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Outside Magazine September 2003

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The Survivors (Cont.)

SO WHY STAY MARRIED to a mountaineer? Ask Ruth this and she'll laugh. She was too busy to leave him. Others like the time apart, including Erin Simonson, 45, whose husband, Eric, 48, co-owns International Mountain Guides, in Ashford, Washington, and led the 1999 Everest expedition that discovered George Mallory's body. "Eric going on these long expeditions is a positive thing for our relationship," says Erin, who helps manage IMG. "It's this process of constant renewal. Just about the time we're getting on each other's nerves, he goes out the door for a couple of months and it gives me time to reflect on the things I really like about him."

"Life is just easier if you put him on the back burner and do your own thing 100 percent until he gets home," Lauren Synnott, 32, told me when we spoke in early 2002. She has been married to 33-year-old North Face-sponsored alpinist Mark Synnott for five years. For several months each year, while Mark is off climbing, Lauren is at home in Jackson, New Hampshire, with their two sons—Will, age four, and Matt, one. The possibility of becoming a widow crystallized for her in 1999 when Alex Lowe was killed on Shishapangma, a month after he and Mark were in Pakistan together climbing Great Trango Tower. "It really brought it home to me," she told me. "I just have to block the worry out. It does affect our marriage, because I put up an emotional wall when he leaves, and when he comes back it's hard to instantly tear it down. It never comes all the way down. The wall helps me prepare myself for if I ever did have to deal without him."

Four years into their relationship, Lauren left Mark and got engaged to her high school sweetheart. A regular guy with a regular job, he came home to her every night and weekend. Lauren is a self-confessed homebody with no desire to travel; it should have been a perfect match. "The life was so boring," she told me. "I kept comparing him to Mark." She eventually dumped her fiance, returned to Mark, and married him. "Everyone loves an adventurous spirit," she said, "especially if you're not that way yourself. I live vicariously through him."

A year before Joe died, he and several expedition mates gave a lecture, in London's prestigious Queen Elizabeth Hall, on their first ascent of 25,325-foot Mount Kongur, in China. Standing at the back of the auditorium, I watched Joe cast his spell. As he spoke, pictures were projected on a huge screen behind him. Precipitous snow slopes. Knife-edge ridges. Summits soaring into the sky. Joe stood before us, brimming with hubris, spinning stories of daring and death. By then I knew his faults, the weaknesses behind the image. But like everyone else in the audience, I was enthralled. I envied him the certainty of his calling. He was the hero I could never be, the hero I thought I needed—without any real inkling of what that would cost.

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