your zones of weakness and fill in the gaps. Find learning and training partners, ask people who know more than you and ask what they think. Find people who know less and mentor them.

-PREpare yourself. Have a plan every single day before you go out the door. At a very minimum establish what the main avalanche hazards are based on the bulletin and/or other expert opinion, decide what kind of terrain is appropriate, who the group will be, what the goal of the day is, and have alternatives. This is supposed to happen over coffee in the morning at the latest, and ideally the night before. In the case of some objectives this might happen weeks, months, or years before. 

-LIMIT GROUP size to 2 or 3 people. Most of the human factors that lead to avalanche accidents become diminished in small groups. Communication improves dramatically and travel techniques allow for less exposure to avalanche terrain. Be aware that with 4 or more people it is much more difficult for people to voice concerns and to have established leadership.

-Practice rescue techniques regularly and carry the right gear. Everyone in the group should have practiced with their transceiver at least once this season, ideally more, and ideally with multiple-burials. Everyone should know the order of operations in the case of an accident, who to call, how to organize, ect. 

-USE AN AVALANCHE AIRBAG. If you die in an avalanche you would have had a 50% chance of surviving if you had pulled the trigger on your properly functioning avalanche airbag backpack. If you don't believe me read this article:

http://utahavalanchecenter.org/blog-avalanche-airbag-effectiveness-something-closer-truth 

Many of my peers, whether professional guides or skiers are slow to come around to the reality that they are more likely to survive an avalanche with an airbag than without. There are a number of fallacious (read: bad) arguments against their use. Of course there are so many circumstances when an airbag won't save your life, in a huge avalanche, in a terrain trap, through rocks or trees, over cliffs. You can still die from trauma. Obviously those are all true things. But what is also true is that a large percentage of avalanche deaths are because of suffocation. You can't suffocate if you aren't buried. If you can reduce the chance of being buried you will increase your chance of survival. Its really really simple. Your transceiver is only effective if your partners use it effectively and even if they do you might still suffocate before they get to you. If you are a guide there is a low percentage chance that your clients will react in a way that will result in your life being saved. Unless you have given them specific training or they already have training. Last year I had three friends (IFMGA guides) who'se lives were saved by the successful deployment of their airbags while guiding because they stayed on the surface. A fourth friend did not deploy his airbag and his clients dug him out. 

Except in a small number of terrain- and snowpack-specific situations, I think that anytime we take our beacon with us, we should also use an airbag backpack. Exceptions include terrain or conditions in which the likelihood of an an avalanche is so low that even the use of a beacon seems conservative, or in the case of extreme steep skiing where the only likely avalanche problem is loose dry avalanche (sluff). But even in the case of a loose dry that is still an expert decision, and how many times have you gotten into the mountains expective low or no avalanche hazard and been surprised?

I guarantee that in not too many years social norms and the statistics backing their effectiveness will change enough that not using an avalanche airbag will make you look like an idiot under normal winter skiing/climbing conditions. Would you consider skiing in the off-piste or backcountry without a transciever? Its the same question.

I am not trying to preach. I just don't want to go to your funeral if I don't have to. I don't want to explain to your mother that you could have survived an avalanche, even maybe, if you'd invested a few hundred Euros in a basic piece of equipment.

-Practice Humility. Everyone makes mistakes, everyone has gaps in knowledge. I have just as high a statistical chance, if not higher, of dying in an avalanche, than whoever is reading this. We are human. The goal of writing this is to keep the dialogue fresh, keep the knowledge high and shared, and keep a beginners mind.

Here's wishing to a safe season for all of you out there! 

Danny

The Hornli Ridge on the Matterhorn

On August 18th and 19th Josh and Mark joined Tim Connelly and I with an American Alpine Institute Alps Trilogy Trip. Mark and Josh had already completed training climbs and Mont Blanc with Tim by the time I caught up with the team in Zermatt. Our objective was the Hornli Ridge on the Matterhorn, the most iconic peak in the Alps.

On the trail to the Hornli Hut

From Zermatt we took the never ending gondola to the Schwarzsee Hotel, where we stashed our clean clothes for our return there the following night.

The Matterhorn from the Schwarzsee. The Hornli ridge is on the right hand skyline.

After 2.5 hours walk we arrived at the Hornli Hut, where we proceeded to have some Rosti (fried hashbrowns with eggs) and soak up the afternoon sun. Then we took a reconnaissance foray up the first thirty minutes of the route, the part that we'd be doing in the dark the following day.

Josh and I on the Matterhorn summit in bluebird skies.

The next morning came soon and at 4:20 am, after the Zermatt Guides, we set off in the dark. I climbed with Josh and Tim with Mark. Josh and I arrived at the Solvay Hut, an emergency refuge slightly more than halfway up the route, in two hours. We carried on to the summit in exactly four hours total and laid in the sun and still air for one hour after which Mark, Josh's dad, arrived with Tim. It was a sweet father/son moment and we were all very happy to enjoy such awesome conditions on the route.

The Breighthorn from the Hornli Hut

We descended in good time and rejoined each others company back at the Hornli Hut. After some water and beer we set off for the 1.5 hour walk back to the Schwarzsee Hotel where fancy dinner, showers, comfortable beds, and am amazing sunset view of the Matterhorn awaited us.

Matterhorn Summit

The Hornli Ridge up the Matterhorn is the easiest route, but is by no means for beginners. It is 1200 meters of climbing and requires good footwork. For long stretches of time our rope team was secured to the mountain by little more than our balance and the bootsoles. It is an intimidating peak and not one to be taken lightly.

