HOW IT ALL GOT STARTED

Hello and thanks for visiting my climbing blog!

My name is Scott and I live in Atlanta, GA. I always had an interest in climbing mountains, but never really knew how to get started. In January of 2005, the company I was working for decided to open an office in Memphis and I volunteered to move and help get things kicked off. When I arrived in Memphis I only knew one person, whom I met a few years prior at a wedding, so I gave him a call. He agreed to meet me that evening, but couldn't stay out late because "...he was heading to Africa the next day." Upon meeting him that night, I learned he was leaving the next morning to try his hand at climbing Kilimanjaro.

The next morning, I was talking to my mother and telling her about the conversation from the previous night. During this conversation she asked me if I realized my Uncle Steve had been a climber for years. "No," I responded. She gave me his phone number and the following weekend I made a call to a relative I hadn't spoken to in years. Little did I know how much that call would change my life!

In the 6 years since, I've been to Africa (Tanzania & Kenya), Russia (Moscow & Mineral'Nye Vody), Mexico, Georgia (The country, not the state), and South America (Chile & Argentina), summitted Mt. Kilimanjaro, Mt. Elbrus, and Mt. Rainier, made two attempts at Cerro Aconcagua, an attempt at Ixta, made quick stops in London and Quito, Ecuador, met an endless number of extraordinary people, and developed a new relationship with my uncle.

The blog entries, pictures, and details below are my attempt to share my adventures with the rest of my friends and family. I hope you enjoy!

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Hello? Anyone home?

Ok, so Ive been a total slacker keeping up the blog, but it's that time again.

After another bought of mountain sickness on Ixta, I decided to seek out some additional medical advice. Therefore, I contacted Dr. Peter Hackett out of Colorado, who is widely regarded as the leading expert on high altitude medicine in the US. I sent his office an email describing my situation, which his assistant forwarded along to him. After reading what I had to say, I received a call from his office saying he wanted to speak directly with me, so we have that call scheduled for Thursday. Im really excited about the call and hopefully he can shed some light on my issues.

In the meantime, its time for some fun! This trip will be a short, weekend trip out to Mount Whitney in California. It's slightly higher than Mt Rainier, but a bit steeper and more technical. I didn't have any issues on Rainier, so I'm very confident I will have a good climb on Whitney.

I depart on April 6th, fly to Las Vegas, then drive to Lone Pine (4 hours). Given the proximity of the mountain in the Sierra Nevada's, there's no real direct access, thus the long trip out there. We will begin the climb on the morning of April 7th and be finished on the 10th. I'm going to use IMG again for this climb (It's just easier using a guide) and our team is currently full with 9 climbers and 3 guides.

I've been training heavily since January 7th and Ive already lost 10 pounds with a month to go. I decided to go back to the 3 month training schedule since that worked the best. I cut it to 2 months for Ixta, but it just wasn't enough time. The good news is, I can already tell the difference. Ive been using the inhaler prescribed by my pulmonologist and my workouts have been incredibly different. I'm already doing workouts after 2 months of training that it took me 3.5 months to get to before the Aconcagua 2011 trip, which I feel like was the best shape Ive been in before any climb.

I finally updated all the pics from Ixta and you can see that album to the right. There are some great shots in there.

More to come...
Z
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