Turning Around at 13,000 Feet

Last week I slept in my Tesla at a trailhead, woke up at 2am, and started up Mount Shasta.

It was going to be the biggest single-day climb of my life, and I've done some big days in the Himalayas, in Patagonia, and in New Zealand. 6,400 feet at the car. 14,179 at the summit. Because of the length of the day and risk of storms, you set a hard turnaround time of noon, so we were up against the clock from the beginning. Most do the climb in 2-3 days.

I thought I'd be well prepared for this, even though I'm probably in the worst shape of my life. I was wrong. The upper mountain was incredibly steep, and the ground was a mix of sand and loose rock, so every step forward involved half a slide back. At that elevation, with such loose ground, you are breathing like you are running a marathon and having to use what feels like explosive energy just to move a few inches. As we approached the noon hour, I could see I was going to come up about 45 minutes short of the peak.

So I turned around above 13,000 feet. I'd climbed for 10 hours and gained 6,600 feet. No summit. Back at the car at 5pm. The next morning my legs barely moved.

Here's where it gets complicated. There are 2 ways to score that day, and I believe both.

It was a failure. I underprepared, and my pace wasn't fast enough.

It was also a success. A younger me would have ignored the noon turnaround and gone for the summit anyway. The rule was set in writing before the trip, by a calmer version of me. Tired me just had to follow it.

My friends and I have set up this idea of doing 1 Misogi a year, a Japanese tradition of taking on something mentally or physically challenging to push yourself. Shasta was this year's. But as I step back and think about it, this whole past year has been one big Misogi: leaving my job last August to build a company, then trying multiple things along the way. Some were a success. Some were a failure.

There's a lesson to be had from doing hard things and failing.

Also, as AI takes more off our plates, we are going to have to challenge ourselves physically and mentally. I've spent the past year handing off personal and business tasks to agents. It's amazing to not have to worry about the tedious or boring tasks. It's now our job though to keep ourselves sharp with picking the right challenges.

The mountain's still there. So is next year's Misogi. It's one thing that can never be delegated to an agent.