The upper section of the Hornli

Back at the Hornli with the succesfully completed peak looming above us.

Afghanistan Ski Mountaineering Expedition 2012

On April 24th Dylan Taylor, Cecelia Mortenson, Ben Mitchell,  and I set off for Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor, a forgotten corner of one of the world's poorest countries. The purpose of our expedition was to explore the ski mountaineering potential of the area's 5,000-7,000 meter peaks. With 100 miles of peaks in every direction, none of which have ever been skied, we were very excited for the journey.

Cece on the North Issik Glacier

We met up in the Istanbul airport and then boarded a Turkish Airlines flight bound for our point of departure to Afghanistan, which was Dushanbe, Tajikistan. Because much of Afghanistan is war-torn and relatively dangerous for foreigners to travel through, we decided to take the land route up the Amu Darya river (which forms the border between Afghanistan and Tajikistan) and would cross into the Wakhan Corridor via Khorog. 

Dylan testing conditionsAfter buying all the food for our expedition in Dushanbe, the post-Soviet capital of Tajikistan, we set off in a commissioned 4x4 with our Uzbek driver Odil and made slow but steady progress up the Pamir Highway. Being springtime we encountered flash floods which overturned cars and blocked the road, police checkpoints, late night soirees in random roadside restaurants, and finally we arrived at the peaceful university town of Khorog, Tajikistan. For nearly the entire journey the Pamir Highway runs on the northern bank of the Amu Darya (or Panj, or in ancient times, the Oxus) River. On our side of the river was Tajikistan and a few hundred meters away, beckoning us, was Afghanistan. As we inched deeper into the Pamirs the mountains around us gained incredible height above our heads, as much as 7,500 meters in elevation.  

First look at the terrain in the Wakhan Range

On our first day in Khorog we luckily obtained our Afghan visas from the local consulate and set off immediately and at top speed for the border which was closing in three hours. We arrived at the border in the late afternoon but before closing and checked out with the Tajik authorities and checked in with the Afghans. The border crossing was merely a bridge over the Amu Darya which had a gate on either side and a border guard office.

Dylan taking in the new views at 15,000 feet

It is hard to describe the feelings I had when our drivers picked us up at the border and we proceeded into Afghanistan, arguably one of the most dangerous countries in the world. After a few years of research and developing contacts we had reliable assurances that the area into which we were traveling was safe and we felt very good about our decision to be there. Needless to say it felt like driving into the wild west a few centuries ago. 

Cece and her sticky skins

Eventually we made our way into the Wakhan Corridor and had 25 days of amazing ski adventures in the mountains, nearly summiting 3 peaks, and barely tagging one on the last day of our trip in a storm. There were avalanches, snow leopards, bad weather, good weather, broken stoves, we ran out of food, we saw virgin peaks and had the adventure of a lifetime.

Exploring new terrain in the IssikApproaching high campEarly morning light over Koh-e-Pamir and high camp

Dylan Taylor skiing down Koh-e-Pamir

Cece Mortenson skiing down an previously unskied couloir on Koh-e-pamir

Cece skiing powder at 18,000 feet

Exploring a new valleyExploring Zemestan Valley

Zemestan Valley and unclimbed peaks

Base Camp

Walking back to "civilization" after 25 daysThe kids of Ptukh where we based our expeditionLocals inspecting the Polaroid's I took of them

In the kitchen in a Wakhi household

Wakhi kitchen

Edge of the world

Season number three on the ice (localspeak for Antarctica) just started. Feels similar to the first two only more familiar. Taking this place for granted is too easy sometimes. There are so many distractions from the essential fact that we here are living and working on the most remote continent on Earth. I was having coffee with my friend Karen this morning and she mentioned what it felt like to be at the shore last season, water lapping up on black volcanic sand. She and two other friends just kneeled, facing north towards New Zealand, a few thousand miles away, the closest land. They were on the very margin of the world. Where no human has ever, or will ever, be able to sustain life without outside resources. A place so harsh that even in the best of conditions few animals visible to the human eye can exist. A few birds, some seals, not much else.

Here is an example of some of the coolest birds there are, the Adelie Penguin(s).

There is a wild energy at McMurdo now because the powers that be overbooked the season here beyond the capacity of the station and the logistical support. There are Australians sleeping on childrens cots in the gym, and South Pole people crammed five to a room where only four should be.

Luckily parts of my job involve going out of town into the landscape, which is the primary reason I come here. While driving on six feet of sea ice, beneath which is a thousand feet of twenty-eight degree ocean water, arcing around grounded icebergs and birthing seals, my own troubles seem trite. The cycles of ocean, land, and sky are harsh and predicitible. Today the wind bit with a cold force yet the sky was clear and I could see eighty miles to the north.

Karen driving our Hagglund around a trapped ice berg, which is larger than most city blocks. Keep in mind that the sixty feet showing above ice is one ninth the total height. That makes it 540 feet deep.

Here is my group posed in front of another iceberg on a sea ice course my second day at work.

Karen, Julian and I made it out to Cape Royds to check out the sea ice route conditions. This is as far north as I get on our island. The background is frozen ocean, which extends for a few hundred miles north and gradually melts out on its circumpolar course. Beyond the horizon is New Zealand, the direction from which the early explorers came from.

Karen was right that this place is about adventure. There is no other continent that is uninhabitable. We are visitors and like another friend said to me once as we were looking out at a similar vantage..."we're lucky, aren't we." He couldn't have been more right.

