Climbing the tallest glacier in America is not an adventure one enters into unprepared or unexperienced. But despite Brendan Pierce’s readiness on both ends, he and his team couldn’t have possibly been ready for this: winding up in a mountaintop crevasse, needing a professional rescue.
Of course, that didn’t stop him from wanting him to do it again with his friends. After all, he promised them it was, “not a golf trip.” Nope, it wasn’t.
“We wanted to do something that was going to push a little more, to make us train,” Brendan told the Jesse Brown’s Carolina Outdoors podcast. Brendan will also be part of Jesse Brown’s Storytellers night this Thursday. (Details below)
“None of us were rock climbers,” he says, “but we had to be in great shape.”
Indeed they did. The members of F3, a workout group whose focus is “Fitness, Fellowship, and Faith,” got together and trained more than a year in advance for the challenge. Their goal: scaling Mt. Ranier, the 5th highest peak in the United States at 14,000 feet above sea level, and the largest ice glacier. Brrrr.
They practiced by climbing parking decks and the side of the Vue condominiums in uptown Charlotte. But even that didn’t prepare them for their first glimpse of the mountain from their airplane windows — rising above the clouds.
What happened next was a beautiful ascent in near-perfect weather with friends and an experienced Sherpa guide with a compelling story of his own. Going up was not the problem. Coming back down, however…..
Hear Brendan’s story Thursday night, February 1, at 6pm at Jesse Brown’s Outdoors in Sharon Corners, SouthPark. And don’t forget to ask him about his next adventure.