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Outside Magazine June 2001

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Down Time -- cont.


	Hans Saari climbs Huandoy

STEPHEN KOCH KNOWS how to make an entrance. Blond, muscle-bound, and rakishly dressed in crisp khakis, a porkpie hat, and a pink aloha shirt, he strode into Zarela's, set down two giant duffels, and cheerfully crushed all our hands in turn. Then he hoisted himself up onto the stuccoed eaves of the roof and made his way around the courtyard, hand over hand. "Need a little workout after that bus ride," he explained, panting a little.

Erickson might have been our leader, but Koch was our rock star. Born in San Diego, he skipped college, moved to Wyoming, and taught himself to board, startling the locals with his out-of-the-blue first snowboard descent of the Grand Teton, in 1989. Though he spends his summers guiding, like everyone else, he also has a mediagenic multiyear quest: to become the first snowboarder to ride the Seven Summits, the highest peak on each continent and Oceania. So far he's knocked off five and is seeking more sponsorships (Burton Snowboard Company is already backing him) for an attempt on the last two—New Guinea's Carstensz Pyramid this year, and the formidable north face of Everest in 2002.

Despite all he's done, Koch was new to Peru. He'd meant to come down on the Artesonraju trip in 1998, but an avalanche that spring on Mount Owen, in the Tetons, got in the way. The slide carried Koch 2,200 feet, broke his back, and blew out both of his knees. Now, after a full year of therapy, he was again ready to charge—and charge he did. That night at Tambo, Koch delighted the mostly female crowd by ripping off his shirt and clearing a swath on the dance floor with his gyrations.

"Did you know Hasbro and The North Face are coming out with a new Stephen Koch action figure this Christmas?" Trimble said one morning over breakfast. "It's gonna have a little snowboard and two little ice axes for accessories." He mimed the toy, making hand-over-hand ice-climbing motions. Everybody laughed, but the truth is we were grateful for Koch's infusion of energy. It was good to have someone impulsive and headstrong in our midst. Until his arrival, the rest of us had been bumping along in professional nice-guy mode, carefully deferring to one another with the jokey bonhomie of package tourists.

The next morning we huddled with Koky Casteneda, a local guide and an old friend of Erickson's who knows all the climbing news. Saari outlined two possibilities for our first project: the Ferrari couloir on Alpamayo and the north face of Huandoy. (The Shield isn't the sort of run one warms up on.) Both options were audacious. Huandoy is a 55-degree slab bordered by a sickening 1,200-foot overhang, while the Ferrari is a 60-degree ice runnel ten or 12 feet wide.

Everyone knew that to ski the Ferrari would blow the collective mind of the climbing world. But Casteneda, who had just returned from Alpamayo, had discouraging news. "There were 40 people in base camp," he reported. "It's like ants. Every morning there's a race to get out of camp and be first on the face." Even if we won that race, then what? Would we ski it with everyone else coming up the same line?

That night another Bozeman climber dropped by Zarela's. "That's funny," he said after hearing our plans. "There's this other guy from Jackson who's trying to do the same routes."

"He's on skis?" Saari asked.

"I think so," the Bozemanite replied. "His partner got sick on Alpamayo, but after that I know they went to Huandoy. Now they're on Huascarán."

An almost palpable shiver ran through the group. Before leaving the States, Saari had posted a brief write-up of the trip on the Exum Web site. Koch, it turned out, knew the other skier. His name was Brendan O'Neill; he worked at Jackson's Mountain High Pizza Pie. Could a guy from home be doing a little poaching?

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