Steve and the Tank! - Interview With Mountain Climber Garry Porter (Part III)

Interview With Mountain Climber Garry Porter (Part III)

This is part III of a three part interview with mountain climber Garry Porter. Part I is here and Part II is here.

S&TT: HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU CLIMBED MT. RAINIER? I think I’ve climbed Rainier on a variety of routes 18 or 20 times and have summated 13 or 14 times. It is a gorgeous mountain but not one to be taken lightly. When conditions are right, it’s a straightforward ascent and descent. But the Northwest weather can move in quickly and things get messy in a hurry, even to experienced climbers. Rainier has more active glaciers than any mountain the continental U.S. and can thus be very treacherous. On a normal summit day, you are going to be crossing numerous open crevasses either by snow bridges or jumping. Jumping over gaping crevasses at 13,000 is not easy because trying to run up to the crevasse, time your leap and land on the other side with plastic boots and crampons and a pack on is not easy. Ask Steve and his buddy Kevin what they think. So I tell people that climbing Rainier should be taken very very seriously and you need to come physically prepared and trained in self arresting on ice and moving as a team roped together.

S&TT: WE CLIMBED RAINER AGAIN ALONG WITH KEVIN (FROM EVEREST BASE CAMP.) WILL YOU CLIMB MT. RAINIER WITH STEVE AGAIN?

Would I climb with Steve again? Sure, as long as he gets his shit together and quits whining. No, that’s a joke. I don’t know what Steve has told everybody about our summit of Rainier but it was a great experience for me. I knew Steve would be physically fit for the climb and he was. Yes, he whines a little, but I consider that one of his “charming” traits and one that I can easily ignore. I think I only had to tell him once that just because he talks louder and faster than me, it doesn’t mean that he knows more. And yes, we had some equipment difficulties early on summit morning because Steve had not check fitted his crampons to his boots ahead of time and I guess I got a little pissie at that point because I’m pretty driven once I am on the mountain. But the delay afforded us an experience that I have never seen on all my trips to Rainier. The Northern Lights were out and gave us a dazzling display around 1:00 am. I would never have seen if it wasn’t for our delay in climbing. So, it all worked out great.

One other thing Steve. Next time climbing Rainier, it will be easier for you, I guarantee it. You now know the level of effort required to ascend AND descend the mountain. You can now appreciate the level of agony that it takes to summit and get down and most important, you mentally know that you can do it. It’s kind of like running your second marathon. You’ve done it before and you know what to expect. It takes the mental uncertainty out of the equation so that you can joy enjoy the experience. Steve, let me know when you are ready.

S&TT: IF YOU REMEMBER WE ONLY SAW THE NORTHERN LIGHTS BECAUSE WE WERE LATE COMING OUT OF THE CAMP, SO YOU OWE ME. ALSO I INSISTED THEY WERE THE AURORA AND YOU SAID AT FIRST "NO NO THAT IS SEATTLE CITY LIGHTS!" :) AND YES I AM READY. ANYWAY, DOES YOUR WIFE WORRY WHEN YOU ARE AWAY CLIMBING A MOUNTAIN? Nadine, my wife of 40 plus years is the greatest person ever. I do not know how she handles the stress of my mountain climbing but she does. It’s one of those things we don’t talk about. She is my strongest supporter for my climbing. . In fact, it was my wife who suggested I attempt Everest after I had turned down an earlier offer to go. Her rationale was straightforward; I clearly had the necessary prerequisite climbing experience, a group was forming with people who I knew and who knew me and as she said, “there’s a reason men older that you don’t climb Everest, so if you are ever going to do it, now would be a good time”. I think that was her gentle way of saying that I’m an old fart and not getting any younger. Two days later, I committed to the climb. Her only requirement is that I enjoy what I am doing and that I am selective in who I climb with. I know she worries but I have shown her in the past that I will turn back when conditions are not right, and this adds to her confidence in my decision making when “summit fever” is at its peak. I honestly don’t know how she deals with the stress. I guess she trusts me to know when to say when, she knows I go prepared physically and mentally for the climbing challenge and the rest is up to the gods. I love her dearly.

S&TT: HOW DO YOU TRAIN FOR MOUNTAIN CLIMBING? I’m an engineer by education and training and so my physical training preparation to get ready is very structured. Some would say I over train, some would say that I’m just anal retentive about my training, but I know it works for me. So my physical preparation means that my progress has to be quantitative and measurable. When I start plotting performance curves, then I know I have gone too far. That means that in weigh training, what I did this Monday compared to what I did last Monday has to show an improvement either in reps or weight. And so it goes. I routinely work out at a gym three days a week and mountain bike or snow shoe or run long races on the weekend so that I stay in range of any climbing opportunity. So depending on the planned climb, I start 3-6 months in advance and start cranking it up. I shift from running to more time spent with a pack on my back. My gym time consists of an hour plus on a treadmill or stair master with a 60 pound pack and 5 pound ankle weights. I don’t start there but gradually add weight until I’m carrying the load comfortably. I then do an hour of upper body weight training as well. I use to work up to 110 pounds in my pack plus ankle weights but it was pointed out to me that other than bragging rights, it was not good training for Everest. The old adage of making your training routine match what you are training for was never truer and I would not normally carry 110 pounds on a mountain. What was more important was to get a load slightly higher than I would normally carry but crank the intensity up to simulate what I will be doing on the mountain. So it’s a 60 pound pack but get the cardio heart rate to 85-90% of max heart rate and hold it there for an hour because that’s what you will need to perform at on the mountain. So I do this 4 times a week and then go do something long on the weekend to exercise a different set of muscles. Since Mt. Rainier is in my backyard, I’ll do a day hike from Paradise Lodge at 5,000 feet to camp Muir at 10,000 feet with a 60 pound pack and keep pushing the time required. I usually fill gallon water jugs to carry up and then either dump them at camp Muir or give the water to other climbers. (Thought about carrying beer up and selling it but I guess that’s against park rules but I could see a budding market for it at camp Muir.) Anyway, I try to come down light so that I can put snow shoes on and partially run down. Before I left for Everest, I did back to back half marathons and then my best 10K the Sunday before I got on the airplane. Mentally, I have to be able to tell myself that I have prepared as hard as I physically can and the summit success is now up to conditions that I have no control over. It’s a mental thing for me.

