Site search
sponsored by
Home
News
Recently this newspaper almost had a chance to write about another Aspenite who reached the summit of Mount Everest. Instead we wrote about an Aspenite who came very close to the summit but turned around because he valued his family and the use of his toes.
With the summit in his sights and a pair of extremely cold feet, Mike Marolt made the right decision to turn back to his tent. He should be commended for it. It feels almost absurd to have to say it, but Marolt's decision to turn back was far more heroic than reaching the top would have been.
Marolt told The Aspen Times that "I'd rather get to 28,000 [feet] without oxygen than summit with it. That's what I did, and that's my summit."
Well said.
Marolt and his twin brother, Steve, have led a number of skiing and climbing expeditions in the Himalayas. They've ascended 8,000-meter peaks and skied from unimaginable heights multiple times; on this particular trip, Steve skied from the 26,096-foot summit of Cho Oyu.
But more important than the mountaineering achievements is the fact that the Marolts have returned from every one of their expeditions. They've resisted the "summit fever" that has claimed so many lives and turned the world's highest peak into a bizarre commercial circus.
These days our culture seems to place more value on physical heroics - everything from big-wave surfing to the latest high-speed fourteener stunt - than it does common sense, good judgment and selflessness. Sure, it makes great video and big headlines to huck huge cliffs, scale giant mountains and bungee-jump from passing asteroids, but many of these feats have more to do with ego than any enduring value.
Reaching the summit of the world's highest mountain is an admirable achievement, and we'd be the first to congratulate anyone who did so. But surviving the "death zone" to return home, love your wife, raise your kids and live out your days is an even bigger deal. We'll take a living, breathing Aspenite with 10 fingers and 10 toes over another Everest statistic any day.
Congratulations, Mike.
With the summit in his sights and a pair of extremely cold feet, Mike Marolt made the right decision to turn back to his tent. He should be commended for it. It feels almost absurd to have to say it, but Marolt's decision to turn back was far more heroic than reaching the top would have been.
Marolt told The Aspen Times that "I'd rather get to 28,000 [feet] without oxygen than summit with it. That's what I did, and that's my summit."
Well said.
Marolt and his twin brother, Steve, have led a number of skiing and climbing expeditions in the Himalayas. They've ascended 8,000-meter peaks and skied from unimaginable heights multiple times; on this particular trip, Steve skied from the 26,096-foot summit of Cho Oyu.
But more important than the mountaineering achievements is the fact that the Marolts have returned from every one of their expeditions. They've resisted the "summit fever" that has claimed so many lives and turned the world's highest peak into a bizarre commercial circus.
These days our culture seems to place more value on physical heroics - everything from big-wave surfing to the latest high-speed fourteener stunt - than it does common sense, good judgment and selflessness. Sure, it makes great video and big headlines to huck huge cliffs, scale giant mountains and bungee-jump from passing asteroids, but many of these feats have more to do with ego than any enduring value.
Reaching the summit of the world's highest mountain is an admirable achievement, and we'd be the first to congratulate anyone who did so. But surviving the "death zone" to return home, love your wife, raise your kids and live out your days is an even bigger deal. We'll take a living, breathing Aspenite with 10 fingers and 10 toes over another Everest statistic any day.
Congratulations, Mike.
