54 Candles Expedition

A Question of Sanity

By Allen Sherpa

Ten men – most from the White Mountains of Arizona – will launch an assault on the summit of Mount Hood, Oregon’s highest mountain, in the early morning hours of Friday the 13^th of April, 2001. Allen Sherpa was invited to participate, but declined. With this letter, he’s staying in close contact with the climbing party.

Let’s see if I’ve got this straight. Temperatures may be below zero. With the anticipated 50 mile per hour winds, wind-chill temperatures will be substantially below zero. It will probably be snowing. There’s a significant avalanche danger. Rock fall is a possibility. There are crevasses hidden in the snow. There are sulfurous emissions from volcanic fumaroles. You’ll have to cross a bergschrund (a type of cravasse formed where a glacier pulls away from a mountain). You’re going to do this on a volcano – in the dark! Not that I’m superstitious, but aren’t you compounding the insanity by beginning the summit attempt on Friday the 13^th?

You could be in a hot-tub at the lodge (like the wiser and more prudent beneficiaries), enjoying the warmth of the fire and watching the snow through the window, but instead, you’re going to be out fighting altitude and the elements? Not that I would ever question your intelligence, but why would you do this?

Each of the ten climbers of the 54 Candles Expedition gets this question from time-to-time. Each of the ten asks himself the question. For each, the answer is different. Here’s one.

We all climb mountains every day of our lives. These mountains may take different forms from day-to-day, but each comes with its own set of hazards and dangers, unique challenges and problems. Just like the weather on Mount Hood can profoundly impact our chances of success on summit day, circumstances beyond our control can affect our daily climbs. But, in both cases, there’s no choice but to deal with the situation.

There are three ways to deal with these mountains. The first is avoidance. If we can somehow avoid the challenge, we don’t have to whip it. Trouble is . . . we can’t avoid them all and we can’t avoid them forever. And the more we avoid them, the less prepared we are to deal with adversity when we can’t avoid it.

The second approach is to turn tail and run, retreat, surrender. Unfortunately, quitting is a habit. On some of life’s smaller mountains, we’ve got the option of quitting. The consequences of surrender aren’t so great that we won’t recover nicely. The problem comes after we’ve honed our habit of quitting and we have to confront the “big” mountain – an illness, a personal tragedy, or some other circumstance where retreat isn’t an option. Now the habit of retreat and non-achievement itself becomes a giant of a mountain looming before us.

The third approach is to look at the mountain, set our sights on the summit and climb. We may not always succeed in reaching the pinnacle, but it’s not from a lack of trying. If we fail in our summit push, we fail with honor. But, there’s something about the human spirit that challenges us to move onward and upward, to succeed, to tackle our mountains.

If we succeed, we stand on our personal summit surveying the magnificence and beauty around us secure in the knowledge that we have undertaken a monumental challenge and succeeded and comforted by the knowledge that – if necessary – we can do it again.

OK. Thanks. That really clears it up for me. You’re going to go up some big, freezing, dangerous mountain, in the middle of the night, tied by a rope to nine other guys, risk frost-bite, and answer nature’s “calls” in gale force winds so you can . . . “do it again?”

There’s got to be medication for this?

I’m not real sure why the other guys are climbing. Well, I guess that’s another story.