Alone, bent over in a violent fit of vomiting, coughing up blood, Alex Shockley [1] had to make a decision. He was a stone’s throw away from the summit of South America’s highest mountain—Aconcagua. His push to the top had been interrupted when he and two other climbers discovered a man, nearly frozen to death off the trail. After reviving this other climber and getting him on his way to help, Shockley felt the full brunt of symptoms for what could be pulmonary edema, a killer for mountaineers at high altitudes.

He made his decision, “took one last look at the summit over my shoulder” and started down the slope. As he turned, a quote from another mountaineer, Greg Child, came into his head: “All mountains are beautiful, but no mountain is worth dying for.”

Seven Summits

When the Eden Prairie News last profiled Shockley he was preparing for the Aconcagua trip, having already climbed two of the seven summits. His goal is to climb each continent’s highest peaks, and be the youngest to accomplish that feat. He has set a goal of climbing the last summit, (Cartenz Pyramid in Australasia) by July 2008.

Unlike previous mountaineering adventures, for this climb, Shockley would be going alone. A freshman at the University of Colorado, Shockley scheduled this trip for just after Christmas. He flew to Argentina and, by Dec. 30, he started hiking to base camp or “Plaza de Mulas,” at over 14,000 feet.

This being the peak climbing season base camp was filled with hundreds of tents. There were tents where they sold pizza, beer, wine or pop. Business was booming at base camp, but for a climber like Alex, who was going unguided up the mountain, the experience was still isolating. Along the way on his climb, Shockley noted that he’d see climbers carrying little more than water and lunch, because everything was handled for them.

The next day, he spent ferrying his loads of supplies to the next camp, then went back to Plaza de Mulas for the night.

It’s better for acclimatization to “climb high, sleep low,” he noted.

The next day, he continued to move gear to Camp Canada (at over 16,000 feet). After talking to climbers and weighing his options, he decided he would push for the summit at advanced base camp (called Nido de Condores) instead of a higher camp. This meant that he would be sleeping at a lower altitude, but, he’d be climbing 5,000 vertical feet on summit day versus 2,000.

He decided to carry half of his supply with him to advanced base camp, and leave the rest at Camp Canada.

“That ended up being one of the heaviest loads I’ve ever carried in my life.”

Nido de Condores

Lugging 80 to 90 pounds at a normal elevation might not be so hard for him. But, at the high altitude of Aconcagua, where the oxygen is thin, “It proved to be extremely, extremely challenging.”

Shockley said he found himself setting little goals from one rock to another. When he’d get to that spot, he’d be bent over in a fit of hyperventilation.

When he finally reached advanced base camp (Nido de Condores), things also took a turn for the worse. He had just sat down for a much-needed cup of tea, when the camp was “engulfed in this blanket of white, which brought with it a driving snow that seemed to come from every direction.”

Shockley, who had never experienced altitude sickness before, was overcome by queasiness, and a fit of vomiting.

Heeding advice he’d heard from other climbers, he moved down a couple hundred feet and “the feeling gradually began to subside.”

He moved back up to base camp and slept.

Summit push

The next day, he met two other climbers from Colorado. The company was “a much welcome relief.”

“I’d felt kind of isolated up to that point,” he said.

The three decided to make a push for the summit together and after a brief, restless night’s sleep, they set out at 3 a.m. They made good time, and took a break to watch the sun rise. But the longer they sat, the worse Shockley felt.

“Since I’d only had about a half liter of water at this point, I was kind of chalking it up to dehydration,” he said.

In the back of his mind, he worried that these are the first signs of acute mountain sickness and pulmonary edema, where your lungs slowly fill with blood. It’s the No. 1 reason people die in mountaineering, he noted.

Another problem with the high altitude is that the mind is not functioning clearly.

“The higher you are, the more dull you become, and the more dull you become the less dull you realize you are.”

Shockley carried on, keeping in mind that he could go down the mountain faster than going up, if need be. His symptoms got worse along the way, along with his exhaustion.

The climb was made of little goals. He would count to 15 steps, trying to count to 20 steps before he took each break, and would collapse on the ground.

At one point, while letting his fellow climbers pass and taking off his parka, he slipped out of consciousness.

