You are a product of your mountains, Part 2

Beyond the Summit: Setting and Surpassing Extraordinary Business Goals
by Todd Skinner

(Page 4 of 8)

Winter altered everything. It took us four days to break a trail through twenty miles of deep December snow where lakes were now just levels of white, rocks were mounds of white, and trees were lumps of white. We set our camp on the flank of Bonney Pass where we were out of the avalanche zone, we hoped. Four tents were anchored into the powder, and we dug a snow cave five feet under for our kitchen.

Our climbing window of opportunity was limited by both time and supplies. If the weather was clear at four in the morning, we would set out with a minimum of survival gear, traveling fast and light to make a dash for the mountaintop. In summer it was feasible to cross Bonney Pass, climb Gannett, and come back in the same long day. We thought fast-sliding skis would also make it feasible in winter. So when morning arrived clear and a balmy thirty below under dim starlight, we fixed headlamps over our ski hats and parka hoods, and climbed madly up the steep slope of Bonney Pass. We crested that summit at dawn, skied wildly down the other side, and coasted out onto the glacier only to be stopped dead by chest-deep powder.

We took turns breaking trail through the wallowy snow, moving fifty feet at a time, struggling to press on in our dash that had slowed to a crawl. It took us all day to cross the mile-long bowl of glacier, and when we reached the base of Gannett Peak, it was growing dark again. We had no tents or sleeping bags, only the warm clothes we were wearing, a stove to melt snow for water, and three days of emergency rations. I remembered from summer a large crevasse in the glacier near the mountain's base, and we broke into it from above, crawled onto an ice shelf, lit candles for warmth, and settled in for the night.

The day hadn't gone exactly according to plan, but there was nothing to worry about yet. We wouldn't freeze, we wouldn't starve, and in the morning we would be in position to climb the peak and return along the trail we had already broken. But in the morning it was snowing, and we had to decide whether to go up or go back. Since we had come so far, we decided to go up.

It was another day of floundering through deep snow, struggling upward inches at a time. It began snowing harder, and the long summit ridge in the dim afternoon light seemed to stretch for miles. The visibility was so poor that I passed the summit and nearly stepped off the edge before we realized we were there. We had completed the first winter ascent of Gannett Peak, and after a few minutes celebrating on the summit, we started back in an all-out blizzard.

It was dark again when we reached our bivouac in the crevasse. We crawled in for another cold night while the wind whirled snow above our ice cavern. We cursed the fact that these were some of the shortest days of the year, and the longest nights. In the morning the blizzard raged harder than ever, with visibility down to a few feet. Our choices were gone; we had to get out, back across the pass to our sleeping bags, tents, food, and fuel. We started across the glacier, keeping within arm's length of each other to avoid becoming lost in the spinning snow.

The trail we had broken two days earlier had been erased by blowing snow, and we struggled to make a new one down into the glacier's bowl and back up the other side. We could not see through the blizzard the mountain skyline that marked the obvious gap of Bonney Pass, only a faint suggestion of three possible routes. Courtney and I debated which was the correct one. Three passes lead out of the bowl, each into different watersheds, and choosing the wrong one could be fatal. I thought back to the summer landscape, trying to remember the shape and details of terrain now buried.

The coach Bear Bryant once said, "If you make a mistake, make it at full speed." I picked what I believed to be the correct route, and we started up it because indecision wasn't an option. The daylight was fading, and it was pitch-black when we realized I had made the wrong choice. We started to dig snow caves into the side of the slope, desperate for some kind of shelter, but we hit rock two and a half feet down and the holes kept caving in. Finally we dug simple trenches, placed ropes and shovels in the bottom as insulation from the rock, laid ourselves down two to a hole, pulled our packs over the top of us, and Courtney buried us there. We could not turn over or move more than a few inches, and in the dark silence, they seemed more like snow graves than snow caves.

I might have begun to worry then. Our stove was out of fuel, and we were down to sucking chunks of ice for hydration. This was our third night out without sleeping bags. Our emergency food would be gone tomorrow. The blizzard showed no signs of giving up, and Courtney was out in it, marching stiffly back and forth in the cold and whirling snow, so someone might be there to dig us up in the morning, if there was anything left to dig. I might have been a little worried then, but because of Shackleton, and because of Mawson, I thought not about how bad it was, but how much worse it could be.

At least, I thought, lying in my snow grave through the long night. At least the ice beneath me wouldn't split in the night and dump me into cold ocean. At least I didn't have to eat boiled dog paws. At least I wasn't crawling a hundred miles on my hands and knees. At least the ship wouldn't leave without me while I watched it go. So I waited for morning, and it came with small puffing sounds around me. Courtney was out with the long, thin wand of an avalanche probe, systematically sticking it into the snow where he thought he might find bodies, all trace of last night's burial party erased. I could hear the probe sucking in and out of the snow, and then it poked me in the ribs.

I can't say that was the end of our epic, but I can say I lived to tell about it. We fought our way back to a camp that was obliterated under seven feet of new snow, and I won't tell about a certain scream-raising episode where I mistakenly added beef bouillon to the pot of sweet tea I handed up by a pole from the kitchen cave, now twelve feet under. But my point is the point from which we measure extremes. If your insight, whether gained from your own experience or garnered from someone else's, has been pushed to the frontier, you may be a long way off the ground, but you are not at the end of your rope.

That winter ascent of Gannett Peak pushed my margin of tolerance for snow and cold out to a point I have never again reached. Even at the time, I sensed it was a worthy investment into my future capacity. The experience has helped me during other difficult situations by giving me perspective, and it has helped my teammates. When they see me shrug at conditions they think are extreme, it pushes their own boundaries out to redefine the frontier. Any team, be it business or sport or academic, can benefit from this kind of insight gained at the margin, because it is a glimpse at how far you can really go. Someone on the team should always be out scouting the frontiers, pushing the boundaries, and coming back to adjust the team's scale and show the way to go on.

The important things you have gained from past experience can help you decide what to pursue in the future. It is that core sense of what you have valued that helps to clarify your direction and refine your compass setting. But don't forget that while you are a product of the mountains you have climbed in the past, and the mountains you are climbing now, most important you are a product of the mountains you dream about climbing in the future.

Aspiration is like a star shining over your Lifelong Ascent, pulling you upward like a beacon. It gives you a solid compass setting to move toward, a landmark in the distance to measure back from, a monument not to who you are, but to who you could someday be. We are better climbers today because our ultimate mountain is out there pulling us to try harder, learn more, and reach farther. A dream that is great beyond our abilities, a mountain that is harder than we imagine possible, can make us great in our aspiration to achieve it.

Copyright © 2003 Todd Skinner. All rights reserved. This excerpt, or any parts thereof, may not be reproduced without permission.

About the Author

Todd Skinner, a Wyoming native, has established new climbs at the highest levels of difficulty in more than twenty-six countries. His experiences have been described in National Geographic and Life, and his expeditions to places as exotic as the Amazon and Timbuktu have been featured in nine documentaries. He is also a popular speaker at business events around the country.