The MountainWorld™ Blog

Don't Get Happy!

This article appears in my Winter, 2008, e-newsletter. If you'd like to receive the MountainWorld News delivered to your inbox, you can sign up here!

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I remember it like it was yesterday. We, the varsity football team at Holderness School, had just trounced our final opponent, completing our undefeated run of ten games. We were off to the championships, and we were proud.

Hooting and hollering, we high fived and pranced around on the sidelines. Then Coach Walker, veteran football coach and amazing English professor and poet, marched over with his usual stern affability and barked: Don't get happy, boys, don't get happy!!

Strange way to celebrate, I thought to myself. We just won...we went undefeated...we deserved to be happy!

But Coach wasn't talking about simple celebration, about revelling in a moment hard won and well earned. Rather, his "don't get happy" admonition was an warning against cockiness, against the complacence brought on by success...and just as quickly destroyed by it.

High school football in northern New Hampshire and the serrated ridges of the high Himalaya may be worlds apart, but Coach Walker's passing admonition on that chilly November day has resonated in my decisions on mountains and in life.

While guiding on Mount Rainier for Rainier Mountaineering, Inc., we had a favorite saying for clients (later made famous by Ed Viesturs): The summit is optional...coming down is mandatory. Similar to Coach Walker's "don't get happy", our saying was not meant to dash spirits but rather to ward off poor decision making brought on by celebration and subsequent ego.

Just like our sideline celebrations on the football field, climbers often find themselves celebrating on the summit, high fiving with big smiles and a relaxed feeling that all is done, the challenges are over, it's all downhill from here.

But really, the hardest part is just beginning, the climb is only 50% finished at the summit, and if our defenses are lowered we no longer see and react to dangers and difficulties efficiently and effectively. Our joy at reaching the summit threatens to derail our success on the climb that remains.

As Coach said, don't get happy.

The same is true on the football fields and towering summits of life: we should certainly celebrate our accomplishments, take pride in our abilities, the goals we've reached and the hurdles we've overcome to get there. But, we shouldn't get happy, we shouldn't let our momentary success cloud our vision of the terrain yet to come, crevasses yet to cross and dangers yet to be seen.

When we avoid the temptation to "get happy", we discover what I cover in my keynote presentations: The Summit Perspective. This is the understanding that the summit, the end goal, the winning touchdown, is but a moment in time, a patch of snow.

The true joy in climbing our mountains, in reaching our elusive goals, lies on the sides of our peaks.

As the cliche says: It's the journey, not the destination, which counts.

- Jake Norton is an Everest climber, guide, photographer, writer, and motivational speaker from Colorado.

Don't Get Happy!

This article appears in my Winter, 2008, e-newsletter. If you'd like to receive the MountainWorld News delivered to your inbox, you can sign up here!

---

  I remember it like it was yesterday. We, the varsity football team at Holderness School, had just trounced our final opponent, completing our undefeated run of ten games. We were off to the championships, and we were proud.

Hooting and hollering, we high fived and pranced around on the sidelines. Then Coach Walker, veteran football coach and amazing English professor and poet, marched over with his usual stern affability and barked: Don't get happy, boys, don't get happy!!

Strange way to celebrate, I thought to myself. We just won...we went undefeated...we deserved to be happy!

But Coach wasn't talking about simple celebration, about revelling in a moment hard won and well earned. Rather, his "don't get happy" admonition was an warning against cockiness, against the complacence brought on by success...and just as quickly destroyed by it.

High school football in northern New Hampshire and the serrated ridges of the high Himalaya may be worlds apart, but Coach Walker's passing admonition on that chilly November day has resonated in my decisions on mountains and in life.

While guiding on Mount Rainier for Rainier Mountaineering, Inc., we had a favorite saying for clients (later made famous by Ed Viesturs): The summit is optional...coming down is mandatory. Similar to Coach Walker's "don't get happy", our saying was not meant to dash spirits but rather to ward off poor decision making brought on by celebration and subsequent ego.

Just like our sideline celebrations on the football field, climbers often find themselves celebrating on the summit, high fiving with big smiles and a relaxed feeling that all is done, the challenges are over, it's all downhill from here.

But really, the hardest part is just beginning, the climb is only 50% finished at the summit, and if our defenses are lowered we no longer see and react to dangers and difficulties efficiently and effectively. Our joy at reaching the summit threatens to derail our success on the climb that remains.

As Coach said, don't get happy.

The same is true on the football fields and towering summits of life: we should certainly celebrate our accomplishments, take pride in our abilities, the goals we've reached and the hurdles we've overcome to get there. But, we shouldn't get happy, we shouldn't let our momentary success cloud our vision of the terrain yet to come, crevasses yet to cross and dangers yet to be seen.

When we avoid the temptation to "get happy", we discover what I cover in my keynote presentations: The Summit Perspective. This is the understanding that the summit, the end goal, the winning touchdown, is but a moment in time, a patch of snow.

The true joy in climbing our mountains, in reaching our elusive goals, lies on the sides of our peaks.

As the cliche says: It's the journey, not the destination, which counts.

