I've been reading a lot of mountaineering books lately (Jon Krakauer, Ed Viesturs etc.), and it got me wondering if anyone in the Arfcom community has summited an 8000m peak, or made an attempt at one. I'll settle for some good anecdotal stories too!

This is ARFCOM.  Most couldn't climb out of the basement.

Only in my dreams.  I've read countless books about the big mountains.

Not since I was 17, Philmont Scout Ranch. Did both "Tooth of Time and "Baldy". Taking the troop to Colorado this summer. Planning on Mt. Shavano and Anterro. Both 14's.

Meters and feet aren't the same thing.

What?!  This is ARFCOM most of us jog to the top of 8000m peaks for a morning workout.  Then we go back to our 10,000sqft homes and have sex for six hours with our super model wives. 

I did an 8000m challenge once...  But this was cumulative, not in a single mtn.  I was pretty sick, made it up baldy and then bailed a bit into the second peak hike.  You had 24hrs to complete it including drive time from trail head to trail head.

So Cal.
1. Mt Baldy 10,640
2. Mt San Gorgonio 11,501
3. Mt San Jacinto 10,834

Best for me was a few 12,000 peaks and a 14,000.  Pretty far off what you are asking though.  I did see some awesome scenery.

me too

I went to 11,500 feet once, but rode a ski lift most of the way.  

Thanks for the humor and stories so far! Even climbing a 14er is a daunting undertaking I'm sure. I hope to get to climb Rainier one day, or do some trekking in Nepal.

One thing I missed doing in life. Been there several times. I encourage you to make the dream happen.

Thanks! I have a five month old son, so maybe it'll be a family affair. 

You do realize 8,000 meters translates to 26,000 feet....right? That's K2 / Everest height.

Fuck

That

I was just about to point this out.

It takes a lot of cash flow to climb that high. I'll stick to my goal of a 13er. Hoping to take on kings peak this fall

I attempted pikes Peak, but ran out of steam around 12,500.....




I thought Cadillac made a better car than that

I have in Alaska.  It sucked balls.  Eta I fell a fell hundred yards down a shale slide.  Tumbled is a better word.

So far lots of fail on understanding what an 8,000m peak is. I have been fascinated by K2 for a long time, where as Everest doesn't hold my interest as much. I don't think I will ever head to South East Asia to climb but I enjoy the stories and learning from those that do push the limits of what is possible. I only have a couple years of "real" alpine/mountaineering experience but I feel like I am following a steady progression towards bigger and more technical peaks. If my plans stay on track for the next couple years I would like to tackle Denali, which is about as far as my ambition goes. If I were going to go overseas to climb, I would love to climb the Matterhorn. Its not technical climbing or high elevation but just so iconic.

There are a decent amount of mountaineering films on amazon prime and netflix, also a lot that have been uploaded to youtube. I think the Mountain Springs channel on youtube is one good example.

I had ambitions to do some big stuff but after doing a 5000m peak decided to do other things in life.

Popo (internet photo)



We did the 'Directa' Route (yellow)



Another internet photo showing direct ridge - right above building roof.



You take a taxi Tlamacas - approx 14k - we bought bunks and they have meals.



Trail starting out



Climbing



Ridge Hut



Getting there



Summit in sight



Summit Hut



Looking down into the cone. We did NOT get to close to the edge - total grunge rock - ready to blow out




We did something kinda stupid even though we knew better.
You drive up to 14k. We decided we would hike up and spend the first night at 15K to get 'acclimated'. Sometime after dark we both starting getting a pretty good case of altitude sickness. Both choked down a liter of water, stuck a finger down our throats to get rid of dinner and descended back to Tlamacas. At this point they had the doors locked for the night and would not let us in even though we already paid...

Both of those are nowhere near 8000 meters. I've been up both. Baldy is 12000 feet or just under 4000 meters.

Not 8000m....but MT. ST.Helens..8900ft.

Been just a little over half that.  Not much oxygen at 4,200 meters.

My climbing partner had aspirations for an 8000 meter peak.  One of our friends summited one.  

I've never been, but I can post my very tangential story about it all if you'd like.

Awesome pics!  How long did the summit attempt take?

Co-worker did Everest last year.  His second attempt, first one was cancelled from Sherpa strike.

This dude weighs about 110 lbs, built like an elf, all lungs, high squeaky voice.  You'd laugh about him being a Mountain climber had u just met him in a bar but he was the real deal.  Tough as nails.  Tons of respect for the dude.

To the people posting idiotically, there are only 14 summits in the 8Km club, and they are all in the Himalayas.  

I have a good friend who is training for another attempt at Everest right now and know that climbing the big 14 is definitively not for me.

not an 8Km

but a dream of mine is to climb McKinley in AK

I almost added to the title asking if anyone had done any of the Seven Summits. From what I've read, Denali/McKinley is right up there with some of the 8000'ers in terms of dangerous/technical climbing. Many don't realize that it is the tallest base to summit mountain in the world, which IMO, makes it more impressive than some of the 8000'ers in many ways. Keep the stories coming, tangential or not! Thanks for the great posts so far! 

