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Inside Out
Skiing Is Believing By Kostya Kennedy Erik Weihenmayer, like all great adventurers, is keen on raising the stakes of his accomplishments. Given that last May he became the first blind man to summit Mount Everest, that puts him in a tight spot. What on earth does he do for an encore? Weihenmayer says he plans to scale the highly treacherous Nemesis and Weeping Pillar ice walls in Alberta this March. That's impressive but we already know he's a first-rate ice climber. He says he expects to complete his ascents of the seven continental summits by going up Europe's Mount Elbrus in June and Indonesia's Carstensz Pyramid in September. Well and good, but each peak is more than 10,000 feet shorter than Everest. Then Weihenmayer drops the big one. "After we get to the top of Elbrus, I'm going to ski down from the summit," he explains. Say what? Even for an expert, sighted skier, Elbrus's varying conditions, changing terrain and thin air -- the summit's at about 18,500 feet -- make for a daunting run. Weihenmayer, 33, began skiing only five years ago, and in the words of Eric Alexander, who will guide him down Elbrus, "Erik's at about an intermediate level." Weihenmayer is less kind. "On grooved trails I'm not bad," he says. "But when it comes to backcountry skiing, I'm a disgrace." Elbrus, which is in southwest Russia, is distinctly backcountry. Although nearly all of the summit run -- which covers about 6,000 to 7,000 vertical feet depending on snowfall -- is above the tree line and no steeper than a mid-level black diamond run, it's a rough, undulating surface that gets battered by winds off the nearby Black Sea. "You had to ski on a lot of blue ice up there, and there was snow swirling all around," says Glen Poulsen, a ski guide in the Sierra Nevada who descended Elbrus in 1987. "When you heard a gust coming, you hit the deck immediately. If you didn't, you'd get blown right off the mountain. I mean literally." Those perilous conditions are only one reason that, of all the ventures he has planned for this year, Weihenmayer concedes "the skiing makes me most nervous." As a climber Weihenmayer needs assistance, but his fellow ascenders are often more like helpful companions than constant guides; Weihenmayer can cover great stretches simply by following the bearbell clanging on the man in front of him. On skis, however, he depends on a guide for continual and precise directions. A minor miscommunication can have major consequences. Skiing in Breckenridge two years ago, Weihenmayer received a guide's instruction to turn a fraction of a second too late. He flew off the trail, landed on hard ice and badly bruised himself. "This won't be easy, and there'll be some falling," says Alexander, who anticipates that the descent will take about three hours. "If it were a mogul run up there, I'd be less confident. But Erik's an excellent athlete and he's determined. I think he can do this." Alexander, a professional ski instructor who skis a body length behind Weihenmayer when guiding him, recalls the first time the two of them hit the slopes together, last month. "Remember, I'm the guy who helped Erik get from the summit of Everest back down to Camp 4," says Alexander. "I helped him over Hillary's Step and over a lot of ground that, if he could have seen where he was, he might have been terrified. He was fine. We get out on our first bunny hill together, and he's as scared as a little boy, asking me whether I know what I'm doing. It began with, 'You know how to get on a chair lift, right?'" That day they began their ongoing mission: to develop a smooth and subtle communication. "For example, when it's time to stop, I need him to say 'annnnd stop,'" Weihenmayer explains. "That way I can start slowing down on the 'and.' If he just says 'Stop!' man, am I going to pull up short. Same thing with turning. There's a huge difference between 'turrrrrrn lefffffft' and 'turn left!' You not only have to trust your guide, you have to understand the inflections in his voice." Weihenmayer and Alexander plan to ski 30 days between now and June, breaking training for Weihenmayer to do his ice climbs as well as numerous public appearances. In addition to improving Weihenmayer's chops and, as Alexander says, "getting him to relax more on skis," they'll precede some of their runs with high-altitude snowshoeing in order to build stamina. In the spring they'll ski glaciers at Mount Hood in Oregon and Whistler in British Columbia. "There's no predicting what it'll be like on Elbrus," says Alexander, "but we want to mimic the conditions as best we can." Issue date: January 21, 2001 For more news, notes and features from the world of adventure sports, call toll free to order SI Adventure at 1-888-394-5427. |
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