Longs Peak sunset January 19, 2019<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nWhile training for Dhualagiri in early 2017, a massive wind gust cartwheeled me down a rocky slope on the 11,000-foot Twin Sisters here in Colorado, breaking my leg in three places, curtailing my climbing for over a year.<\/p>\n
Still, my heart, soul, and spirit were in the high mountains, but my brain told me no. However, determined to continue, I climbed in Nepal, Ecuador, and Bolivia over the next three years. Even though I made several 20,000-foot summits, the experience just wasn’t the same as in my fifties. My full essence was speaking to me.<\/p>\n
Last November, my entire family caught COVID-19 from an unknown source. My wife spent two weeks in the hospital. I had a milder but lingering case for months. Once again, climbing came to a halt. I did one 14er in 2020 instead of my usual five or ten. I began to focus on lower peaks in the 12,000 to the 13,000-foot range, and I had fun. Finally, I turned the corner from the virus and summited Grays Peak last week, my first 14er in over a year. It felt good.<\/p>\n
When?<\/h3>\n
So back to the age thing. I’m in good health. I had a battery of tests as I joined Medicare to establish a baseline for the next few decades. But I’m not 20, 40, or 50; I’m 65. And my drive to climb is strong, balanced by the realities of how hard I can push my body. I have a good life. I don’t want to lose it in the mountains.<\/p>\n
So when do you stop? It’s a unique and personal question for each individual. Spainard Carlos Soria Font\u00e1n is on Dhaulagiri for the 12th time this month. He’s now 83 and wants to complete the last two of the fourteen 8000ers. I know other climbers who “retired” early after accomplishing their objectives or were unwilling to take risks as family or responsibilities grew.<\/p>\n
It’s a tricky question of when to take the foot off the accelerator. But when you see traffic ahead, the answer is easy. I’ll probably never return to an 8,000-meter peak. I’m comfortable with that as I approach the second half of my 60s. There are more mountains in Colorado that I haven’t climbed than 7000-meter ones throughout the world.<\/p>\n
So yes, I still love fighting for breath at high altitude, the challenges of expedition life, the sound of crampons crunching in the snow, the feel of cold, hard rock on my fingers, the feeling of satisfaction back home – regardless of the result and, of course, the anticipation of the next one. I will visit 20,000-feet as long as I can, but now is the time to give back through Summit Coach, writing, speaking, and my life’s purpose of being an Alzheimer’s Advocate. It’s been a good run that’s slowing down, not over.<\/p>\n
Climb On!
\nAlan
\nMemories are Everything<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I recently turned 65. Yeah, I know! But before you stop reading, this is a tale for the young and, well, the not-so-young. The question is, “When do you stop climbing?”<\/p>\n
Does age even matter in climbing? Yuichiro Miura and Tamae Watanabe hold the Everest age records at 80 and 78 for males and females, respectively. Bill Burke began his quest of the Seven Summits at age 60 and got his second summit of Everest at age 72. And Art Muri recently made Everest at 75. Then there are the 13-year-old Everest summiteers Jordan Romero and Malavath Poorna. And let’s not leave out eight-year-old Roxy Getter on Kilimanjaro, not that I think that’s a great idea. By the way, the sweet spot to summit Everest, and most 8000ers, is age 35.<\/p>\n
I started climbing at age 38, kind of a late bloomer in the climbing world. I never lived out of my car, was never in the “dirt-bagger,” club or did anything other than work. But then I discovered climbing. Mont Blanc was my first respectable climb. Much to the disgust of my French guide, I didn’t even know how to attach the strap-on Camp crampons that I had just bought in Chamonix. He scoffed, sighed, said something I didn’t understand in French that I’m pretty sure wasn’t a compliment as he strapped them onto my new climbing boots. So yea, I was a novice who didn’t know what I didn’t know and didn’t even know what to ask. But I loved the day, fell in love with climbing, and got my first of several summits on this historic Hill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"I recently turned 65. Yeah, I know! But before you stop reading, this is a tale for the young and, well, the not-so-young. The question is, \"When do you stop climbing?\"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[7,123],"tags":[432,497],"class_list":["post-39971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climbing-news","category-musings","tag-climbing-news","tag-musings"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39971\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Longs](\"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/118626291_10158113487233411_7941146781860156677_n-640x480.jpg\")