Sure, it’s a part of mountaineering, and I do it when the situation calls for it. There are myriad reasons for bailing on your objective. Weather comes in. A teammate is hurting, exhausted, or freezing, In the worst case scenario, someone is sick or injured. There’s not enough time to reasonably summit and come back down safely before nightfall or afternoon thunderstorms. Avalanche conditions aren’t right. You’re missing a crucial piece of gear you thought you wouldn’t need, and you head down wanting to punch yourself in the face, imagining the exact closet shelf on which the item in question is currently resting in utter contentment. You’re just not feeling it. Something in your gut says: “this isn’t the right day, something’s off.”
I’ve turned around, at one time or another in my young mountaineering career, for every reason listed above, and several others. But I’ve never done it with anything even vaguely resembling grace, equanimity, or good cheer. As many of my climbing partners will attest, my grumbles and groans of frustration have usually followed them all the way down the mountain before echoing across social media. Let’s speak plainly (and vulgarly): turning back fucking sucks hot shit. I’m not a professional alpinist. As a weekend warrior who spends five days a week riding a desk and daydreaming about his two days in the big hills, it’s maddening to use my entire weekend trying to accomplish something that won’t come true. And more than that, because I’m a purist (read: pretentious douche), I know I’ll have to use up a whole other weekend to come back and bag the damn summit, hence reliving the same climb, the only new experience being the last few hundred feet (or last few dozen feet in some particularly cruel cases) I didn’t climb last time. And again, I’ll do so with no assurances that I’ll even make the summit the second time around.
Any of you still reading (Hi Mom!) will by now have formulated objections and counter-arguments. Featuring among the tritest should be: it’s about the journey, the summit isn’t important, the main objective is to have fun, all that matters is coming back safely, etc. But come on, let’s not kid ourselves! We all want to be able to say: “I climbed Mount Rainier,” not “I got to 13,500 feet on Mount Rainier, and then my toes got cold so I decided to turn around because I thought there might be a chance of frostbite.” Yes, they’re both good stories, they’re both interesting and educational, and they both demonstrate qualities essential to an alpinist. But when you pack your rucksack for a climb, which one are you shooting for?
And yes, I understand that you can’t have one without the other...you can’t reach the top without sometimes turning back. And here’s where I’m trying to change my attitude.
Take my sinusoidal history with Mount Rainier (speak of the devil)! I first tried to climb the big bastard in June 2016. As a thoroughly inexperienced and enthusiastic alpinist, I hired a highly-recommended guiding service to take me up the mountain. I spent a year observing a strict diet and a Ueli Steck-ian training schedule. I flew out to Seattle, laser-focused, hyper-fit, and more excited than a golden retriever in a frisbee museum. I could see myself planting my ice-axe into the summit, a deserving conqueror stabbing its victim in the eye. But “June-uary,” as my guides so cleverly called it, had other plans. The weather got worse and worse during the approach, and on our second day we made it about ten feet out of Camp Muir before a monster storm bullied us off the upper slopes. I flew back to Boston in complete disarray. It was the biggest disappointment of my life. I’d trained and worked so hard to stand on the summit of Rainier, and I’d been defeated by dumb meteorology. The moment I’d dreamed of hadn’t happened. I’d seen myself at 14,411 feet, ice-axe in hand, triumphant, rewarded for my year-long discipline, and instead the weather had sent me scurrying off the mountain.
But here’s the thing. Some say life is short. They’re right. But in other ways, it’s also long. Opportunities tend to present themselves more than once, especially when it comes to the realm of permanence in which mountains exist. I eventually moved to Seattle, and, armed with a lot more experience and a little less enthusiasm, this time guideless, made the summit of Rainier on a bluebird day. I was overwhelmed. I didn’t even smash my ice-axe into the snow. I just sobbed into my climbing partner’s shoulder, splattering mucus onto his brand new hard-shell. It was the happiest moment of my life.
Two weeks later, I knocked out another one of the big boys, but on my first try: Mount Adams. I felt happy upon reaching the summit. Happy, content, even delighted. But I didn’t feel anything like the shattering orchestra of emotions that had wrung me like an old dishcloth on the summit of Rainier. I instantly knew why. Mount Adams had been a relatively tough climb, but, in the grander scheme of things, it had come too easy. I’d never tasted defeat on that mountain’s slopes. I hadn’t trained for it, or longed for it. I hadn’t flown out to it, made it two-thirds of the way up, and had my heart broken by high winds and pounding snow. I only experienced that amazing moment on Rainier because it had been so hard, had taken so long, and had only come at the second time of asking. A few months later, I experienced similar feelings on my second bid at a winter climb of Mount St. Helens, which saw me reach the summit in beautiful conditions.
I’ve spent my time since chasing similar moments in the big hills. High emotions on frozen mountaintops, attained in spite of every hardship you can imagine. The strongest ones have been those that came hard, and usually not on the first attempt.
So now, when I have to turn back, I try to think differently. I still hate it. It still fucking sucks hot shit. But in defense of turning back, it’s a phenomenal investment. When I turn back, I’m investing my emotions into the mountain. And when I come back and summit on my second, third, or umpteenth try, the emotions are proportional to the failures I’ve stacked up in my attempts to summit. What a fantastic, easy investment! Guaranteed ROI for any investor. All you have to do is come back and try again until you make it.
I’m attempting Ingalls Peak this weekend. Last time I was there, high winds and snow forced me to bail fifty feet from the top. It’s going to be one hell of a summit, or one hell of an investment. Either way, I can’t wait to try again.