These boots were made for walking

Just got back from 7 days in the Wrangell Mountains of Alaska with Joe and Dylan. Our plan was to ski from Solo Lake, where a bush plane dropped us off, to McCarthy, over the wall of Regal Peak. After a few days of experiencing incredibly low snow conditions, avalanches, and generally high pucker factor, we bailed early on the trip down the Nizina glacier and valley. What this meant, though, was 30 miles of walking in ski boots over dry glacier, river bed, and bushwacking.

We drank lots of J-Dubs, shot many bottle rockets and roman candles to ward off the grizzly bears. We actually ran into bear tracks in the middle of the Nizina glacier miles from nowhere, and then a few miles later saw a mother and two cubs cruising down the edge of the glacier.

Heading into the upper Chisana Glacier

A hard slab I remote triggered

This type of trip is what one would call an ultra-slog, and if there were an award for the most miles walked in ski boots, with skis on packs, we might win that award. Unfortunately there is no such award, because this is against the point of skiing. But, we did have a good time and as usual for a trip like this, learned a thing or two about the mountains and how they affect a person.

Canada eh!

The first AMGA ski mountaineer guide's course is happening now in the Coast Range of British Columbia. We've been getting dumped on for the past two days, luckily avalanche hazards subsides quickly with this wet snow. Here are some photos from my pre-course trip with my friend Jeremy. In Canada we are able to be from the car to glaciers in a matter of hours on our skis. From Whistler and Blackcomb mountains, it is even quicker.

Lots to write about, no time though!

Cooler Climbing!

Jeremy skiing the Aussie Couloir of Joffre Peak

On the Anniversary glacier

Rabbit hole

Suns out, Guns out

Images from the last dry, stable period here in the San Juans.

Sheldon and Grand Turk in the background

Skiing a nice line off highway 550

Bear Mountain

Skiing with the Sultan in the background

Skiing near Coalbank Pass

The Naked Lady

The recent lack of new snow in SW Colorado has left our snowpack relatively stable...stable enough at least to ski the line I've been oogling over coffee each morning out my kitchen window. And it was my roommate Sheldon's birthday!

The Million Dollar Highway

Looking up at an untracked piece of snow, I can see myself carving tracks through it like a Chinese calligrapher making brush strokes on paper. Snow begs to be skied as much as mountains beg to be climbed. The reality is that mountains beg for absolutely nothing, they simply exist. Something about leaving one's mark on the earth, in a positive and transitory way, appeals to us skiers and climbers. And this drive, to be the first to grip a hold of rock on a mountain face, or the first to make a track in snow after a storm, is part of what drives us to do this. It is the impermanence of the action, the absolute fact that it means nothing, and changes nothing, that gives our turns and our efforts significance to us. We live in these beautiful moments in which sun sparkles off snow crystals though cold air and we move through the terrain.

Anytime I see a mountain face I start to see the small undulations and the large scale features; to put a picture together of the character of the mountain. Each is different and has its own personality. Each mountain range is unique. Like people, they possess characteristics that become clear and known only through direct experience. A photo, or long-distance glance is only that; like sighting a stranger through a crowd at a train station. There is no end to the fascination that the earth's landscapes inspire, and the exploration we do to bring real images and knowledge to the ideas and pictures in our imaginations.

There is a stretch of road that connects Ouray to Silverton. They call it the Million Dollar Highway, or HWY 550, and it is about 100 yards from my house. The road was built in the 1880s to connect Ouray and Silverton to the productive mines that were working in the San Juan Mountains. Nowadays there is no gold left, or not enough to mine anyways. Despite the beauty of the San Juans, which some consider to be Colorado's most rugged mountains, and were also in consideration for becoming Rocky Mountain National Park, the mountains are marred by the remains of the mining industry. Nearly every basin has a road up it, used in the mining operations of the 19th and 20th centuries, and there are innumerable remains of mining infrasctructure, including shafts, huge buildings, and debris piles.

If nothing else, mining's unfortunate mark on the SW Colorado landscape can be a lesson for our current and future generations of citizens. David Brower, former president of the Sierra Club, said something to the effect of...once an environmental or conservation battle has been lost, it has been lost forever. And the innumerable road cuts, and detritus that remains here in place is a direct affirmation of that comment. Right now is a golden moment for the conservation movement because land all over the country is being offered up to conservation groups; land previously destined for real estate development and other irreversible projects. The problem is that the same financial crash that has driven land owners to sell their land conservation groups and interests is the same financial drying up that is making it difficult of impossible for these well-intentioned groups to purchase this land. So get out and donate your money! It will keep giving for generations and generations to come. It is the best investment you can make.

Okay, enough proselytizing. Nowadays, the resources that the Million Dollar Highway connects are the world-class skiing and ice climbing that stretches between Ouray and Silverton. Luckily, work has been slim, and I've been able to enjoy a lot of this recently.

I work as a ski guide and ski patroller this winter at Silverton Mountain. Its a unique blend of backcountry terrain, explosive-controlled, which allows us to ski steep powder mid-winter when all the other backcountry skiers are making squiggles down flat, boring powder when the avalanche hazard is high. All the terrain is steep, there is nothing groomed, and rumor has it that the lift we currently use was actually condemned before it got bought from Mammoth Mountain and moved here. I've gotten to realize my childhood dream, which is to ski powder all the time and blow up stuff. And both are legal here.

On the way to the mountain is an ice climb called Niagara Falls (or sometimes referred to as Santa Claus Pillar). It shines in the sun like an ice chalice, and has been calling me to climb it for weeks. Last week my friend Gary Falk and I had the chance to climb it in sunshine and warm weather.

Gary Falk skiing up to the climb, which is one 130 foot pitch.

