ABOVE: Stephen in the gym.

VIGILANCE
by Stephen Koch

Vigilance is alert watchfulness. And as a climber it is paramount to be vigilant, not only for my own safety, but for the safety of my partner. Through the act of belaying, or protecting a partner with the rope, is when I am most watchful. My partner calls out, “watch me” and my total focus returns (if not already there) to safeguarding their every move by constantly giving and sometimes taking in (when they climb down) rope. My mind wanders often while belaying. Belaying can be the most exciting thing ever and a moment or two later, the most tedious activity known to man, sometimes the activity of belaying can go on for hours on a challenging lead. Belaying is usually more exciting when I can observe my partner. This direct observation makes it easier for me to be encouraging and I regularly say with all my heart and hope and belief, “I’ve got you” or “I’m with you” or “You’ve got this!” or “You’re doing great!”

Belaying is a love hate thing for me. On the one hand I love being in a position to encourage and coax my partner up. On the other I have intense feelings of impatience, and become critical and think, no KNOW, how much faster things would go if I were on the sharp end, only to climb up and realize first hand the challenge my partner faced on lead. This mind dance could be credited with my success as a mountaineer, but can also be credited with my continued suffering. Would I benefit from less vigilance in the mountains? The bottom line with belaying is that you better be vigilant because your partner’s life literally depends on it. If they fall and you have too much rope out due to lack of vigilance, they may hit a ledge or the ground. There are numerous examples of this occurring throughout the climbing world and I would venture to say this is one of the leading causes of injuries in climbing.

Before a climb I vigilantly select the gear, taking the bare minimum to increase the chances of success. This might be contrary to some people’s thinking…why not take more, that way you will have it if you need it. Well the more you take, “just in case,” the more you carry. The more you carry the heavier you are. The heavier you are the slower you go. The slower you go the shorter distance you cover in a given amount of time. Classic example…if you take bivouac gear, you will use it. If you don’t take it, you won’t use it and probably won’t need it. You will climb faster as a result of being lighter and also being more committed. Are you willing to go there? The risks may be greater, but so are the rewards. It is also important to check the weather. An example of being vigilant and getting stung by going light on a long and difficult route at altitude, with Jimmy Chin, Kami Sherpa, Lapka Dorge Sherpa, I was climbing the North Face of Everest. We took only one two man tent, two sleeping pads, two stoves to melt snow and cook food, two days of food, a 100′ 7mm rope, a few nuts and titanium pitons, a few slings and carabiners and that was pretty much it…oh yea, and my snowboard. Had we brought more food we would have been in a better position to continue to 8,000 meters, with the summit attainable from there, two thousand feet above our current position on the massive face. BUT, we also would have been slower as a result of carrying more food. And we may all be dead if we had continued up. After retreating from about half way up the face we saw a fracture in the snow where an avalanche had ripped out, right above our high point.

Vigilance goes hand in hand with intensity for me and everything I love. While climbing I do EVERYTHING that I am capable of to move faster and be more efficient…

Go to Mountain Athlete for the rest of this essay. (here) or (here) if not on main page of Mountain Athlete website. The second of the “here’s” above will bring you to some insightful essays by the sponsored athletes at Mountain Athlete.

Enjoy!

Post Lake Michigan Winter Swim

This morning I went for a short run, which I rarely do, with my host in Chicago, Gene Marcowka, seen below in the running photos. What a beautiful morning we had getting out early for the short run and swim. It was quite tricky running with verglas (thin layer of ice) in places. It was reminiscent of being in the mountains after a fall storm, potentially treacherous.

Gene running along the shore of Lake Michigan.

A couple friends, musicians who I know through the Grand Teton Music Festival in Jackson Hole, came over this morning for a workout after my run with Gene (and a warm shower to heat up my toes and fingers!). We did a bunch of Burpees, tele-lunges, wall sits, hamstring exercise, dips, core workout and my favorite, simply jumping up as high as possible from a crouch and repeating 10 x! These and other exercises are available on Mountain Athlete’s website.