- Jake Norton is an Everest climber, guide, photographer, writer, and motivational speaker from Colorado.

Don't Get Happy!

This article appears in my Winter, 2008, e-newsletter. If you'd like to receive the MountainWorld News delivered to your inbox, you can sign up here!

---

  I remember it like it was yesterday. We, the varsity football team at Holderness School, had just trounced our final opponent, completing our undefeated run of ten games. We were off to the championships, and we were proud.

Hooting and hollering, we high fived and pranced around on the sidelines. Then Coach Walker, veteran football coach and amazing English professor and poet, marched over with his usual stern affability and barked: Don't get happy, boys, don't get happy!!

Strange way to celebrate, I thought to myself. We just won...we went undefeated...we deserved to be happy!

But Coach wasn't talking about simple celebration, about revelling in a moment hard won and well earned. Rather, his "don't get happy" admonition was an warning against cockiness, against the complacence brought on by success...and just as quickly destroyed by it.

High school football in northern New Hampshire and the serrated ridges of the high Himalaya may be worlds apart, but Coach Walker's passing admonition on that chilly November day has resonated in my decisions on mountains and in life.

While guiding on Mount Rainier for Rainier Mountaineering, Inc., we had a favorite saying for clients (later made famous by Ed Viesturs): The summit is optional...coming down is mandatory. Similar to Coach Walker's "don't get happy", our saying was not meant to dash spirits but rather to ward off poor decision making brought on by celebration and subsequent ego.

Just like our sideline celebrations on the football field, climbers often find themselves celebrating on the summit, high fiving with big smiles and a relaxed feeling that all is done, the challenges are over, it's all downhill from here.

But really, the hardest part is just beginning, the climb is only 50% finished at the summit, and if our defenses are lowered we no longer see and react to dangers and difficulties efficiently and effectively. Our joy at reaching the summit threatens to derail our success on the climb that remains.

As Coach said, don't get happy.

The same is true on the football fields and towering summits of life: we should certainly celebrate our accomplishments, take pride in our abilities, the goals we've reached and the hurdles we've overcome to get there. But, we shouldn't get happy, we shouldn't let our momentary success cloud our vision of the terrain yet to come, crevasses yet to cross and dangers yet to be seen.

When we avoid the temptation to "get happy", we discover what I cover in my keynote presentations: The Summit Perspective. This is the understanding that the summit, the end goal, the winning touchdown, is but a moment in time, a patch of snow.

The true joy in climbing our mountains, in reaching our elusive goals, lies on the sides of our peaks.

As the cliche says: It's the journey, not the destination, which counts.

- Jake Norton is an Everest climber, guide, photographer, writer, and motivational speaker from Colorado.

Quote for the Day: Barack Obama

I’m asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about change in Washington … I’m asking you to believe in yours. -Barack Obama

No matter what your personal political affiliation, I think we can all find some inspiration from Barack Obama's words.

In order to accomplish great things - to effect change, to progress forward, to climb ever higher in our own lives - we cannot rely on belief on someone else's ability to do things for us.

We must instead believe in our own ability to move ahead, to overcome the obstacles in our paths and climb on, one step at a time, toward the summit.

- Jake Norton is an Everest climber, guide, photographer, writer, and motivational speaker from Colorado.

Mallory returns to Everest...

Well, no, not the George Mallory of Everest fame, lore, and legend, but the Mallory family of Barrie, Ontario, Canada.

Yup, that's right, the Mallory family - Dan, Barbara, Adam, Alan, & Laura - will head to Everest this spring to attempt to climb the peak via the traditional Southeast Ridge route. They'll be climbing with Summit Climb and, if successful, will certainly find a place in the record books as the first family to climb Everest.

Unfortunately, the Mallory's of Barrie have no relation to the Mallory's of Everest history, or at least none that they know of.

Nonetheless, I wish them luck...Climb high, climb safe, and, most importantly, enjoy the journey!

Visit the Mallory Expedition website.

- Jake Norton is an Everest climber, guide, photographer, writer, and motivational speaker from Colorado.

Climbers on Ama Dablam, Nepal

While on the Everest Rocks trek, I ran into my friend Justin Merle, who was guiding a climb of Ama Dablam for International Mountain Guides. Several days after we met in the Khumbu Valley, our crew was stopped for a rest in the town of Pangboche, which sits beautifully below the massif of Ama Dablam.

If you haven't seen this mountain before, it is one of the most beautiful in the world, and thus one of the more popular peaks to climb in the Nepal Himalaya.

At any rate, as we sat taking in the view, I figured there might be people on this beautiful day heading for the top. So, I took out my Nikon D200 and my 80-400 VR lens and took a few shots of the summit slopes.

Later on, when I zoomed in using Photoshop, I was able to see that, sure enough, people were just descending off the summit ridge, miles away and 9,000 feet above us.

Take a look at the Zoomify image of the mountain and zoom in to see the climbers yourself - quite a nice day to be on the hill!

- Jake Norton is an Everest climber, guide, photographer, writer, and motivational speaker from Colorado.