The lower bit looks like the foot of a giant ice-monster stomping onto the earth below. The climb itself was phenomenal to lead, was dripping wet and easy to sink my ice axes. Near the bottom of the pillar the rock wall behind was overhung, which meant that the pillar was totally free-standing!

Gary looking suspicious

After Niagara Falls we cruised up to Eureka! and climbed the area classic "Whorehouse Hose" (no joke, thats the name). The first pitch is over 60 meters, and is followed by a swerving snow couloir to a final pitch of WI 4-5. We finished at our car in the dusk.

Gary leading pitch 1 of the Whorehouse

The last few days we've been exploring the backcountry terrain in Red Mountain Pass, which is the 11,070 ft pass that the Million Dollar Highway runs through.

A beautifully engineered curve on the Million Dollar Highway, Commodore Basin in the Background.

Sheldon, Matt Wade, and I skied the Grandaddy Couloir into Commodore Basin. There hasn't been any new snow in a few weeks, which means there is a lot of beat out snow here. The terrain is still amazing though. Matt and Sheldon are both amazing skiers to watch, and with snow conditions tricky like they are now, a skiers true ability will shine.

Sheldon cruising the entrance to Grandaddy's

Matt at the entrance to the middle couloir

Matt looking stylish is the middle couloir

A few weeks ago we skied the Battleship on a really windy day. But is made for nice photos.

Kendall Mountain, which defines the southern border of the town of Silverton. This is the view out my kitchen window, and I often enjoy it while sipping coffee in the morning. The slide path on the left side which comes strait toward the viewer is known as the "Naked Lady" slide path, you can use your imagination as to why.

Today a friend and I skied the West Face (A.K.A. the Hollywood shot) of Red Mountain 3. It is a line that calls to each and every skier who drives the million dollar highway, a big, open, glory-run that begs for airplane-sized turns and speed.

The West Face, with tracks evident down the middle.

Skiing the upper couloir of the West Face

Video of Skiing in Red Mountain Pass.

Looking back on the last few weeks reminds me of some lyrics by my late friend Chris Starz:

"Living high, high on life,
Just about as high as those northern lights.
Living fast, man, and I'm dying young,
If I'm gonna get through this world I gotta have a little fun."

June on the Campground Couloir

Ascending in Red Mountain Pass

Dawn mixed climbing in the Skylight Area, Ouray

Looking out from Skylight

Looking up at the last pitch of Skylight

Gary descending from Hoser's Highway

Gary on Hoser's Highway

Approaching Hoser's Highway

Erik climbing the second pitch of the Direct North Face in South Mineral Basin

Outside my window snow is falling onto red mountains. Another long day in the mountains and I feel a deep satisfying tired. Weeks of climbing the frozen waterfalls of ice which drape the valleys and faces that surround Silverton, has left me ravenous for more. I can't remember the last day when there wasn't work or some other adventure requiring coffee and Nutella sandwiches.

Leading a nice waterfall with the San Juans for company

Where'd the time go?

Andrew on the last pitch of Cloud Tower in Red Rock

Paul taping up for Cardinal Pinnicle.

Dana peak and the Dana Couloir in the Sierras. Diccon and I did roughly 10 pitches of ice to get up that thing.

The Sierra

North Couloir on North Peak, Sierra

North Peak in the Sierras. Ice climbing is great here in the fall.

Layla, on the "Silent Line." Best Chimney I've ever climbed, well, not quite as good as the Narrows in the Steck-Salathe

Chantel and I at the base of Half Dome the night before the climb. We were visited by a Ringtail that night.

Base of half dome.

Chantel on the "Death Slab" approach to Half Dome

Darkstar: the longest alpine climb in California. Car to car 15 hours. Like the Complete North Ridge of Stuart but easier approach.

Aidan and I on the summit, only halfway there.

Another crazy sunrise

June on "Cryin' Time Again." Her first multi-pitch. Woo-hoo!

Brian and Cece and me. My Antarctica friends. Brian is down there now.

Two months ago my truck, the Red Rocket, lumbered out of Boise headed to California. The sky was clear and hot as Nevada disappeared at 75 mph in the rear view mirror. I arrived to Touloumne Meadows under bright stars and a dark sky, my friends were already asleep I'd been so late on the drive.

It seems pointless now to retell the stories of late nights and early mornings; late mornings and early nights. Campfires, long rock climbs, dreams of the future, and dreams of the past. Stars, the full moon on top of Half Dome guiding Chantel and I down after twenty pitches. The moonlight so bright I turned my lamp out. Passing out in middle of trail because we couldn't find our way down. Another dark top-out. Rappelling off of bushes. Playing Shady Grove on the Mandolin for the thousandth time at the campfire. Hearing OId Crow Medicine Show sing, "My baby plays the guitar, I pick the banjo now" at a free show in San Francisco and busting dance moves in the aisle. Two degrees of separation at most. Las Vegas, city of sin, city of amazing rock climbing. Accomplishing goals. Getting shut down. Bob Dylan at dusk. Bob Dylan in the morning. Four rounds of coffee as a minimun, every day. A mouse started living in my truck. Climbing every day. Being dirty. Rivers down main street in Bishop. The first snow in the Sierra. The search for motivation. Constant travel. Where to sleep? What to eat tonight? Burritos again! Eggs in the morning. No knowledge of the date or time. Has the sun hit the tent yet? Okay, its time to get up. Oh, again? Why can't we just take a rest day? No rest days, life is too short!

I can't possibly capture the last two months in words. I'm simply grateful, supremely grateful, for the opportunity to live a beautiful life surrounded by amazing people. So thanks to everyone I've traveled with and met on the way, safe travels!