He woke up 20 minutes later, saw that the others were much further ahead and a guided expedition had practically stepped over him and passed. He kept going, “pushed on by the desire to go up so that I could go down.”

However, his goal was about to take a turn in course.

A rescue

One of the other Colorado climbers first spotted the man in the ice.

They were maybe 30 to 40 feet from the summit.

Alex caught up to them and, “The first thing I saw was this man’s face.”

“His face was absolutely white, except for his lips, which were a dark blue-ish purple,” a sign of altitude sickness.

The person’s hands were swollen about twice normal size, ghostly white “they appeared to be hard as wood.”

Shockley took off his mittens and tried to put them over the man’s hands.

CJ, one of the other climbers, tried to talk to the man.

They pulled out a stove and melted snow, and set to work feeding the man hot drinks.

Eventually he was able to say a couple of words, but the man kept pulling off the clothes they would put on him.

“He had no idea what his name was. He didn’t know what country he was from.”

They found him at about noon, and sat there for about three hours, taking care of him, trying to get new layers on him, he said.

“We sort of helped him stand up and relearn to walk again.” Shockley estimated the man had been lying down for several days.

A guided expedition came by with satellite phones they used to call rescue services.

One of the men in the expedition agreed to help the climber down to a lower camp where he would be helicoptered out and Shockley and the other climbers agreed to take the man’s gear to the rescue tent.

Coming up to the summit, Shockley had been focused on his own condition, but as soon as they found the man, “There’s nothing you can do but do anything and everything in your power to help this man survive.”

As soon as the man left, the adrenaline wore off and the precariousness of his position became apparent.

On a clear day, “I could throw a football from there to the summit.”

But this was not the day to go up, as Shockley bent over in a fit of sickness.

So, he turned around. But, the danger wasn’t over yet.

Going down

“Going down was much much slower than I anticipated.”

It was loosely packed dirt that caused him to slide with each step.

He was coughing and vomiting along they way and every time he did, he was left gasping for air and exhausted. Also, he would be knocked off balance and fall down.

“I found myself kind of falling and sliding quite a bit on the way down.”

It wasn’t until later that, as his mind cleared, “The realization of what just sort of transpired hit me.”

“I had spent the last year of my life devoted to the seven summits, I’d spent the last four months specifically training, mentally and physically and preparing the logistics for this trip. Spent, God knows how much money and effort, and time, blood sweat and tears putting this trip together and I’d come within five minutes of the summit and just turned around.”

He had been five minutes from being the youngest American to solo it.

This realization and the realization that he was one of three men to rescue another climber all sank in.

“No feeling of regret or remorse ever crept into my mind.”

To stop and help the man had been the only decision that was an option.

“I came to climb Aconcagua, I saw all but 30 feet of the route. I learned a great deal.”

While he climbed down, he said he must have tripped and started to slide on his back down the side.

He rolled to his stomach and tried to stop with his ice ax. He dug his knees and hands and elbows into the soft dirt, avoiding using his feet because if you catch your feet, you may flip or break your knee.

His knee struck a rock that was solidly in place and he started rolling a little bit.

“And somebody must have been watching out for me, because I crashed pack first into a little rock outcropping and came to a relatively padded halt due to the down parka and big sleeping bag I had in my back pack.”

He laid there, 20-30 minutes, unhurt, but “almost in a state of shock.”

He thought back to all the decisions he had made in this trip.

Finally he could see he was having all the beginning stages of pulmonary edema and knew, “I need to get the hell off this mountain.”

Resolve

He made it down, and as he went down, he felt better. But, there was no going up again on this trip. Without proper recovery time, the likelihood that he’d develop pulmonary edema was far greater.

Back at base camp he ran into the other two climbers, who told him as they went down, they’d had a chance to talk to some paramedics who had seen the rescued climber. The man would lose both of his hands, the tip of his nose, parts of his face, likely his toes, but he was alive.

For Shockley this is by no means the last time he’ll see Aconcagua. He is on schedule to climb Mount Denali this summer (not solo). By next December, he plans to try Aconcagua again. However, he emphasized that it is the experience of climbing the summits that is important, not the goal. He recalled what he wrote in his journal toward the end of his climb.

“I love the mountains. But that’s all they are, just mountains. And they’ll be there another day.”

To learn more about Alex Shockley, go to www.shockley7.com/9.html [3]