Mountaineer Leaves Legacy Larger Than Life

Danger and delight grow on one stalk, as the old proverb holds.

Alex Lowe used to say he did not have a death wish. “I have a life wish.” He was not a risk taker. “I’m a risk manager.”

But America’s preeminent mountaineer knew danger. He climbed the stalk to the top for a quarter-century in quest of its exhilarating delights. He did it with flair and energy that seemed inexhaustible. Everything his admirers said about him was right, except when they said he was too good, too smart, too savvy to perish.

At a time when adventure and adventure travel beckon the ordinary among us, Alex Lowe was a pathfinder, an inspiration, even a hero. By his example, he gave others both comfort and pause for what, on its face, made no sense: risky encounters with nature.

With his spring-steel arms and his passionate concentration, Lowe was the first, or at least among the first, contemporary American in the clubby world of mountaineering to engage an outside following.

He became bigger than his sport. And within his sport, he was larger than life.

Now, at age 40, he is presumed dead, swept away by an avalanche on a distant Tibetan peak called Shishapangma, the 14th highest in the world. Reports from expedition survivors, relayed to the United States via MountainZone.Com, said that after a 20-hour search, there was no hope of finding Lowe’s body.

“The scope of the slide was beyond my comprehension,” said climber Hans Saari, who survived by taking cover behind a boulder.

Probably set loose by a shiver of wind, a great slab of snow and ice slid down an exposed slope for more than a mile and was estimated to be traveling at 100 mph when it caught the climbers. Also given up for lost was cameraman and climber Dave Bridges, 29, of Aspen, Colo.

‘This Trip Emotes Action’

The team was working its way up the mountain with plans to ski down. Before setting out in the sunshine Tuesday morning, Lowe had poured the day’s coffee and rallied his climbing partners. Just six days ago, he sent an excited dispatch back to America, having reached 20,400 feet on the 26,291- foot peak:

“This trip emotes action. Pascal said, ‘Our natures lie in motion, without which we die’--and he knew what he was talking about. We’re feeling richly alive.”

Living large was Lowe’s legacy. And for him, it meant a perpetual state of duality. He was irresistibly lured to high, dangerous and distant places; then drawn back home to Bozeman, Mont., to his former climbing-partner wife and three boys. The joy of wanderlust and rewards of family were constant conflicts. He talked openly about this struggle, which seemed to make him all the more human and poignant--even as fellow climbers attributed to him superhuman skills in the world of the vertical.

He was thin like a spring, tousle-haired, and his smile made his cheeks puff out happily. Mountaineers nicknamed him the “Mutant” for the strength, agility and focus that they could not equal.

“Part of his mystique derives from the perception that he has tapped into some inexhaustible life force,” said mountaineering writer Bruce Barcott in an illuminating profile of Lowe published in Outside magazine in March.

In a sad irony, Barcott reported that Lowe, only lately, had “edged ever closer to the balance that has eluded him: composing Mozartean climbing while tending a soul devoted to hearth and home.”

Lowe’s wife, Jennifer, had acknowledged her fears for Lowe’s safety. But she told Climbing magazine, “I’ve never felt like I could say, ‘You can’t do what you were meant to do.’ ”

The senior editor of Climbing and the president of the American Alpine Club, Alison Osius, fought back tears at her desk Wednesday.

“My first thought was, ‘Not Alex! Don’t take the best and the brightest.’ My second thought was, ‘How could Alex get killed? He was so good. So smart.’ ”

Osius read back an e-mail message that Lowe had sent her before departing for Tibet. He had spent three days climbing Grand Teton in Wyoming with his 10-year-old son, Max. “We had a ball. I couldn’t tire the guy out.”

Setting Standards

Lowe was America’s greatest climber. Few would argue with that description today, although mountaineering is an ethereal, not an empirical, undertaking. Greatest by what measure?

He made the summit of Everest twice, got turned back on K2 just a thousand feet from the top by a violent storm that killed five. Other climbers have more illustrious records on these billboard giants.

But Lowe’s brilliance ranged across the broad face of climbing. He set standards for free ascents of big walls. Ice climbers gauged themselves by him. He could be a speed demon, and he set summit records. His big-mountain alpine resume was long with first ascents of difficult peaks, most recently a new route up the sheer 20,618-foot Trango Tower in Pakistan.

His seemingly effortless motion, his style, took away the breath of those who watched. His relentless resolve was a source of amazement. If he took a hike, he would carry small boulders with him to strengthen his hands. He hooked a bungee cord to the passenger door on his car and pulled on it to exercise when driving.

“I happily claim expertise in no single aspect of climbing, which is what has kept the passion burning hot all these years,” he said recently.

But something more set Lowe apart. Gordon Wiltsie, National Geographic photographer and close friend, called it the climber’s self-effacing “shining spirit.” Lowe’s easy nature drew people to him. His circle grew wider every year.

In June, outdoor equipment retailer REI asked customers to name their fantasy camping partner. More than 3,000 people responded. Naturally a dozen Hollywood celebrities topped the list. But among contemporary adventurers, only best-selling author Jon Krakauer was more sought after than Lowe.

In his dispatch home last week, Lowe spoke about the grip of the mountains. He asked himself rhetorically if mountaineering was becoming repetitive--Alaska, Antarctica, the European Dolomites, even the rock climbing on those warm Montana evenings?

“No way,” he replied. “Climbing is a journey without culmination. Shish[apangma] is another step along that magic path.”

The last step, as it turned out. And way too soon in the saga of this great adventurer.