PART TWO: Expedition Suits, Heavy Loads, and Comfort Culture

Mountaineering and climbing has a very strong and unique culture depending on where you do it. That might sound like an obvious statement, or an innocuous detail, but it isn’t. Especially when you are joining that culture as an outsider - learning the norms, standards, folkways, and values that are ingrained in the subculture of mountaineering in that specific region. I found out that the Andes have a mountaineering and climbing subculture that is one of the strongest in the world. It won’t be adapted for you. You will adapt to it.

As a newcomer to high-altitude mountaineering, I hadn’t really given that much thought ahead of this trip. I wasn’t going in a group, where perhaps there would have been a divide between guide and climbing resources and the expedition climbers. It was just me and my guide, so my full immersion into his world was going to be complete. In hindsight, this was an incredible gift, and gave me a lot of reflection post-trip, but in the moment, it produced one eye-opener after another.

The first big OMG moment was of my own making. Blame it on my naiveté, my rookie high-altitude background, watching too many Everest movies, or my narrow understanding of the unique environment of the Andes. It happened at my gear check. Every expedition starts with a gear check. Your guide reviews all your gear and then either removes or adds depending on his judgement. As I said in my last post, I’d spent some time curating my gear for this trip, and I thought I had it nailed.

“Where is your expedition suit?” “My what?”

I’m sure my eyes were as big as saucers. I thought that those were for “big mountains”. In my mind, that was Everest, K2, Manaslu, or extreme environments like Denali. I packed according to the outfitter list, and expedition suit was not on it. First big rookie lesson that would reverberate throughout this trip, the Andes are a fickle mountain range with rapid weather changes, and if you are going above 16,000 ft in shoulder season, you need to have a suit. Like the ones they wear on Everest.

As my guide, Matias, stood in front of me, I was about to get my first big culture lesson. “Don’t worry, Antonia, I have one you can wear. We’ll stop by my house and get it on our way out.” Again, my eyes were as big as saucers. I was struck by the familiarity, the generosity, the casual way he would share such an expensive piece of gear with a stranger, the immediate way he would invite a stranger into his home. In US culture, we’ve become increasingly distant from one another, and this type of assistance doesn’t feel like our norm anymore. Throughout my trip, I would be struck by the communal nature and the giving, close-knit culture that binds the local people who climb in this mountain range. It felt good. Perhaps it is the danger faced together, the stripping down of life to the basics in the mountains, but, even climbing in other parts of the world, I’ve never seen it run this deep as in the Andes.

I also quickly learned that “comfort” is very culturally defined. In my opinion, Americans have developed a fixation with being comfortable. We don’t want to be too hot or too cold. We don’t like to get wet or be hungry. We love on-demand everything, and we just assume our water is clean out of the tap. We get in our cars to go even short distances. Until this trip, I hadn’t really given much thought in a while to how comfort was showing up in my own life.

Cue the backpacks and the backpack loads. If you are going to climb in this part of the Andes, you’ll get some laughs if your pack is less than 100 liters. Prior to this trip, I was used to carrying heavy loads in packs of 65 liters or 75 liters, but “optimizing for weight” was always a consideration. I thought a pack of 55lbs or 60lbs was a solid carry - especially when you consider long distances, lots of vertical, and lower oxygen. Before this trip, I would hardly call those comfortable.

Climbing culture in the Andes is to carry heavy loads all day - and up and down between camps - like it’s nothing. And the women all carry the same loads as the men and do the same work. It's not even a consideration that they would do less. I found this view refreshing - mostly because it was an innate part of the culture - and without exception. In US culture, we spend a lot of time discussing gender parity, fighting for it, and working towards it. I’d become sensitized to that environment, so that this natural parity really stood out to me. After everyone laughed at my 75 liters pack as “for a child”, we figured out how we could attach enough gear to the outside to make it work. At 110 lbs., I would carry my 74lbs with pride - just like a local. My pack was so heavy, we had to put it up on elevated rocks, so I could back into it, and fasten it.

When I got back to the US, I shopped for my 100 liters women’s pack. Guess what? Impossible task. Men’s 100 liters? No problem. Welcome back to our not-so-subtle gender messages. I carry a “big” pack all the time now. I know I can do it because I was a part of a culture that normalizes it. I get crazy looks on the mountains here in the US from women and men, and I am reminded every time about our addiction to comfort.

The sociologist in me could say so much more about the mountaineering culture in the Andes because it was endlessly instructive and fascinating, but my final comment is this: I was grateful to be included and accepted in the Andes mountaineering culture for this expedition - even when it challenged me or when it went against US mountaineering practices. I ate the local food as it was prepared on the mountain. I drank the Mate. I shared gear. I let go of personal space.

If you read this far, you are probably ready to hear about the climb itself. That’s coming. So much of mountaineering is about more than the act of climbing. It’s about the lessons and the journey and the opportunities to be tested, reflect, and grow. Every single day, we all participate in our own local culture, and yet few of us step back and examine our culture very often. On this expedition, I came face-to-face with two big take-aways that I had become desensitized to living in the US:

1. What it feels like to live inside a communal and community-focused culture. The value of being a member of a tribe and how that manifests in our sense of belonging and connection. The importance of that concept to my work with brands and organizations we serve through our consulting firm cannot be understated. I thought about that a lot on my plane ride home.

   
   

2. The addiction to comfort in the US culture, and how that impacts opportunities for growth and informs our choices. Comfort is very much a culturally defined concept, and I came home with a renewed sense of purpose to examine the comfort-based limits I had placed on my own life.

If you let it, mountaineering can be a crucible with much to teach. It’s not just about summits, fitness, checking off accomplishments, or being tough. It’s the experience, in all its facets, that changes you.