Someone here is pretty accomplished but I can't remember the thread or their name.  I think it was in some "they died doing what they loved" mountaineer death GD jerkoff thread.

Killer post, Ranchhand365! Thanks for the pictures and story. What about your adventure made you decide not to pursue higher peaks?

Denali is a great accomplishment, a magnificent mountain, but by the trade routes, I don't think it has anything on the 8000m peaks.  The risks are higher, and the success rates are lower, on the 8000m peaks.

My wife and I are currently training for our first 8000m peak. It's a ton of work.

We've summited a lot of lower peaks, on the way to working our way up to 8000er. It's a lofty thing to strive for.

Next steps in our training plan:
1) Rainier via Liberty Ridge
2) Pico de Orizaba
3) Denali via Cassin Ridge
4) Cho Oyu

A few changes may occur before then. After Pico and before Denali we may swing to South America to nab a 6000er or two just to get that truly higher experience. We considered dropping Aconcagua in there before going to Cho Oyu but with Denali being so far north, everyone compares it to Himalayan 7000ers and says it's a good launching pad before heading to the Himalaya or Karakoram.

For training, I have a personal trainer and am beginning the "Training For The New Alpinism" work soon. It's an ass-kicker. Need to nail the diet down a bit more and then I'll be good.

Highest I have done is ~12k'  one of my subcontractors is huge into mountaineering. He went to Everest maybe 5 or 6 years ago and couldn't summit went back I think 2 years ago and he did it.

I've never been above 4000-4500 meters, but ...

[Somewhere between 3500 and 4000 meters.  A Swiss mountain guide and his apprentice were gracious enough to let me tag along on their "day off"; not sure if I ever got their names, or not.]


Steve, my (now long ago) climbing partner had a plan, and I somehow stumbled into it.  He was an undercapitalized lawyer about ten years my senior, and I was college student.  He was a former 11C with the 75th Rangers, and I was on a commissioning track.  He had a chemistry degree, and I was pursuing one in mechanical engineering.  He had the maniacal drive, tempered by my voice of reason and caution.

While never committed to paper, his plan was as methodical as if it had been: the four walls of North America: El Cap, Half Dome, Hooker and Proboscis (something originally ticked by the legendary Royal Robbins, and sent free by Todd Skinner and Paul Piana three decades later); alpine climbs of the likes of Mount Hunter, Alaska, and Cerro Fitzroy, Argentina; technical climbing at altitude of Nameless Tower, Pakistan; and finally, traditional high altitude climbs like Denali, Cho Oyu and K2.

He led, I followed.

My first ever multipitch climb was on The Diamond in RMNP: 5.10d at 14,000 feet.  A baptism by fire.  But, that's kind of how Steve did things.



The following year, we hiked in to climb the north face of Mt. Hooker, WY.  This, however, was a particularly sore point for Steve.  He had been invited by his friend Rob Slater to climb K2 that summer.  Steve couldn't do it because of money.  Too short notice to put any of his rental properties on the market.  And this was a hugely sore point for Steve that summer, and it manifested in a lot of tension between us.  Here's our friend out on K2, while we are ticking off some measly 2000 foot wall in Wyoming.  The whole Hooker thing was crushed in three way one-upsmanship, and one of us wasn't even there, and on top of it all, why would it even matter among friends, good friends.  Trying to get too much done, too fast, all to prove too much of a point, I got hurt.  A compound fracture and head injury ended our trip.  



Worse yet, that same week, Rob would die in the descent from the summit of K2 during a storm.  



And the year after that, more death.  Scott Fischer would die on Everest.

Here we are in 1998 in Canada, with Steve reading Krakauer's recently published Into Thin Air.  Our other climbing partner on this trip knew Scott Fisher well, he worked for him. Reading the book in this environment was rather surreal - I had read the book earlier in the summer when I was in Europe, and Steve was reading it for the first time, and when he'd have questions, he'd raise his head and ask of our other teammate, "hey, did such and such really happen in xyz order?"  Yeah, totally surreal to be 150 miles from nowhere and have a book about your boss's, your friend's death follow you out there.

Mark would later become the owner of the Mountain Madness guide service after Kristine Boskoff and Charlie Fowler were lost to the mountains of Tibet.  













In the downtime during that trip, Steve hashed out a plan with Mark for bigger objectives, possibly culminating in an 8000m peak like Cho Oyo ... the "easiest" 8000m peak.  Mark had climbed and guided in the Himalayas, to include an ascent of the face of Bhagirathi III (6500m), some 7000m peaks, and guided 6 of the 7 summits.  Mark, however, would never climb Everest - even though I believe he was asked to guide it - the objective dangers above 8000m are just too great, especially with the complications of overly crowded routes.  Mark is one of the more cerebral climbers out there; an excellent judge of ability; I trust him with my life, and will defer to him.  I don't know if the lack of enthusiasm for Cho Oyo was due to objective dangers of altitude, or just wanting to do something that wasn't a slog.    