Off to Northwestern to give a lecture to music students about keeping your cool under extreme circumstances. For me it was during and after a 2,000 foot fall in an avalanche. For them it will be during auditions!

I am taking a deep, relaxing breath right now, which reminds me to be more conscious of the ever present moment, all that is. And I, and the world, benefit.

Stephen Koch

The roof I am climbing on in the video below is 3/4″ plywood with metal T-nuts and eye bolts. Very simple and inexpensive to build. The axes are Petzl Nomics.

Start on a vertical wall and work your way up to the 45 degree wall (door hinges screwed to the wall make great ice axe pick placements!) and then onto the roof. Start slow and be safe. At Mountain Athlete, we put mattresses and other padding down to protect us in case of a fall.

I also feel strongly that rock climbing and mountaineering would be a great addition to any MMA fighter looking to become stronger than the competition. Drop me a note with questions or if interested in group or private instruction.

Enjoy!

Stephen Koch

In it I demonstrate how to coil a climbing rope from the middle of the rope (marked on many ropes). Please excuse the short section of buzzing…that is my camera acting up momentarily. You can use this same technique (butterfly coil) starting with the two ends. The only difference is to start about 10 or 15 feet in from the ends of the rope so you have that to wrap and make the backpack if desired.

I dig doing these climbing tip videos and sharing my knowledge. Will you please drop me a note and let me know what climbing or snowboarding tips you have? What I carry in my pack? How to dress for backcountry snowboarding? Etc…??? Let me know and I will try to do it. You can have a say! Thanks for your input. It is truly appreciated (really, I often wonder if anyone looks at my site, even though Analytics tells me roughly 100 folks a day do).

May you have a wonderful day!

Help support StephenKoch.com and try not to wrap yourself up with a Petzl Nomad Climbing Rope from Backcountry.com. Click on photo below…

Petzl Nomad Climbing Rope

- Dave Kenealy, President, Chicago Mountaineering Club.

Stephen Koch gave an outstanding presentation to the entire student body of the Jackson Hole Community School in February of 2010. Using a combination of incredible photos and entertaining storytelling, Stephen held the students spellbound as he described his early days as a snowboarder, his first descent accomplishments, and his harrowing experience in an avalanche on Mt. Owen in the Tetons. While he provided excellent information regarding snow safety and avalanche awareness, what made Stephen’s presentation so meaningful was its motivational aspect. Asking students, “What’s your avalanche?”, he asked students to reflect on the obstacles or difficulties in their own lives, and encouraged them to meet those challenges head on. Guest speakers at our school sometimes encounter restless students and the occasional side conversation; during Stephen’s talk, you could have heard a pin drop. The students were fully engaged and clearly absorbed his message of maintaining strength and courage in the face of life’s obstacles. I would highly recommend Stephen as a speaker for young people.

- Amy Fulwyler, Dean of Faculty, Jackson Hole Community School

We searched extensively for a speaker that would actively engage our clients and provide a unique story, well beyond the traditional business motivational speakers. Stephen delivered on all accounts given his non-traditional life experiences. Stephen added immense value to our offsite client marketing event because of his candid interaction with our clients regarding his adventures. We found that Stephen added a refreshing spin on his approach to facing challenges, which is not often communicated in an interesting fashion by traditional business speakers. We would not hesitate to include Stephen in future events.

- Michael Jordan, American Capital

At Pepsi-QTG Canada we asked Stephen to come in and get our
employees ready to ‘climb’ our mountain of being the top Consumer
Packaged Goods company in Canada. Stephen did an incredible job
sharing his experiences and translating that into what it takes to
ready yourself for any challenge. Our employees just loved hearing
Stephen talk.

–Pepsi-QTG Canada

In addition to being artistically communicated, Stephen’s accounts of his alpine adventures were told from the heart. Each tale included insight on important life-lessons, and naturally encouraged further dialogue from all who were present. Breath-taking photos only served to further enhance the imagery that was inspired by Stephen’s accounts. Although he described a variety of circumstances and missions, the central idea of this presentation clearly revolved around the importance of remaining resilient and goal-oriented on all levels of one’s life.

