Andy Politz has been to the top of the world and back.
He made his mark on history as one of the four climbers to discover the body of famed mountaineer George Mallory. He’s led groups of climbers on some of the world’s most daunting mountain climbs and now he’s embarking on the next chapter of his life and diving into the local maritime trades.
The Leader recently chatted with Politz to hear about what brought him out here from Ohio and also hear a few tales from his most recent summit of the world’s highest peak.
A life in the sky
While it’s Washington’s waters that ultimately brought Politz to his new home on the Olympic Peninsula, the Buckeye said his love affair with mountaineering goes as far back as his middle school years.
“I was living in Ohio, nobody even knows what a mountain is out there,” he said.
“All I can say is I was probably reincarnated from a climber. I was just drawn to it at a very formative age and I just totally immersed myself in it.”
Politz began learning everything he could about climbing. He devoured books on the subject and religiously practiced tying knots around tree trunks, stair railings, and pretty much anything else he could get a rope around.
While attending an alternative high school, Politz was able to arrange his school classes in a way where he was able to spend one full month during the winter in New Hampshire, learning how to climb in some particularly difficult terrain.
“This was all technical climbing; steep ice and frozen waterfalls,” he said. “All through high school I would just spend a month climbing up there. So that gave me the technical skills.”
By the time Politz graduated from high school in 1979, he had enough experience to begin working as a guide on Mount Rainier.
“It turned out that they had let one guide loose and I happened to be a warm body nearby and I got pulled into working for Rainier Mountaineering. That was the first of 12 years of working for them up on Mount Rainier.”’
A rescue rewarded
Politz said it was on his first day with the guide group that he was involved in a rescue for a woman who was suffering from the effects of altitude sickness.
As the rescue teams toiled to transport the stricken climber with a litter — a single-wheeled, gurney-like device used for transporting patients through rough terrain — Politz said he couldn’t watch the exhausted group continue to struggle with the woman.
So he slung the woman up on his back and began carrying her down the mountain himself.
“Instead of watching a bunch of exhausted climbers struggle to carry somebody down on a litter, I just thew this gal on my back and we just started walking down. The easy way out,” he said.
All told, it took Politz several hours to bring the woman back down to safety. As fortune would have it, the fiancé of the injured woman was also the leader of their climbing party and happened to have a permit to climb Mount Everest. For his considerable efforts, he offered Politz a chance to dig his axe into the mighty mountain known by the locals as Sagarmatha: “The head in the great blue sky.”
Everest then and now
Politz’s first attempt at Everest came in 1985.
It would be the first of eight trips to the mountain but his first summit of Everest would not come until 1991. Politz did not summit the mountain again until 30 years later in 2021, at the age of 61.
With his visits spanning across several decades, Politz has a rather unique perspective on the nature of those visiting the mountain today versus those who braved its perils in 1985.
Comparing his arrival on Everest in 2021 to his first trip in 1985, Politz said returning to the mountain and being greeted by crowds of climbers from all across the planet, “It felt a little like the bar scene from Star Wars.”
“I went from one party per route and one client to hundreds of clients, as many parties on the route as they could fit and then throw COVID on top of all of that to complicate things,” he said.
A 2019 article published by National Geographic detailed the problem of overcrowding within the camps as flocks of clients attempt to get their chance to take a crack at the summit.
Along with the droves of visitors comes the inherent trash associated with a heavy human presence on the mountain. In recent years, Everest has even been called “the world’s highest garbage dump.”
Politz said he, too, has witnessed firsthand the impact that humans can have on the mighty mountain.
“In the process of searching for the camera [George Mallory and Andrew Irvine] carried, we searched all over the north face of Mount Everest,” he said. “The only trash that we found then was a tent that blew up and the snickers bars that were in the tent.”
The only trash they could find on the mountain had been left there by a storm. But this was not the case when he returned to Everest years later.
“I went up to the South Col this year and the entire camp area was just shredded tents,” he said. “There were expeditions’ names written in marker on the tents, great advertising: a shredded tent and all your trash you left behind.”
“I was embarrassed, I can’t believe the community let this happen.”
Politz said the mountain has changed not only physically, but for the vast majority of those who plod its icy crags, the experience of summiting Everest carries a very different meaning today.
“Everest does not define adventure in mountaineering anymore,” Politz said. “The clients want to own the cocktail party for 15 minutes. Everest is not an adventure for a climber.”
In the years before he summited the mountain, Politz said the drive to get to the top of Everest was something that gnawed at him constantly. Now, having straddled the top a second time, Politz said he doesn’t see himself returning to guide the droves of clients looking to snap a selfie at the top of the world.
“If someone is going to pay me $250,000 to go back there and be a guide, I just don’t know if that’s a good use of my time,” he said. “That very likely was my last trip to Nepal.”
