My best running days are behind me and I am looking for greater challenges. I have never done any climbing, but consider myself a pretty good endurance athlete. I have run 2:33, 1:11, 31:12, and 15:09. I also finished a half iron man. I want to climb Everest, but don't even know how to start. Has anyone ever climbed it or considered it that can give me some advice?
I think it costs a fortune. Start small. See if you like climbing, if you have no experience. Work your way up.
A friend I train with climbed Aconcagua. Not difficult, he said. But good way to wet your feet perhaps.
You've done a half iron man and a half marathon.
I recommend you do a half Everest first.
Over 3,500 people have successfully summited the 29,029 ft. Himalayan mountain peak Everest. Only 1,300 or so men have covered a timed mile in under four minutes.
Experienced climbers will probably tell you there are much more interesting / worthwhile climbs out there than Everest. But Everest is the one that gets all the recognition from laymen. No surprise that there's a long wait list to get up. It's sort of like your coworkers around the watercooler being more impressed with a 4 hour marathon than a 15:00 5k because Anyone can run 5k.
calling a trowel a trowel wrote:
Over 3,500 people have successfully summited the 29,029 ft. Himalayan mountain peak Everest. Only 1,300 or so men have covered a timed mile in under four minutes.
I once did an untimed mile in under 4 minutes.
The equivalent of having gone up Everest without oxygen. You are up there with Reinhold Messner, speaking in equivalences.
Cincy Runner wrote:
My best running days are behind me and I am looking for greater challenges. I have never done any climbing, but consider myself a pretty good endurance athlete. I have run 2:33, 1:11, 31:12, and 15:09. I also finished a half iron man. I want to climb Everest, but don't even know how to start. Has anyone ever climbed it or considered it that can give me some advice?
Nope, no one ever has. It was all filmed on a sound stage.
Climb all 54 14ers in Colorado, then Whitney and Hood in California and Ranier. That will take you a couple summers-one if you don't work and get after it. Then try a few winter climbs in Colorado. Start out easy-one peak per day. After that, try a multi day trip, in winter. A good one is Missouri, Belford Oxford, then down into Missouri Basin, then Harvard and Columbia, and then walk into Buena Vista. It ought to take you a week or less. Climb Longs Peak in winter-even the keyhole route can pucker your schincter when the cold wind blows-the tough routes on the Diamond have killed a couple people every year or so for decades.
Do the above, and you will have a vague idea of about 10 percent of what you are up against in the big mountains. You need to learn how to camp in the cold, walk in the cold, sit in a tent in the cold to wait out a storm. You need to learn about avalanches, weather patterns, pacing yourself, risk assessment, and knowing when to turn back if you're in over your head-and also, the ability to recognize if you're in over your head. Read some books, join a club. None of the skills are that hard-it's the good judgement that takes years to develop.
Never climbed Everest, but have done trip suggested here, except Ranier. That Missouri Basin expedition will test your mettle.
Colorado Boy wrote:
Climb all 54 14ers in Colorado, then Whitney and Hood in California and Ranier. That will take you a couple summers-one if you don't work and get after it. Then try a few winter climbs in Colorado. Start out easy-one peak per day. After that, try a multi day trip, in winter. A good one is Missouri, Belford Oxford, then down into Missouri Basin, then Harvard and Columbia, and then walk into Buena Vista. It ought to take you a week or less. Climb Longs Peak in winter-even the keyhole route can pucker your schincter when the cold wind blows-the tough routes on the Diamond have killed a couple people every year or so for decades.
Do the above, and you will have a vague idea of about 10 percent of what you are up against in the big mountains. You need to learn how to camp in the cold, walk in the cold, sit in a tent in the cold to wait out a storm. You need to learn about avalanches, weather patterns, pacing yourself, risk assessment, and knowing when to turn back if you're in over your head-and also, the ability to recognize if you're in over your head. Read some books, join a club. None of the skills are that hard-it's the good judgement that takes years to develop.
Never climbed Everest, but have done trip suggested here, except Ranier. That Missouri Basin expedition will test your mettle.
Or you can hire a guide to drag your carcass up and down, that's how most people do it these days right?
I haven't but its on the bucket list.
A real man would climb K2 or Kangchenjunga
I did not. I did climb in the Khumbu region two months ago and climbed a few 20-22,000 peaks (and smaller) worldwide. I also have friends who climbed everest.
First good source of info is at alanarnette.com Alan has great write ups on all topics related to the mountain and mountaineering. He is also active on Facebook, if you send him a message he does answer them.
Anyway, I think there have been about 6000 summits on E. I know a guy whose progression was this steep: First a climbing course on Rainier (I climbed with one of his guides from that trip, he certainly did not give a 2:33 performance), then he climbed Denali, went on to Manaslu and then summited Everest. 4 mountains in a span of about 2 years, never touched a crampon before, or since. This progression would cost in gear a few (3-5?) thousand, Rainier $1-1,800 ; Denali 7-8,000, Manaslu (or Cho Oyu for an 8000m one) about 16-20,000; Everest 30-100, 000
You have great speed/endurance, all these climbs are long, slow slugs up the hill. If your body has no big problems with altitude and you have luck with weather, it should be easy for you.
Good luck!
Two more things. You need a pretty special job and family for this. Not only are they OK with you spending $80,000, but Rainier is a week long, Denali 3 weeks, the two 8,000 m mountains combined nearly 4 months. So a lot of time away from family/job. Also, while they are not super dangerous, but you can die on these mountains. I've seen frozen dead bodies up there and that part is pretty different from a foot race.
Find a bigger challenge. Sherpas are basically hauling people up in sleds these days.
Climb Chimborazo. It, in a sense, is the highest mountain on Earth.
Everest is a joke now. Find a real mountain. "Climbing" everest today is like "running" a marathon being driven in a golf cart. Unless you are climbing the un-commercial routes, west ridge, southwest face, north face, etc. But you are not climbing those because you "don't even know how to start."
I am with the others here. Spend about ten, twenty years learning about real alpinism and gradually build up to greater goals. Or just be like any rich douchebag and pay a guide service 85 grand to tow you to the top and back down, carry your gear, set up your tent, cook your meals, and put a little mint on your sleepingbag every night. But if you do it that way there is nothing "great" about the challenge and you'd be equally as big a tool as if you'd saved your money and simply lied to all your friends that you'd climbed everest, when really you were just hiding out in a comfort suites in Cheboygan for two weeks.
Are you kidding? It's been done hundreds of times.
You ever heard of ultramarathons?