[This next photo is not mine.  Bhagirathi III is the 2nd prominent peak from the right.  You may recognize this peak on current North Face clothing tags, incorrectly labeled "Meru".  Well, it's not Meru.  Now you know.]


Thought, somewhere along the way in this long journey, I was leading more.  Unnerving territory, being on parity with your mentor.  You no longer have that assurance that if things get tough, the other guy will surely take care of it.

Part of the plan was to complete some "training routes" - routes worthy of a lifetime's ambition in their own right: Cerro Fitzroy and Nameless Tower.  We wouldn't even think of attempting the latter without Mark.

The Fitzroy was a disaster.  My biggest regret.  The heaviest emotional baggage.

If there are curses, the Rio Blanco basecamp was indeed under the fog of a curse that year.

Two Italian climbers, who's names I'll never know, would disappear for eternity ... right in front of me.  In the years that followed Bobby Model, Kurt Albert and Dean Potter would be lost.  Volumes could be written about each of them.  I guess Bobby was the least known, but he was the most enigmatic.  Basecamp is a crucible of competing egos.  But in all of that Bobby stood atop of that molten mess, and did so without even trying.  He was a genuinely nice person, the measure of a man - he didn't ask for attention, talk of accomplishments, but he was the very center of gravity of basecamp.  In the year before Bobby's accident, Todd Skinner, a close friend of Bobby's would die in Yosemite.



That season was rough, the worst weather they had seen in twenty years, shutting even the most capable teams down, and the loss of the others who were there over the intervening years just twists the knife.  For me, the only redemption was that my little cousin went down there in the two following years and cleaned up on Cerro Torre.

Things fell apart between Steve and I down there.  September 11th happened shortly after, and that extinguished any plans for Nameless Tower.

Sorry, I took it as 8000 feet not meters. But still, that still an accomplishment many still have never tried or done.

One minor correction: there are two mountain ranges in the world that host 8000m peaks. The Himalaya and the Karakoram. The Karakoram holds 4 of the 14 8000m peaks.

They are:
K2
Gasherbrum I
Broad Peak
Gasherbrum II

Incredible, thanks for posting. If you find yourself in Denver, look me up. Beer's on me.

Wow! Amazing story, L_JE! Those pictures and your prose really drive home how immense a challenge climbing can be. 

I wish you and your wife the best of luck! If you don't mind me asking, how much does a permit for Cho Oyo cost? 

Our total trip is going to be ~$65k for both of us.

I found a cool post on Reddit about a recent summit of Cho Oyu:

Read this!

Love Into Thin Air and the Viesturs books.  Viesturs is a total badass.  One of the most elite athletes of all time and gets very little attention relative to many pro sports jackasses.  

The Climb by Boukreev is also good.  

I am only an armchair mountaineer, but I respect those who get out and do it.

QFT

The Climb was a good view of that attempt.  Beck Weathers also wrote his version of it also.  


I have several 14ers from living in CO, hoped for Shasta and Whitney when I lived there but never did and still dream of it, as well as Rainier.

Attached File

I am pre-planning on Mt. Rainier for next year and would like to knock out a few of the easier Seven Summits. None are in the 8000m peak, no way I would take on K2 and Everest. K2 is an evil bitch and Everest can be just the same.

Awesome thread!  I just started climbing in the last couple of years since moving to Colorado.  I only have a handful of 14ers under my belt, but have aspirations for bigger stuff.  The hardest part for me is just gaining the experience and technical skills.  I like to do things solo and mountaineering just isn't really a solo game.

None of the big ones, but a bag full of 14ers.

I've done rainier, baker, and adams in washington, and spent 21 days without summiting on Denali last spring in alaska.  Good adventures that have left great memories, forged strong friendships, and probably increased my gray hairs.


While Denali was a great experience, I have zero interest in ever trying it again.  It is so remote and the weather is subject to extreme shifts in such a short time, the consequences don't outweigh the reward (for me).  I lost 16 lbs in 21 days eating 3500 calories per day, and wasn't a big guy to begin with.

Just keeping drinking water from freezing is a challenge. I like having all my fingers and toes.

This summer my wife and I will probably do rainier and baker again, or glacier peak.


Below is a random picture from the Eastern Alaska range

Thanks to all that posted in this thread. Incredible stuff!

Denali would certainly be an amazing accomplishment at 20,300 or so feet, remote, and tough.  If you want to try to summit a tall mountain without a ton of work or climbing experience I would suggest Kilimanjaro.  19,350 or so I think? But it is more of a long walk up with minimal mountaineering needed.  Still plenty high, but I have met several people I would consider to be in simply average shape who did it.