This article from Proactive Coaching is a letter written to Bruce E. Brown by Jason Camp, a mountain climber who attended one of Bruce's presentations at York House in Vancouver, BC. In it, Camp reflects on how Bruce's message about trust resonated with his experience on major climbing expeditions in Alaska and the Yukon, including Mount Logan, where the level of commitment required makes complete trust in one's climbing partners essential.
Introduction
Hi Bruce,
I spoke to you after your first presentation on our Pro-D day at York House (Vancouver, BC) regarding trust and climbing. You asked if I would write you a short summary of what I was talking about, so here it is (although quite some time has passed since your presentation):
Commitment on the Mountain
Your message about trust struck a chord with me on a number of levels, but perhaps the most telling for me was through my experience as a climber. I have been a part of 3 expeditions to climb among the largest mountains on the continent in both Alaska and the Yukon. In all three cases, my climbing party brought enough supplies for about 4 weeks, as there is no way of getting re-supplied when out on the vast glaciers that make up those ranges. The last expedition I was a part of was to climb the east ridge of Mount Logan (Canada's highest mountain and second highest in North America – 5956m or about 19,500 feet). I went to climb the east ridge with a very accomplished climber, but more importantly, a good friend. You see, the technical difficulties that we expected to encounter on such an expedition will never be more than we can solve. Up in the Alaskan and Yukon ranges, the mountains are 'graded' for difficulty not so much by measuring the hardest part of the mountain to climb, rather it is a measure of commitment required to climb it. Therefore, when you get to the Alaskan grades of 4 or 5 you can be certain that while there may be difficult parts to climb (steep ice/rock pitches) the real measure of the difficult grade will be the understanding that once you begin climbing such a route, retreat may be very difficult if not logistically impossible. That is to say, that at some point when you are high on such a route, to 'retreat' from the route might require you to continue going upwards as the descent would prove more difficult than going up. An example of this was the very first assent of the 'hummingbird ridge' on Mount Logan was undertaken by a group of young American university students who, while having experience climbing rock and mountains in the lower 48, were completely unprepared for what they were to encounter on such a high and remote mountain such as Mount Logan. As a result, high on the ridge when they realized with absolute certainty that they were in way over their heads, they began the famous 'forward retreat' which involved them finishing off the hummingbird ridge to the top of the mountain, and then descending the east ridge before walking 40 – 50 km to get back to their original camp.