Eye on Ice
Conrad Anker Interrupts Climbing Career to Study Glacier Recession
The Montana alpinist is going back to school to study what's happening to the icy peaks he climbs.By David Frey, 5-11-09
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Bozeman, Mont., resident Conrad Anker is among the most celebrated of today’s mountaineers. His high-altitude career path has given him a unique view of the world’s glaciers melting away at an astonishing pace. Anker, who recently appeared on the PBS program “Now” to talk about global warming and glaciers, says he’s scaling back on his big expeditions to attend Montana State University and study the effects of climate change on the Himalayas.
It’s part of an ethic of giving back that Anker sees as a part of mountaineering. His commitment has grown after a devastating 1999 expedition on the peak of Shishapangma. Anker narrowly survived an ice avalanche that killed climbing partner Alex Lowe and cameraman David Bridges. Anker later married Lowe’s widow, Jenni Lowe-Anker, whose acclaimed book Forget Me Not chronicles her own experiences.
We caught up with Anker at Carbondale, Colo.’s 5Point Film Festival, an adventure film festival geared toward fostering “passion with a conscience,” after he spoke to students at his former high school, the Colorado Rocky Mountain School.
New West: Have you seen concrete examples of glacial recession?
Conrad Anker: It is so dramatic. There are routes that were done in 1988, and now the ice line is up 3,000 feet. It’s melting back so dramatically. If you look at the PBS show that I worked on, there’s a computer diagram. One is on Glacier National Park and the other one is Gangogri, the source of the Ganges River. It’s interesting, some of the Web postings on there. “Oh, you guys are leftists. You’re this and you’re that.” We tried not to say what is the cause of global warming. We just tried to say, glaciers are shrinking. If you’re a kid and you’re sitting on the sidewalk and you see the ice cream cone shrinking, you know what’s going on.
NW: What about closer to home? You live in Bozeman. Have you seen it around Glacier National Park?
CA: It’s dramatic there. The government had the Park Service stick its head in the sand during the Bush administration. They couldn’t really acknowledge it. Now there’s a whole diorama up there and a display saying “our disappearing glaciers.” It’s taken off. We see it because we’re up there in the mountains. But if you live in a nice home here in the Roaring Fork Valley with an irrigated lawn and you go skiing sometimes, how much climate change are you really going to see right off the bat?
NW: Are there routes that you’ve climbed in the past that aren’t routes anymore?
CA: Yeah, we did the southwest ridge of Cholatse. When it was done, it was an ice route. Now it’s recently-exposed granite. The original route on the Ogre in the Karakoram is melted out. It’s really dangerous, recently-exposed rock that isn’t bonded together. When things are frozen, it holds it in tightly.
NW: These adventure film festivals tend to have an emphasis on adrenaline over environmentalism. Do you worry about that? The ‘adventure porn’ aspect of it?
CA: I don’t mind. It gets people involved in it. Here, it’s very specifically about people who have taken what they like to do and changed it into other fields. But yes, climbing, kayaking and ski thrills have less of an impact than NASCAR racing. Every sport has its downside. You can’t say I’m a purist. Just being here, we have an impact on the planet.
NW: And you have talked about the impact you have, flying around on jet planes. With adventure sports, and mountaineering in particular, it involves a lot of air miles.
CA: Yeah, I just came back from Malaysia. That’s part of only doing one trip a year. But it’s not like going helicopter skiing. You can always say there’s something worse. But I don’t like to use that. We are what we are.
NW: You talked to the kids at Colorado Rocky Mountain School about giving back. Do you see that as part of the climbing culture now?
CA: I think part of it Sir Edmund Hillary, who set a precedent for it. You don’t hear about it a lot in other sports. Maybe I’m just not as connected to baseball or football and things like that, but it’s just not as pervasive as it is in climbing or outdoor sports. It’s because we’re in these natural environments. When you go up Mount Everest, you’ve got to bow down before that mountain and accept your humility.
NW: Your near-death experience and the death of Alex Lowe was a big impact on your giving back.
CA: Yeah. Being with Jenni and helping raise the kids was an important part of it.
NW: It sounded like you had a new look on the shortness of life.
CA: I only get one chance at this, and it’s pretty damn short.
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Comments
Conrad Anker: I don't mind. It gets people involved in it.
End quote
That's the best answer to that question I've ever heard. Short, real, true.
Indifference is the greatest obstacle to understanding the systems of the planet that sustain all life.
I don't know whether mountaineering makes people understand the need for respecting and preserving the gifts of the planet, or whether those who do so are drawn to mountaineering. Either way, I don't know any indifferent mountaineers.