It is only when we truly know and understand that we have a
limited time on earth and that we have no way of knowing when
our time is up that we will begin to live each day to the
fullest, as if it were the only one we had. - Elizabeth
Kubler-Ross
The only death you die is the one you die daily by not living.
Dream big and dare to fail. - Norman
Vaughn
Living
with the immediacy of death helps you sort out your priorities
in life. It helps you to live a less trivial life.
- Sogyal Rinpoche
The
Motivation of Hardship
Sometimes,
the best lessons and the strongest motivations come from our
hardest experiences in life.
My friend Quinn
Simons and I met in college in Colorado, became fast friends, and
did quite a bit of climbing together over the years. We climbed
in the
Peruvian Andes in 1996, and went on countless excursions
into the Colorado Rockies during our college years.
After graduating from college,
I went on to guide nearly full time. In the autumn of 1997, I
was hired by
International Mountain Guides to co-lead their
Cho Oyu climb that year. Quinn, along with his friend Soren
Peters and father Tom Simons, had planned a trip with a Colorado
guide to a rarely climbed, highly technical route on
Gurla
Mandhata, a high peak in remote west Tibet. Quinn and I
planned to meet up after our expeditions in Kathmandu and take
motorcycles across Nepal.
Neither of us knew that would never happen.
After returning from Cho Oyu, I
was living in Kathmandu and waiting for Quinn, Tom, and Soren to
return so we could begin our adventure. Time passed, and no word
came. (This was 1997, in the stone age of mountain
communications, and the modern conveniences of on-mountain email
and phone calls was in its infancy.) Eventually, I got word from
the USA that Quinn and team had been involved in an accident and
were headed back to Kathmandu. I eventually tracked them down at
the Annapurna Hotel, right across the street from the
CIWEC Clinic, the
best care in Kathmandu at the time.
To put it simply, I wasn't at
all prepared for what I was about to see.
Quinn was gaunt, a ghost of
himself. His hands and feet were "Q-tipped" - wrapped up in
bandages to protect horribly frostbitten limbs. When we
re-wrapped one hand, the extent of the frostbite blew my mind:
his once strong fingers had turned to shriveled, hard black
appendages barely resembling human flesh. They were, in a word,
dead.
And Quinn knew it.
But, the amazing thing was, he
was alive. The team had endured catastrophes which would have
killed most climbers. Raging Himalayan blizzards. Feet of snow.
Faulty equipment leading to dehydration. A 1500 foot fall down
the mountain, cartwheeling over seracs and crevasses along the way.
Somehow, they survived.
But, for Quinn (and Soren, who
also suffered severe frostbite), the difficult journey was just
beginning.
Frostbite is literally a burn, just one caused by extreme cold
rather than extreme heat. And Quinn had
deep-tissue frostbite on both hands and both feet, all the way
down and into the bones. His was, so far as I know, the single
worst case of frostbite ever recorded for someone who survived
their ordeal.
In the next two years, Quinn
would undergo many surgeries. He battled severe Staph infections
in his recovered tissue. He lost both feet at the ankle, having
what is known as a
Symes
amputation. His doctors had managed to save more of his
hands than would have been possible just a few years before, but
he nonetheless
lost most of his fingers on both hands.
For most people, this would
have been the end. It would, in fact, have been an easy excuse
for Quinn to wallow in self-pity, to say "woe is me" and refuse
to fully engage life once more. All of that would have been
easy, understandable, and most likely no one would have faulted
him for it.
But Quinn is not like most
people. He never has shied away from challenge, nor from life.
And he didn't this time, either.
Instead of shrinking away and
deciding that he could no longer do the things he wanted to do,
Quinn decided to simply figure out how to live his life with his
new challenges. He raised and rode horses again at his home in
New Mexico. He built spec homes and office space. He rode bikes,
went on hikes, learned to make pottery again. He goes fly
fishing, and can shoot a .22 better than most - using only his
thumb as he has no fingers anymore.
But most importantly, he
greets everyday not wondering what life would be like had his
accident never occurred, but rather how he can make the absolute
most out of his life from today onward.
I've often wondered how Quinn
keeps such a positive outlook on life, staying optimistic and
directed through events that would crush most of us.
The answer is simple: He
accepts what life throws at him. He revels in challenge rather
than shrinking away from it. He views life as an opportunity to
continually improve, grow, and accomplish the seemingly
unattainable.
And by doing that, Quinn Simons
is an inspiration to me, and should be to us all.
Life throws curve balls our way
from time to time. We can take the easy road, shrink from those
challenges, those crevasses along our paths. We can complain
about the difficult terrain ahead, the unfairness of it all.
Or
we can remember Quinn. We can rise each day with fire in our
hearts and optimism in our heads. We can view the difficulties
in life as opportunities to overcome hurdles - physical and
mental, fated and self-imposed. We can, in short, decide to live
our lives fully, accepting that it won't always be easy or
comfortable, but it will be a life lived fully.
I challenge you to set a goal
for yourself, a race to run, a crevasse to cross, an Everest to
climb. Choose one that will push you to your limits, not one you
know you can accomplish.
Aim for the lofty summits, and
before you know it, you'll be climbing them.
During
the last 2 weeks of February, I traveled with my client, Art
Adams, to Morocco to see the country and climb Djebel Toubkal
(Mount Toubkal), the highest peak in North Africa and in the
Atlas Mountains. (My wife, Wende, and I guided Art up
Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania in January, 2006, and Art and I
climbed
Mt. Fuji in May, 2006.)
We had a wonderful trip, from the
snows of Toubkal to the
souks of Marrakech, the Draa River to the dunes of Erg Chagaga.
