Die trying: one man's quest to conquer the Seven Summits

273 Pages·2009·2.495 MB·English

by  Parfet, Bo;Buskin, Richard

D I E T R Y I N G
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DIE TRYING
One Man’s Quest to Conquer
the Seven Summits
BO PARFET
WITH RICHARD BUSKIN
AMERICAN MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION
NEWYORK▲ATLANTA▲BRUSSELS▲CHICAGO▲MEXICOCITY▲SANFRANCISCO
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LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Parfet,Bo.
Dietrying:oneman’squesttoconquertheSevenSummits/BoParfetwithRichardBuskin.
p.cm.
Includesindex.
ISBN-13:978-0-8144-1084-4
ISBN-10:0-8144-1084-7
1. Mountaineering. 2. Parfet, Bo. 3. Mountaineers—United States—Biography.
4.Mountains. 5.Continents. I.Buskin,Richard.II.Title.
GV200.P372009
796.522092—dc22 2008035288
©2009BoParfet.
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PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica.
Thispublicationmaynotbereproduced,storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmittedin
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AmericanManagementAssociation,1601Broadway,NewYork,NY 10019.
Printingnumber
10987654321
To all who’ve been told they can’t achieve their dreams.
It’s never too late.
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C O N T E N T S
Foreword IX
Author’sNote XI
TheSevenSummits XIII
Introduction 1
1
Getting to the Mountain 5
2
Kilimanjaro 24
3
Aconcagua 42
4
Up the Creek: A Quick Adventure 67
5
Denali 76
6
Elbrus, First Attempt 97
7
Vinson Massif 113
8
Everest, First Attempt 135
9
Elbrus, Second Attempt. . .Plus Exploits 166
10
Carstensz Pyramid 176
11
Kosciuszko (and Some Major Side Adventures) 193
12
Everest, Second Attempt—On Top of the World 207
Appendix:TheSevenSummitsGearList 219
Acknowledgments 237
F O R E W O R D
It was March 5, 2004, and there I was, submerged beneath a tree in
a churning, roaring river in Belize, thinking, “This is a really stupid
way to die.” Thanks to training that had taught me to surround
myself with a “bubble of calm” whenever emergencies or tough sit-
uations arise, I wasn’t panicked. Nevertheless, I knew I had about a
minuteandahalfofavailableoxygenbeforeI’dblackoutanddrown.
Luckily, that didn’t happen. I was able to shift the boat that was on
topofme,freemyselffromthetreelimbsthatwereholdingmecap-
tive, and swim toward the light, where the first image that greeted
me was that of Bo Parfet hanging onto a branch.
Bo had surfaced about a minute earlier. It was day two of the La
Ruta Maya race, and we were now last among a field of just under a
hundred vessels, yet it was only the first of many adventures that he
and I would share together. Often, the kind of life-threatening inci-
dent that we’d just experienced shakes people up, and I wondered
how it was going to affect Bo. You see, in my mind, he was still
untested. Little did I know that during the next few years he would
witness a death on Mount Everest and have several brushes with
death himself in some of the world’s most exotic locations.
It is often said that the mark of real character in a climber is not
how he stands on the summit while holding a flag, but how he pulls
himself out of an icy crevasse. Expeditions have a way of revealing a
person’struepersonality,notleastbecauseteammatesspendsomuch