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Outside Magazine April 2002

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The Big Idea: CASE STUDY #2: Defying Death for Fun & Profit
Risk Management

WITHOUT ROPING UP, Gadd scales a 30-foot limestone slab in one of his favorite climbing spots: Grotto Canyon, a steep-walled drainage about ten miles up-valley from Kid Goat Peak. Csizmazia follows, nonchalantly, and the two move across the canyon to a different, harder route. She prepares to lead and Gadd nods coolly that he's ready to belay.

While she starts up, linking evenly paced moves, Gadd sidesteps a question: How much longer can he play the adventure game without getting seriously injured—or worse?

"I expected I'd already be dead before age 35," he says matter-of-factly, adding that, by his count, he's lost 15 friends in the business, and Kim has lost four. Most of these were violent deaths, involving things like mountainside paraglider crashes and fractured skulls.

He acknowledges that premature death would, among other things, be "bad for business," and he asserts rather dubiously that he isn't really a risk taker at heart. "You die, you lose," he says. "This is such a strange business, in that the stakes are so high yet the financial reward is so low for everyone involved. It fucks things up and creates a lot of tribal tension between different adventure sports and different athletes."

His love of Ayn Rand notwithstanding, Gadd says he would never do anything life-threatening just for the money. He insists he's trying to do fewer high-adrenaline, high-danger exploits. "For instance, I want to make longer expeditions into parts of the world that I think are culturally interesting, and stay there a while learning about the people."

But his friends doubt he'll ever be so laid-back. Consider his datebook for the coming year. This spring he and climber J. P. Vellemare will hike 30 miles across Baffin Island to a mixed climb of the northwest face of Thor, an unconquered 3,000-foot slab of granite. Then they'll kayak back to where they started. In September, assuming Nepal's political conditions permit, Gadd will go there to climb a 6,000-foot frozen waterfall, twice as tall as any ice climb ever attempted. He'll also try to set a new paragliding altitude record by flying above 22,000 feet.

"Will? Are you paying attention?" It's Csizmazia, calling down to her belayer.

Gadd checks the tension on his belay. "I got you," he yells back, and then turns to me and resumes chatting.

Another wavering voice from above. "Will? I'm gonna fall."

We look up. Csizmazia has climbed well beyond her protection, and she looks to be trapped without options. She grips the wall with her fingers, trying to avoid a 20-foot tumble. "Oh, God," she says. "What do I do?"

Gadd tries to soothe her. "No problem, Kim. You're gonna be OK. Just figure out what you're going to do next. You see that big handhold just above your left hand? Go for that, and then stick your right foot in that crack to your right."

"I just don't know what to do," she says. Gadd suddenly loses his temper. "There's a bolt right above your left hand! Go for it!"

"Will. I'm going to fall."

"No, you're not!" he bellows. "Just get ahold of yourself and climb!"

Which Csizmazia does. She makes two tricky moves, and then clips into the bolt above her.

"Now move your hand up and to the left," Gadd says. And suddenly the worst is over. With a total of four moves, she's standing at the top. He eases her back down by slowly letting out the rope.

"It's the kind of freak-out that can happen to anyone," Gadd says to me when she's back on solid ground. "I've done it, too. But dude," he says, "you should see her on the ice!"

He pops a piece of Nicorette, and the banter begins. "That's a stupid habit," Csizmazia says, making a sour face.

"Hey, I didn't puke on you," he fires back, employing a figure of speech that only they know about.

"I didn't puke on you, either," Csizmazia says. Then they hold hands and giggle. Feud over.

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