- Kate Ritter ‘08, Coordinator of Recreation, Office of Student Life
Bennington College

I have known Stephen Koch for several years. He represented JHMR as a sponsored athlete for over 10 years. More recently I have gotten to know him through summer climbs and winter backcountry ski ascents that he has guided me on throughout the Tetons, including this past summer an overnight climb of the South Ridge of Nez Perce. Stephen possesses great communication skills and is an excellent teacher and guide. Stephen has earned respect and admiration throughout the skiing, snow boarding, guiding and climbing industries. He has outstanding intuition, knowing what people are capable of and just how far to push them. He is very encouraging and a wonderful asset to have during any type of adventure or emergency. He possesses a quick wit, tells good stories and knows how to tear up a dance floor!

I look forward to skiing with Stephen Koch this winter.

- Connie Kemmerer, Owner, Jackson Hole Mountain Resort

Stephen Koch has given a vey special presentation at the Explorer’s Festival of Lodsz (Poland) in November 2009, very different from all the others, only concentrating on a specific topic of theirs.

Stephen mixed up every aspect of his life into it, showing that all is important in an explorer’s mind to succeed : his son, his love of snowborading and climbing, his desire of challenging others achievements and also his dancing aptitudes! All of those were used to build a complete show rather than a presentation to help share with the audience his personal experiences, the good ones and the bad ones. What he added was a very sensitive touch, a sense of love of mankind coupled with his love of adventure and explorations through his body and soul strength.

He very unsually showed himself injured and suffering instead of promoting only success and achievements. This gave to the students listening to this touching, tall and blond man the flavour of the terrible difficulty that you may need to overcome when you give yourself a target like his. Risk is always forgotten when there is a success and still, Stephen likes to show that you not only need to be clever, brave and skilled, you also need to be lucky to succeed. Life is a permanent challenge…

Stephen has high spirits and a powerful body, together with the skills and the sensibility to achieve grand projects. We certainly will hear about him again soon.

- Christine LOŸS, Journalist, Writer, Communicator

I enjoyed your presentation at the JH Conservation Alliance today so very much. You deliver your compelling stories with engaging drama and vivid details and an authentic voice that is both true to who you are and evocative in the truth of your unique experiences. Thank you so much for sharing your stories!

- Theresa Griswold, Writer

Not only is Stephen an amazing mountaineer, he challenges
traditional thought and provides a new paradigm of accomplishing
the impossible.

–Jack Tackle, World Class Mountaineer

Stephen Koch’s presentation was clear, concise, insightful,
and peppered with good humor and surprising humility for
one so accomplished. His intelligent decision making and amazing
ability to focus on an objective come through loud and clear. His
respect for the natural world and the diversity of people living in it is
refreshing. Stunning photographs from Everest color and clarify his
story and leave the viewer wanting more. Be prepared for question and
answer sessions that go on and on!

–Suzanne Hanlon, UO Outdoor Program, University of Oregon

I was so happy you gave the opening talk as it was a great beginning of our conference….I was busy but you drew me right in and I was entranced with your stories, setting such unfathomable goals and then working through very difficult trials to achieve them…Great talk and great audience reception!

- Cindi Griggs, Manager, Teton Hand and Upper Extremity Conference

On behalf of the American Alpine Club I want to thank you for coming and doing a slideshow/open talk at the Climber’s Ranch. Despite the technical difficulties, your talk was a huge success! As you sat in the arm chair you brought everyone in with you. Through your epic journeys to your experience with misery and pain. You are truly an inspiration to the climbing community and the AAC is honored to have you as a member.

- Dana Richardson, American Alpine Club

Enjoy!

In 1965, an American chemical engineer from Muskegon called Shermin Poppin combined the sports of skiing and surfing to invent ‘The Snurfer’. It was meant only as a gift for his daughter Wendy, but within a year an estimated 500,000 had been sold across the United States. Snowboarding as we know it today was on it’s way.

Here is a link to a more detailed history, starting after this point. Interesting to note Wiki misses this history…

Enjoy!

