High and Mighty

• Posted on February 7, 2010 at 1:42 PM
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Fisher Peak dressed in her finest alpen glow.

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High and Mighty

Delusions of grandeur and the lesson learned

"There is perhaps none of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive. Even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility.” ~ H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956) editor, satirist ~

A man can learn a lot about himself on a mountain. From the spiritual insights gathered by the North American first peoples on their vision quests, to the humbling insignificance gleaned by storm-lashed alpine climbers, mountain tops have proven to be a perfect environment for – no pun intended - higher learning.

As it turns out, you don’t even have to be on some desolate, wind swept crag to learn the truth, you can be riding a chairlift down a mountain (yes, I said down a mountain), with a nearly complete stranger on a balmy summers day.
Case in point; a few summers ago, I was hired to take some wedding photos on the top of the ski hill at the Kimberly Alpine Resort. When the shoot was over, the wedding party and invited guests were to be whisked back to the base of the mountain via the chair lift. I was just preparing to ride down on my own when one of the groomsmen, I remembered his name was Connie, took pity on my lonely self and clambered on beside me.

We had barely gotten under way when Connie began to scan the magnificent vista now afforded us. During the course of the wedding I had learned that he and some of the other groomsmen fancied themselves climbers. Probably weekend rock jocks I thought, guys that played around on the bluffs where they lived, trying to out macho each other and impress the girls. So with that in mind, it didn’t really surprise me when Connie asked, “Which mountain is the one they call Fisher?”

I lifted my hand and pointed to the pyramid-shaped monolith that dominated the skyline to the north. “See that baby right there,” I asked my newfound climber friend. “That is Fisher Peak.” Then, unable to resist this opportunity for shameless self-promotion, I added, “And I have climbed it seven times.” Connie shifted his gaze from the mountain to me and asked, “Really, seven times?
I could tell he was wondering why any one would choose to summit the same mountain that many times so I explained, “After my first accent, when I was just a kid, there always seemed to be someone, a friend, a relative, a co-worker, that wanted me to guide them to the top.”

My newly acquainted brother in Vibram looked back to the mountain seemingly confused. “They needed a guide? I was under the assumption that Fisher was pretty much a walk up; no real technical pitches, basically just a scramble.”

I was of course, immediately taken aback by this wanna- be climber’s lack of respect for the peak and more to the point, my accomplishment on it. With indignation starting to colour both my ears and my tone, I began my lecture.
“Yes it is true, I said, that to climb Fisher Peak you do not need ropes and pitons. However, there is a fair bit of route finding required. Many climbers have gotten themselves in trouble, getting confused by the plethora of cairns that mark the way, and have found themselves in a dangerous situations.” Pointing again to the mountain I said, “See that basin there just bellow the saddle, it is filled with scree, loose rock that moves beneath a climbers feet, and on many occasions, people above have kicked down showers of rock on to their unsuspecting comrades below.”
Really ramping up my tirade now, I launched into one of my favourite topics, the need for caution in the high country. Or as I like to call it, the “what if” factor. “Some people will tell you there is nothing to be afraid of when you are walking along some ridge with a hundred metre drop on both sides. They say, ‘Hey, it’s as wide as a sidewalk up here - nothing to worry about. Well what if a huge gust of wind comes up and knocks you off balance? What if you stumble over a crack and step off into the abyss that serves as a curb for this high altitude sidewalk? “Mountains, regardless of their degree of climbing difficulty, should be respected.”

Then, in what was perhaps an overly dramatic conclusion to my lecture on Fisher - my sermon on the mount if you will - I turned to Connie and said, “People have been badly injured on that “walk up” my friend; people have died climbing Fisher Peak.”

To my surprise the young man beside me did not seem offended by my rant at all. Finally being given the opportunity to speak he very congenially asked about other mountains and my exploits in them. With the ride down very nearly complete I thought it would be rude if I didn’t find out a little about my chairlift companion, so I asked Connie, “What do you do for a living?

Wearing the same knowing smile that he had worn for nearly the entire descent, he continued to stare out at the mountain range in the distance and said, “I climb.”

For some reason, in that instant, my eyes were drawn to the mans hands and for the first time I noticed that he had fingers like talons. There were calluses on the palms and scars on the backs of those hands. My heart sank with the realization that I had just spent the last ten minutes of my life bragging to a professional mountaineer about how I, Dan Mills, alpinist extraordinaire, had climbed Fisher Peak seven times.
I sat in humbled silence as Connie told me how he travelled the world, thanks to the sponsorship of major outdoor retailers like North Face and others, climbing peaks and big walls. How he had recently returned from Patagonia where he and a partner had scampered up a new 17-pitch route on the east face of Cerro Mascara.
The only thing more amazing than what this man had accomplished in the mountains was the off handed, awe shucks, way in which he described them to me. Connie – unlike some - knew better than to brag to a stranger on a chairlift about his accomplishments.

Moments later we disembarked from the lift and went our separate ways, Connie with a wave, me with a sheepish grin. I watched him head into the parking lot where most of the wedding party was milling about, then I too headed to my car. I opened the door and was just about to climb in when I heard, “Hey photographer dude!” I looked across the lot to find Connie smiling back at me and wagging his finger. “You drive home safe now. Always remember he grinned, highways should always be treated with respect.”

I did make it home safe and when I got there I immediately went to my volume of Pushing the Limits – The story of Canadian Mountaineering. I found a photo of Connie there on page 418, mentioned in the same breath as the other young guns of our countries climbing elite. My photo however – despite my seven successful summits of Fisher Peak - is sadly absent. An oversight I’m sure.