"Death is not uncommon. On the way to the summit, between high camp and the top, you pass over or around seven dead bodies … As a guide, I spend a lot of time teaching clients that death will come for them if they arrogantly ignore the warnings. But they rarely heed these lessons."
In High Altitude Leadership: What the World’s Most Forbidding Peaks Teach Us About Success, Chris Warner, mountaineer, climber, and one of only nine American climbers who have summited the world’s two tallest mountains (Mount Everest and K2), writes compellingly of his adventures and lessons learned in over 150 international expeditions. He learned his lessons hard and early. When Warner was five or six years old he was lost in a blizzard on Christmas day while guiding his cousins on a sledding adventure. At 18 years old, he was taking teenagers out of maximum security in New Jersey and leading them on a six-month rehabilitative wilderness adventure. With all the money he had — $592 — he founded Earth Treks in 1990, now one of the three largest indoor climbing gyms in the country.
Co-author Don Schmincke and Chris Warner met in Andes, during an Earth Treks-sponsored mountaineering expedition, as part of the Climb for Hope’s breast cancer research fundraiser at Johns Hopkins University. Schmincke is a scientist and an engineer, interested in relating anthropology and evolutionary genetics to management. As they climbed together and exchanged ideas, they discovered and validated the link between biological leadership insights and death zone mountaineering experiences. Chris Warner ends his book with this remark: "Don’t lose yourself in the process, but dig deeper into yourself so that you can climb ever higher. This remains the timeless challenge of a leader."
On Thursday, January 28 at 7:00 pm at Howard County Central Library, Chris Warner will regale us with more stories about his climbing expedition to K2, the world’s most dangerous mountain. Books will be available for purchase and signing. Register online or call 410.313.7860.
May 11th, 2010 at 10:24 pm
An amazing book, I really enjoyed Warner’s presentation as a fellow climber I was awed by what he overcame to climb mountains. Please have more events like these.