The Galahad of Everest
When a New York Times reporter asked George Mallory why he wished to climb Everest in 1923, the mountaineer famously replied: “Because it’s there.”
In early June of 1924, Mallory, accompanied by Andrew Irvine, left their camp, intent on cementing themselves as the first to conquer Everest. Neither of the climbers would ever be seen again for 75 years.
In 1999, Politz, along with Dave Hahn, Jake Norton and Tap Richards, acting on behalf of the Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition, discovered a body lying face down on the north side of the mountain.
The group examined the sun-bleached, mummified body, seeking some indication of the identity of the ill-fated climber. Initially, they thought they’d come across the body of Irvine.
As they examined the body, the group read a clothing tag bearing the name “G. Leigh Mallory.”
“We were so convinced that it was Irvine, we thought, ‘Why would Andrew Irvine be wearing George Mallory’s clothes?’” Politz recalled. “Then we found a second and a third name tag.”
All with George Mallory’s name.
“We thought, ‘Oh my God, this is him.’”
Politz was staring at a mountaineering legend.
“There’s a stained glass window in a church in Britain with a panel that says, ‘The Galahad of Everest.’ One of the knights of the round table; George Mallory is considered in that category,” Politz said.
After examining the remains, the group held a small service for Mallory, covered his body with a stone cairn and gathered a few of his personal effects before departing.
Secrets kept
The first official summit of Mount Everest came in 1953 by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, but the question of whether the pair were truly the first to gaze out from the top has been the basis for no small amount of speculation among the global mountaineering community.
As for Politz, he thinks before Irvine and Mallory met their untimely end on Everest, they had a chance to take in the same view as Norgay and Hillary.
“One thing he said was he was going to put his wife Ruth’s photo on the summit,” Politz said. “He had a little satchel over his shoulder and there was no photo of his wife.”
Mallory and Irvine, Politz said, belonged to a generation that was a wholly different breed. Forged by the hardships they faced, they were a caliber of human that have become increasingly rare in times of late.
“I think they were capable climbers; I think they had the skill. They didn’t have the gear, they didn’t know anything about the mountain and they didn’t know how the body would react to that altitude, but they had the heart and soul to do it,” he said. “That was the outcome of World War I, there were just people who knew how to get through a lot of hardship.”
A harsh reminder
It is no secret that Everest has become the final resting place for hundreds of doomed climbers. With rescues often deemed too hazardous to attempt, especially to recover the remains of already deceased climbers. For Politz, the bodies drove home the lesson that in the right conditions, on Everest, the price of a single miscalculated step could easily be one’s life. With a wife and children to care for, he made it a point to remind himself just what all was at stake.
“While we were searching for Mallory and Irvine on the North Face, I decided that I was going to look every one of those guys in the eyes, because that could be me,” he said. “I couldn’t make a mistake; I had to focus and I needed to come home and be a husband and a parent.”
Even 20 years later, Politz said he still clearly remembers the faces of those who will never leave Everest.
“On the north side, the people had all fallen,” he said. “It was the eyes you’d expect in a Stephen King novel. It was terrifying, to see the fear.”
“Hollywood couldn’t have done a more gripping representation,” he added. “It’s unsettling as hell.”
From sky to sea
Politz’s search for his next adventure has brought him to Port Hadlock, where he said he intends to enroll in the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding’s marine systems program.
Along with his wife, Lisa, they recently moved to the area after the climber answered the call of the sea: specifically, the area’s strong local maritime trades community. Politz said he’s been looking to make the switch from his previous career track in the energy industry as a technician for Utility Technologies International.
“Here, I’m 61. I’ve already put in a career of 20 years into the energy industry — an exceptionally strong industry, even during the height of COVID — and here I’m quitting to go work on boats,” Politz said. “I thought ‘Am I stupid?’”
But Politz said after seeing all the boats undergoing maintenance at Port Townsend’s Boat Haven Marina and the bustle of activity throughout the boatyard, he was sold.
“Everybody’s busy,” he said. “This is a great opportunity to be in the marine industry and I’m absolutely thrilled and excited to be going to the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding.”
“I am just in awe of this area, the Olympic Peninsula, the people, the town,” he added.
For anyone considering a new adventure, no matter the size, Politz warned against becoming too comfortable with the status quo.
“We all start to settle into our lives and it gets kind of mundane and routine. Take on the great adventures, over and over and over again. Don’t just let them sit there on the shelf,” Politz said.
“It’s the best time of your life.”
"port" - Google News
July 17, 2021 at 06:33AM
https://ift.tt/2ThGmFv
Everest climber seeks his next adventure in Port Hadlock - Port Townsend Leader
"port" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2VXul6u
https://ift.tt/2WmIhpL
No comments:
Post a Comment