Finding the right way

Seven of us just finished out alpine guides exam which took place in the North Cascades in Washington. Here are some photos from the 10 days. I'm too mentally tired from it to say much more at the moment. I learned a lot, and I can't wait to find out if I passed!

We climbed the ridge that is split by shade and sun, and then descended the left hand ridge. This is Mt. Forbidden.

Tom on the Quien Sabe glacier with Boston Basin in the background.

Me on the summit of Sharkfin Tower

Dawn guiding us up Sharkfin

One of the examiners having a good time

Dawn sending

Forbidden from the slabs where the glacier used to be.

Tom following on the East ridge of Forbidden

Tom on the East ridge of Forbidden

The North Ridge of Forbidden.

Forest

Head in the clouds

Mt. Baker

Its been a crazy summer for a lot of people in the climbing community this summer. I'd like to send out my best wishes and respects to the memory of Craig Luebben, who died in a climbing accident this week, and his wife and daughter who are left behind. He was training for AMGA alpine exam in the North Cascades when a chunk of ice he was climbing over collapsed on the bergshrund underneath Mt. Torment. I've never met Craig, but he was a beloved person in the climbing community and he will be missed dearly. He was supposed to be my instructor on an upcoming guide's course in Colorado and even through the brief email I received from him describing the course, I could tell how much passion he had for climbing.

Lily and George on our two day crevasse rescue course on Mt. Baker.

I've just returned from an alpine ice course I taught for the American Alpine Institute on the north side of Mt. Baker. The two guys on my trip were especially awesome and despite the torrential downpour managed to keep spirits high and we climbed the Roman Moustache route which consisted of a number of pitches of alpine ice. I'd driven strait from the Phish show at the Gorge to make it for the 7 am rendezvous last Saturday, where I saw my brother (congrats Matthew for your first Phish show!) and some of my best friends on earth. In addition to seeing an incredible show I left the venue and received a message from my best childhood friend telling me he just got engaged to his long standing girlfriend, so woo-hoo to Jeff and Ruby!

Chandler painting Andy before the Phish show

Darren getting pumped for the best rock and roll on earth

Russ, Chandler and Andy hanging at the Gorge. Russ had the flag dress custom made for the Phish show and other places I'm. Sure. You have no idea how many comments he got. Apparently patriotism is still in style.

As everyone knows, there are sometimes too many things to possible describe in words, and as writers have known since the beginning of time, words can never replace experience. How can I describe the way the clouds whipped the summint of Baker, the cumulous clouds seemed like a magic surfboard could just ride them into the white yonder. They morphed from shape to shape and the sun came and went like a flitting spotlight. At times we were enveloped like the inside of a ping-pong ball, sometimes we were in this giant clear fishbowl looking out on the world from up high. The Coleman glacier's crevasses could've fit average houses inside of them, and despite my years of climbing I still get a mighty pit in my stomach when I step over those great dark holes in the ground.

I've spent a lot of time in the mountains at this point and I take many things for granted that used to make me so excited. It was exciting seeing the guys on the trip being so enamored by simple things like camping out up high on a big mountain, and smelling the flowers on the hike out. The high alpine environment is devoid of plant life and when you eventually descend the smells of the mountain flowers are overwhelming. It feels like I've never been able to smell until that moment, and then it becomes normal again.

Ice cragging on the Coleman Glacier

We walked out the long road from Mt. Baker in a downpour. It gave example to why we call this area the Pacific Northwet. I ran ahead to get the car and shorten the trip for the guys. Running through the rain and green forest all alone I felt incredibly grateful to be alive and to have the simple ability to feel the mist and smell the thick woods. In light of the recent deaths of friends this summer, life is feeling even more precious now. When people pass away all of the things that seem like problems become inconsequential in comparison to the big picture: just being alive and living well each day. I think that each of us strives to be as good as we can be; to ourselves, our families and friends, and the world. I'm no closer to the answer of what a good life consists of, than I was when I became aware of my desire to live one. I do know that to act from the good intentions of the heart seems to be the best gesture I can make.

I wonder if my pondering really mean much. Whether or not, its nice to spend a little time reflecting. Life seems to be going at its usual crazy pace, with only a few rest days between now and my trip to Pakistan where I'm going this fall to teach climbing to porters in the Karakoram, a few AMGA courses sprinkled in between and hopefully some quality time with the friends and family. Maybe even some time to stick my head in the clouds and feel the wind on my face.

What else is there, really? The seasons come and go, time goes on and life continues despite us. It feels good to just appreciate the basic things now and again; the laugh of good company, the crisp air of morning, and the summits that I am lucky enough to visit. Sometimes the sun shines bright and then there is the hard rain. May it rain where you want it to, thats what a read on a sticker one time, and how true those words are....

May the rain fall where you want

I saw a sticker that said, "May the rain fall where you want." There's some wisdom in that. The rain could be a metaphor for some other difficulty in life, but in the case of my last trip to the mountains, rain was no metaphor at a all. Neither was lightning or thunder.

Ben psyched about being soaked and headed home

Ben Mitchell and I went to climb Eldorado Peak to prepare for our AMGA alpine exam. There is a lot of time, experience, opportunity, and money at stake in the exam so we thought we'd train a lot in order to do well. Of course, that training paid off greatly when the two of us were packing for the trip in the parking lot and I casually tossed the neon yellow rain tarp in the "stay at home" pile. And what did Mother Nature do? She pissed on us, and shook her thunder and lightning stick relentlessly. So what did we learn? Always take something for the rain in the Cascades, even if the forecast is for 100 degrees in Seattle.