S&TT: HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO CLIMB EVEREST? HOW DO YOU RAISE MONEY? DOES YOUR WIFE THINK YOU ARE CRAZY? How much does it cost….too much. An insane AMOUNT. Throw the logic out the window AMOUNT. Do not attempt to rationalize the cost AMOUNT. Forget that Mercedes convertible that you have always dreamt about AMOUNT. Realistically, there is not an easy way for me to raise funds. I wrote to AARP and the major pharmaceutical companies that sell “geriatric” drugs but got no response. Let’s face it; I’m an old man with no major disabilities and thus no sex appeal for sponsors. But I am always open to any ideas from the readers on raising funds for the next trip.

My cost was $60,000 plus a lot of borrowed gear from good friends and Everest base camp trekkers and some modest contributions from a few fellow climbers. But then it’s an experience of a life time and you can’t put a price on that. When my wife suggested that I climb Everest, one of my instant concerns was how we were going to pay for it. Her only answer was, “you’ll figure a way, you always do”. When I retired, I spent a lot of time calculating and recalculating our financial situation to feel comfortable that we would have enough money to last. A $60,000 trip up Everest was not in the calculations. So I refinanced our house. Sorry kids. You will someday inherit a house with a mortgage on it but you will always be able to say, “Oh that was Dad’s Everest trip”.

S&TT: WHAT IS YOUR OPINION OF THE DAVID SHARP STORY? It’s obviously a tragedy that happened on a mountain that is prone to tragedies. But, I believe it has to be put into perspective. People die tragic deaths every second of the day. Some at work, some on their way to work, some at home in the comfort of their family. Some people stop to help at accidents, some look and keep moving because they have other more important commitments. This is not to trivialize what happened on the mountain, and I hate to see it happen, but it tragedies happen, mountain or no mountain. The David Sharp accident got a lot of publicity because it was Everest and because maybe it showed some of the worst sides of what we have become as a society. If there is a positive side, David Sharp died doing what he loved to do, which is more that what most people will get. From what I have read, this was his third trip to Everest so he was not a novice and clearly knew what risks Everest entailed. Knowing that, he chose to climb without oxygen, without a radio and without a climbing partner, all of which raised his risk level. Could other climbers have done more for him, certainly. Could they have saved him, I don’t know and second string arm chair quarterbacking by the press certainly doesn’t help the situation either.

I’ll offer a long story, short version of a similar experience of mine. A Denali guide friend told me that they had a group of climbers on Denali, who on summit day got caught in a tremendous blizzard and were trapped somewhere on the mountain and out of contact. After 24 hours, they had to call the spouses/significant other of all the climbers and inform them that they had lost contact with the group and things didn’t look to good for them. He says, to a person, the spouse’s first question was whether they had summated or not. It was as if that fact would make their death acceptable. They all survived the storm but the story has always stuck in my mind of the significance of dieing doing what we love to do. David Sharp summated Everest on his third try. You decide.

S&TT: DO YOU AGREE WITH SIR EDMUND HILLARY AND KRAKAUER THAT THE SHARP TRAGEDY IS THE RESULT OF COMMERCIALIZATION OF EVEREST? I don’t think so in David Sharp’s case. I do, however, think that is the case in a lot of other accidents on Everest. I believe there are way too many people on Everest who do not belong there because they have not earned the right to be there. This will probably piss some of the readers off, but I don’t care. Because someone can fork over the $60,000 or higher to complete their personal resumes of their exciting life, does not in my mind entitle them to attempt climbing Mt.Everest. With no climbing experience, no significant training but just with big bucks they endanger themselves but also a lot of other good climbers when they get in trouble. You combine that with climbing outfits who are also relatively inexperienced about Everest and you have a sure fire recipe for disaster. Even for the Boston marathon, you have to qualify against a standard. Why would we expect nothing less to climb Everest?

S&TT: ANY ADVICE FOR YOUNG FOLKS READING THIS WHO MAY WANT TO CLIMB ONE DAY? If you want to do it, DO IT, but go prepared. Train seriously and get the prerequisite climbing in before you head for a big mountain. That means get experience on lesser mountains to know what you are getting into. Research your guides like your life depended on it. Pick good fellow climbers that you enjoy being with and who you can stand for long extended periods of time in adverse conditions and who you can share in the thrill of the summit or the agony of defeat. Oh yes, get good life insurance before the insurance companies find out that you climb. Enjoy life and the experience.

S&TT: GREAT INTERVIEW GARRY, THANKS FOR YOUR TIME! HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Interviews | Mountain Climbing

Wednesday, November 22, 2006 9:13:34 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

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