It was an amazing journey through and through, and my hat's off
to Art for dealing with the surprise
18" snowfall blanketing the Atlas when we arrived. And, of
course, I want to congratulate Art on his great accomplishment:
on February 22nd, with blue skies, cold temperatures, and a
strong wind, we reached the summit of Toubkal, the top of North
Africa! Congrats, Art!
Morocco is a great country, one
full of friendly people, fascinating cultures, amazing
topography, and some darn good food, too. Be sure to visit
The MountainWorld Blog for all the details of the trip, and see more of the
photos on
Flickr as well as in
my online store!
Speaking of Flickr...
I
have been uploading many new images to Flickr in the past
months, and have been using one of the cooler features of the
site: geo-tagging the images I upload. This allows me to locate
all of my images on an interactive map.
A Sherpa crosses a massive
crevasse
in the Khumbu Icefall on Mount Everest, 2002.
After nearly every keynote
presentation I give, I am asked by a member of the audience who
on earth took the shot above. Well, it was me...as is the case
with all the images in my presentations. The next question is,
inevitably, how and why?!
The how is fairly involved (don't
try this at home), but suffice it to say I had to spend a lot of
time in the bottom of a very deep hole in the Khumbu Icefall to
capture the right moment. The why, however, is what I would like
to discuss.
We are often tempted to take
photographs from a straightforward, as-we-see-it position. While
this works much of the time, we can make far better - and more
impactful - photographs by taking them from a new and unique
perspective.
Before going to Everest in 2002 to
shoot for Discovery, I went through hundreds of Everest
photographs looking for inspiration, for ideas about images I
might create on the trip...and to make sure my images would not
simply replicate what was already out there. It dawned on me
that everyone had seen images looking down into a
crevasse, but I didn't see any images looking up from within a
crevasse.
The shot above, among many
others, became a top priority for me to create. What makes
this shot unique and intriguing is partly the subject matter,
but more importantly the perspective: The viewer has to stop,
think, and process what they are seeing to make sense of it.
This is what makes a great image.
So, next time you go out to take
pictures, try getting into position...and make it a different
one. No, you don't need a crevasse. Try lying down on the ground
and shooting upward. Stand on a chair and look down on a scene.
Move to the side. Play around, take some shots, and see what you
like and what works for you.
As a great photographer and
Photoshop expert,
Jay Kinghorn,
says: Go to the postcard rack of your favorite place, look
through every shot, and then promise yourself you'll never take
a picture of that place from any of those perspectives...ever!
And, have fun!
Crested Butte Ski Club Fundraiser
On February 16, I traveled down to
Crested Butte, Colorado, to speak for a fundraiser for the
Crested
Butte Ski Club. Put on my sister,
Dolly Schaub, who is the head coach of the club, it was a
wonderful evening of great food, an amazing silent auction, and
most importantly, lots of money raised for a great cause!
Nikon World Magazine online feature...
As
I mentioned in the last newsletter, I was honored to be featured
in Nikon World Magazine in their Winter 2007 issue. Along
with the 8-page magazine feature, Nikon ran a profile of me and
my work on their Inside
the Image section of NikonNet.com.
Eventually, the Nikon World
magazine article will go live on the Nikon World website. This
will feature my photos accompanied by voiceover by me with
insights detailing the specifics of each image.
It should be online soon, so go to
NikonWorld
and click on the "Portfolios" link!
Eagle Creek - The Best of the Best...
Over
the past several years, I have been fortunate enough to shoot
images for
Eagle Creek Travel Gear on my trips worldwide. They are a
great company to work with and, most importantly, make amazing
gear for travelers and business people alike.
Long before I began shooting for
them, I took their duffel bags, organizers, and other items with
me, from Everest to the Andes, the Antarctic to the Kalahari. In
fact, I have an ancient version of the
Exploration System XL Cargo Duffel which has faithfully
transported my camera and climbing gear safely and securely to
the following places:
Everest 1999, 2001, 2002,
2003, & 2004
Cho Oyu 1997 & 2000
Peruvian Andes 1996, 1998,
1999, & 2000
Nepal Treks & Expeditions each
year, 1997-2005
Global Extremes TV Series
2003: South Africa, Costa Rica, Iceland
India 2003 & 2005
Guatemala 2003
Thailand 1998 & 2003
Gurla Mandhata Expedition 2005
That's well over 500,000 miles on
airlines alone, not to mention the severe beatings in Tibetan
trucks and on the backs of yaks, donkeys, camels, and
porters...Just one of the many testaments to the quality and
durability of Eagle Creek!
Clients, Presentations, and Travel…
Thanks go out to my recent
clients: Rotary International, Boulder Labs & the National
Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), & Conifer High
School.
Upcoming presentations
include:
Oakwood School, Ft.
Collins, Colorado
National Severe Storms
Laboratory (NSSL) Conference, Norman, Oklahoma
Colorado Court Employee
Conference, Estes Park, Colorado
I am proud to be working with the
following companies and organizations, and thanks them for their
support on current and future projects and expeditions:
Contact
Information…
Jake Norton is a
professional speaker, photographer, climber, and guide from
Colorado. He delivers high-impact, multi-media motivational
presentations to audiences worldwide, inspiring them to set
lofty goals in life and giving them the tools to reach them.
Please forward
this newsletter to other people who might find it helpful.
Have a question
about Jake Norton or MountainWorld Productions? Please contact
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Jake Norton is a
professional speaker, photographer, climber, and guide from
Colorado. He delivers high-impact, multi-media motivational
presentations to audiences worldwide, inspiring them to set
lofty goals in life and giving them the tools to reach them.