Columns of rain over the North Cascades National Park

On the positive side, we did learn the approach to Eldorado quite well and saw a beautiful storm roll through the mountains. Our little bivy site on the shoulder of the peak was somehow protected from lightning strikes, which seemed to be happening all around us. Only once did I feel the buzz of electricity.

Here is a time lapse of lightning during the night. Its a bunch of photographs put together and played at high-speed, which means there was three times as many strikes as what the camera captured.

We woke up the next morning cursing the fact that between us, we had zero waterproof items, and our sleeping bags and all our clothes were soaked. I slept mainly underneath my sleeping pad, and not on it, to protect from the downpour.

The lesson for me is that things will happen that don't fit with the plan. Maybe we didn't climb the mountain, but we did see an amazing show and had a good hike none-the-less.

Enjoys long walks

"...Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference." Robert Frost obviously never tried to climb mountains in the North Cascades, or he wouldn't have said this. The past three days Ben Mitchell and I have been training for our AMGA alpine guide's exam. Basically we are trying to "guide" each other up long and complex alpine routes. In the North Cascades to get to most of these kind of routes involves a fair amount of off-trail travel just to get out of treeline, then hours of plugging up boulder fields, talus slopes, morianes, snow slopes, glaciers, ect, until the "good" piece of climbing is reached.

An old-fashioned camp out. Notice the hood on to protect from mosquitoes. Ben Mitchell Photo.

Mountain flowers were blooming all over the route. If anyone knows what these are, please tell me!

Trying as hard as we could to get into the north ridge of Mt Stuart up mountaineers creek, we still managed to lose the vaguely marked trail, both on the way up and down. We lost the route on multiple other occasions and in total ended up adding a number of hours to the trip on account of it. There was moderate dehydration, mosquitoes, bushwacking, complaining, laughing, sore feet, tired legs, and empty stomachs. But these were the tough parts of Mt Stuart. The good parts were beautiful endless pitches of granite rock climbing, thousands of feet above the closest flat ground, miles from the nearest other human, sleeping on a tiny ledge and being woken by the sunrise at 4:45 am, frigid glacial meltwater rejuvenating dry mouths, alpine flowers that put the best of gardens to shame, hummingbirds doing fly-bys all day long, and feasting on salmon back in Leavenworth.

Ben on the lower ridge

Where's Waldo (or Ben in this case). Midway up the North Ridge.

There is something quite twisted about this kind of pursuit, and something a little contradictory about training to be a guide as well. We all begin down this path because we love climbing and we either want to get paid to do more of it, or we want to help other people have similarly rewarding experiences as our own. After a year or two of guiding, that original feeling I had (insert inner monologue voice here: "oh my god, they're paying me for this?!") turns into something different, and like all jobs, it starts to feel like a job. That is okay, because I love the job, and don't get me wrong, I am so utterly grateful for the opportunity. But to be a professional mountain guide, you have to treat guiding like work. It is not the same as climbing for myself. So what Ben and I are trying to perfect now, are all the skills and techniques that go into creating a safe a rewarding climbing experience for others.

Me leading the off-width pitch. Ben Mitchell photo.

Mr. Ben Mitchell guiding me up the ridge.

Ben

Our alpine exam is next month and there are 8 candidates including us. Most of us are now in the Cascades doing similarly arcane alpine routes to get ready for a 10-day stretch of long climbs, high stress, and hopefully success!
For now though my legs are tired and I'm ready for another day of training tomorrow in Snowqualmie Pass where we're doing some route, the name of which I can't remember, and we'll probably do laps up and down, up and down....

Stuart though was amazing. Despite getting a little off on the walk in, we managed a reasonable time of 4 hours to the base of the North Ridge, which is a 3 thousand foot climb that is considered one of classics of the PNW (Pacific NorthWet), and one of the classics of the US. As is often the case with alpine climbs, getting to the top is just half the climb. Getting down from Stuart in any direction involves descent and then more climbing to get out of the basin in which it sits. In this way it is quite a demoralizing climb. Being east of the hydrologic crest of the Cascades, Stuart is a dry mountain. I took 2 liters of water which lasted from 4 am, when we started from the car, until about 10 am the next morning when we found some more water. Thats about 21 hours of moving and what would have been six hours of sleep if the buzzing of mosquitoes hadn't kept me awake all night.

Negotiating some unknown terrain on the descent.

Just before we arrived at our bivy (sleeping) spot, we climbed the most famous and beautiful section of the route, the great gendarme. A gendarme is basically a tower, or turret, that protrudes from a ridge. This one was so beautiful and the climbing so perfect...I wish it weren't so hard to get to!

Ben on the top of pitch one on the gendarme, a 5.9 layback that he styled with his pack on.

Ben following the second, 5.9 offwidth pitch on the gendarme.

Summit! Ben Mitchell photo.

An open mind

Huayna Potosi, 19,975 ft. The west face is showing.

I'm just returning from my second trip guiding in Bolivia. Two years ago I came down with the illustrious, if not, infamous, Andrew Wexler to guide and climb some stuff on our own. Check out his blog on my sidebar, if you don't come out laughing from his writing, I don't know what will make you smile. Also on his sidebar is a link to an article Andrew just wrote for Gripped, a Canadian climbing rag, in which he details some of our shenanigans from 2007 and highlights the other peaks in the range.

Rodolfo and Emma approaching the Pirimide Blanca.

La Paz on the drive in. It sits in a bowl about 1500 beneath the dusty metropolis of El Alto (which has 1,000,000 people). La Paz has 2 million and it is the last place I would ever want to be in an earthquake because the homes are all built on the steep sidewalls of the valley. Unfortunately the valley is composed of very loose old riverbed rock which is totally unstable. We also met the urban search and rescue team which is responsible for extricating people when their homes collapse, which happens often.