Help support StephenKoch.com and slide sideways downhill on a Rome Snowboard at Backcountry.com. Click on the photo below…

Rome Design Snowboard

Enjoy!

Axl night skiing at Snow King Mountain.

This past weekend my son, Axl, and I skied on Saturday evening at the King (Snow King Mountain). It was our first night runs together, at least of the skiing kind. We alternated skiing with swinging on the swing set at the base. I narrowly missed stepping in a dog dukie left by a woman and her golden retriever about 5 p.m.

Axl and I started the evening with a run on the Cougar chair, where Blaize Oswald, 7 years old, fell from about 40′ up on December 30, 2009. The following information about the incident is from the Jackson Hole Ski Club’s website:

“Today (Dec. 30, 2009) at the Holiday Camp Blaize Oswald, age seven, fell from the Cougar Chairlift at the Snow King Resort between Towers One and Two. Ski Patrol responded quickly and sent Blaize to St. John’s Medical Center where he received a full CT scan. The test showed minor bleeding on his brain and a partially ruptured lung.”

Axl swinging at Snow King.

Blaize is currently doing well and according to his mother, Leya Ozwald, “very excited” to get on his skis again soon. There are no protection bars on the Cougar chair, which, as a father of a young child who enjoys  taking skiing on the mountain, sucks. The bar is not a guarantee that shit won’t go bad. From my personal experience, when a safety bar is 1) Low, like on the Casper Chair at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, or 2) have the arms that come down from the bar which touch the chair as on the Teewinot lift at Jackson Hole, which you can situate in between the small child’s legs (or adult legs if not 3 or less are on the quad chair) that offers greater security (for child and for parent!).

The lift to the summit of Snow King, Exhibition, has a safety bar, I believe, every fourth chair. It is surprising that the folks at Snow King don’t put in safety bars on all the chairs on Exhibition, at least during the Hill Climb. During the Hill Climb, and throughout the year, Non-skiers/boarders are required to use only the chairs with safety bars. During the annual Hill Climb, this causes a huge backup of people wanting to ride the lift. If there were bars on all the chairs the wait time would be much less, and safety arguably increased. In addition, I would think this action would increase revenue for the mountain. I don’t know how much a safety bar costs, but it is a fairly simple device with minimal hardware required to install, taking only a few minutes for each chair. Snow King can hire Lawrence Bennett, artist and metal worker with a shop at the base of the mountain, to make custom ones for them, if they don’t have a line on some. I bet there are used ones that can be bought from a ski area that doesn’t use them because they went out of business or upgraded their double chair to a triple or quad. Hopefully monetary gain would follow doing the right thing, which in my opinion is to keep the kids and adults using the lifts at Snow King, our beloved town hill, safer. OK…what the hell is safer? Well we can debate that, but to me it is having bars on the Cougar lift so that I don’t have to hold my son or clip him in to the lift with a cord to prevent him pitching off and getting hurt or killed while out trying to have a good time.

On Sunday Axl and I were at Jackson Hole for the day where we ripped the animal trails off of Teewinot Lift and then ventured up to Casper and over to Thunder. I am learning the easiest ways down from all the lifts as I go out with Axl these early days of his skiing. Giradelli larger milk chocolate chips and GU Chomps got us through the day. I heard about using a ski pole to help slow Axl down but have not yet tried it. I have been skiing without poles and grabbing him and carrying him like a football over the steep sections, which unfortunately interrupt many of the cat tracks, at least for enough time to not have it be a smooth, super easy ride down from the Thunder, the Gondola (getting onto Amphitheater for a brief moment until one can cut east to Nez Perce is steep and challenging) and even Casper (below the restaurant to the cat track). This being said, there may be some easier ways which I haven’t learned yet and hopefully won’t have to as Axl is getting stronger and ripping more every time out!

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Help support StephenKoch.com and protect your child’s noggin with the Giro Slingshot Helmet at Backcountry.com. Or for up to 60% off, click here. Backcountry.com’s semi-annual sale starts Today!

Enjoy!