The Condoriri Valley with Rodolfo, Steve, and Emma

El Cabeza del Condor, the capstone peak of the Condoriri Valley, at night under the full moon, with headlamp tracks in the foreground.

If you want to feel tall, go to Bolivia. This is Nestor and his esposa Louise who are subsistence farmers and also will take your gear into the Condoriri on their donkeys and llamas.

This trip was a short one, one 3 weeks, but I'm headed home a bit early now because a combo of a lung hack from last month and the altitude have proved too much this time. Even walking around La Paz at 11,500 feet feels strenuous. But we've had a great trip so far with a few unexpected adventures here and there. Bolivia is always that way for me, expect the unexpected. Its not that the country is disorganized exactly, probably no more so than my own, but they do things a little different here.

Our trip began with an 8 day climbing session in the Condoriri Valley. On day one in basecamp one of our trip members needed to descend because of altitude illness, but then we were off and running with a practice day and two climbs, Pequeno Alpamayo and Pirimide Blanca, both great warm-ups to the higher peaks of the Cordillera Real (Royal Range). I haven't done any climbs here that are complete walk-ups, most involve some amount of pitched climbing, or can if you want them to anyways.

Rodolfo, Steve, and Emma on the summit ridge of Pequeno Alpamayo, 18000ft.

Emma and Rodolfo climbing the final summit block of Pirimide Blanca

The climbing here is described as "high altitude sport mountaineering." Which isn't to take away from the seriousness of high altitude and steep icy slopes. But what might take a week or two to get to in Nepal or the Himilaya is only a few hours drive and a few hours walk from your hotel in La Paz. This trip was different and didn't involve any real fiestas for me. It is easy to get sucked into the vortex of late nights out and early mornings out to the mountains. All the roads here are bumpy and dusty and a good hangover usually leads to a healthy dose of carsickness. I recommend Pepto Bismol and Coca-Cola for that.

Steve on the summit of Pequeno Alpamayo

Looking back at climbers on Pequeno's summit ridge

Some trips are bittersweet. This one was just that with some health issues to complicate my job here and the fun I would usually be having. But it is always nice to be here and see the friends I've made. There is no better perspective for understanding how lucky we 1st-worlders are than 3rd world travel. People here are very very poor, on average, the poorest in South America. Basically everyone is selling something most of their waking hours. The problem is that everybody is selling something so theres not much money to go around. There are many subsistence farmers in the rural areas, and aside from the few middle and upper class people, I would say that Bolivia is largely composed of subsistence livers; people who make barely enough, and often not enough, to simply eat.

Most of these people could literally not leave the country because it costs too much. Its rare that I meet someone of the lower classes who have left Bolivia, and sometimes even this small region, for their whole lives. I've met friends with college degrees who can't come to the United States because the paperwork, beaurocracy, and cost, is much more than their middle class earnings allow.

Part of the issue is that Bolivia has natural resources, gas and oil, but they are landlocked (a sore spot which has caused more than one war with neighboring Chile) and therefore cannot cheaply export their goods. And despite the economic hardships of life in Bolivia, people still seem happy and go about their daily lives with less stress and anxiety than most people in the first world.

I hope to get back here next year, we'll see though, I've got to keep an open mind.

The life of a travelling man

The other day I was frantically packing in my friend's Bellingham driveway for a trip in to Mt. Shuksan in the Cascades. It was nearly dark and I'd strewn my possessions across the asphalt driveway. I feel like a pinball knocked all over the inside of the machine sometimes. Here I am writing from hotel in Bolivia looking out on the expanse of La Paz as it sweeps in shanty-brick homes up the hillside to 13,000 feet. Last week I was being drenched to the bone on Shuksan where I supposed to take two Texas lawyers up a challenging route. We didn't half the distance I'd planned before we threw down our tents and spent the rest of the day and night listening to the pouring rain. I made hot water bottles ever hour just to keep warm because my bag was soaked and useless. Its not too often I feel sorry for myself, but shivering all night made me feel a little bad.

Since leaving Antarctica in early Feb the tick list went: New Zealand, California, Idaho, Alberta, Wyoming, Colorado, Alaska, Washingon, and now Bolivia. Its hard to complain but there is a growing, or maybe lingering, longing for a place I can call my own. Today I walked down the streets of La Paz and saw all kinds of people going about their day under a cloudless sky. Bolivia is an easy place to go as an American to feel lucky. I mean that people here are poor, and their opportunities for advancement are severely limited by their poor economy and lack of opportunities. And here I am, complaining about being stuck in a wet sleeping bag on a mountainside, and getting paid for it. Most of these people couldn't in their whole lives even get the mountainside that I lay soaked on a few days ago. I feel so lucky for the opportunities afforded me simply because of where I was born.

So many people I know and meet, including myself, have dreams to do all sorts of things. Its just so amazing to me that at any moment in time, any one of you out there reading this could, if you wanted to, actually accomplish that dream. It might take quitting your job, achieving a deeper level of honesty with ourselves, selling the house, dumping that girlfriend, or maybe even asking a new one out on a date. I have no idea what you dreams are, I'm having a weird enough time sorting out my own. But I do know that whatever your dreams are, they are achievable. And one more thing I've learned is that to achieve our dreams won't bring happiness. Sometimes it might open more desires and dreams. So where do we get our happiness from then, if not from the achievement of dreams?

Perhaps living a good and honest life is part of happiness, I don't know. I just got back from the Telluride Bluegrass festival which I went to with my dad (over father's day, how cool!) and I met two amazing friends there, Hol and Susan. I saw a lot of other friends too. I swear that I only saw one unhappy looking person the entire time, out of nearly 14,000 people. The festival I think may offer some answers to my question of "where does happiness come from." Obviously the music is a central theme. And bluegrass, more than most of forms, is a populist music. It is made for the people, it is deeply rooted in our history and it seeks to illuminate (or at least dwells upon) life's most challenging questions. Not the soon to be forgotten questions like what should we do about Iran or is it a good time to by that house I've always wanted, but instead this music asks: what is love, why do I feel it so deeply, and why can it hurt so much, why does it redeem me so, and so many other questions. Sometimes bluegrass might seem shallow to the observer, it is infatuated with whiskey, but the whiskey is a symbol for the greater issue at hand, pain, and how to deal with it.

Water fights are the most dangerous part of the festival

David Byrne (formerly of the Talking Heads) headlined night one. His band brought the love.

But I said its a populist music. This means that everybody in the band has an equal share and is encouraged to share themselves by taking breaks and harmonizing on the vocals. In the tall arms of the beautiful San Juan mountains in Telluride, surrounded by sunshine and beautiful people who have come to experience as a group what it means to care for one another, I found out that happiness is the result of allowing life's beauty to overtake me, without judgement or reserve; to dance my own dance under the stars, and surrounded the people I love.

Susan and me, having a blast

Before Telluride I returned from Alaska, which was a two month long adventure filled with guiding and my own climbing, and a whole bunch of shenanigans in between. My last trip was six days on the Pika Glacier teaching greenhorns how to live on a glacier and the basics of alpine climbing. We had no clouds in the sky for the first five days, then the ceiling dropped like a judges gavel and we got picked up by a skiplane just before the weather locked the glacier in.

Dante, from Harlem, first time on a glacier, ascending out of a crevasse. I think the place blew his mind, which always inspires me to keep going at this work.

My big trip was guiding Denali which was awesome, although anyone who says that Denali is awesome is lying. There are awesome parts to it, there are scary parts, and there and grueling parts. No one is bummed when flying back to Talkeetna and the infamous Fairview Inn where all post-mountain trips should be celebrated. Luckily I was working with the best friends and guides I could hope for, Gabe and Paul. Here are some photos from the trip.

"I love this shit!" Good on ya Paul!

17,000 foot camp.

Paul at the edge of the world.

I'm still here in La Paz wondering what the meaning of this post is and why I felt compelled to write. Basically I'm wondering why I'm not more psyched that I'm being paid to travel to Bolivia and climb some mountains with some people. Shouldn't that be exciting? I used to think so, but now we'll see. With such great experiences just behind me I long for the feelings that those people and those places gave. The challenge is mine, to live presently and explore my world here with zest and a beginners mind. A mind not attached to outcomes of any sort. I'm already feeling better knowing that a whole city of people I don't know awaits me, a whole mountain range, and a whole life to come.

On a mountain so high

Its a rare day that I do everything I set out to. Thats just life though; we do the best we can with what time we have. This April the infamous kiwi Mike Madden and I took to the Alaska Range to try the Harvard Route on Mt. Huntington. It was first climbed in 1965 by David Roberts and others from the Harvard Mountaineering Club. The route was the mountain's second route, and in was a futuristic line for the era, raising the bar of alpine climbing in Alaska. Even today, as Mike and I discovered, actually summitting Mt. Huntington is a tantalizing and difficult task.

There is no easy way to the summit. As my friend Dylan Taylor says, mountaineering is defined as climbing up the easy way, alpine climbing is climbing up the difficult way. Any route up this peak is a true alpine adventure.

Paul Roderick flew us and three British dudes into the Tokositna glacier on April 13th. I've done a fair bit of flying in the mountains between helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, and this was an exciting flight to say the least. Mike called it the most hairraising flight he's been on. We barely made it in, banking between patches of mountains barely visible between breaks in the clouds.

The following are some photographs of our attempts on the West Face Couloir and the Harvard route, both spectacular climbs.

West Face couloir

The bottom of the ice in the West Face couloir

The west face of Mt. Huntington

Mike Madden in the icefall leading up the the base of the West Face.

Tokositna Base camp

Its a rare day that I do everything I set out to. Thats just life though; we do the best we can with what time we have. This April the infamous kiwi Mike Madden and I took to the Alaska Range to try the Harvard Route on Mt. Huntington. It was first climbed in 1965 by David Roberts and others from the Harvard Mountaineering Club. The route was the mountain's second route, and in was a futuristic line for the era, raising the bar of alpine climbing in Alaska. Even today, as Mike and I discovered, actually summitting Mt. Huntington is a tantalizing and difficult task.

There is no easy way to the summit. As my friend Dylan Taylor says, mountaineering is defined as climbing up the easy way, alpine climbing is climbing up the difficult way. Any route up this peak is a true alpine adventure.

Paul Roderick flew us and three British dudes into the Tokositna glacier on April 13th. I've done a fair bit of flying in the mountains between helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, and this was an exciting flight to say the least. Mike called it the most hairraising flight he's been on. We barely made it in, banking between patches of mountains barely visible between breaks in the clouds.

The following are some photographs of our attempts on the West Face Couloir and the Harvard route, both spectacular climbs.

Mt. Huntington's West face and on the right skyline, our objective, the Harvard Route.

"Mad" Mike Madden jugging the Spiral Pitch on Mt. Huntington's Harvard route

Tokositna Glacier in April, from the "Nose" bivy.