Better than Lucky

Colin Haley's remarkable ascent

I first took notice of Colin Haley in 2003, when a Hot Flashes blurb mentioned that he and two others had done the first traverse of the Southern Picket Range, a tortuous, demanding, and little-known subrange of the Washington Cascades. I figured this 19-year-old rookie just got lucky. But a year later, he and Mark Bunker completed the second ascent of the Waddington Traverse in British Columbia, and in 2005 he made the first winter ascents of several significant Cascades routes. Maybe this kid had more than just good luck. I started rooting for him, hoping that his exhaustive apprenticeship in alpine obscura would mature into a noteworthy career. Or, at least, that his luck wouldn’t run out.

Raised on Mercer Island, an affluent suburb of Seattle, Haley set a life goal at the wee age of 12 to climb Cerro Torre. He accomplished that goal just 10 years later, in January 2007, doing the first complete ascent of a 4,600-foot ice and mixed climb. Still just 26, Colin Haley has lived hard alpine climbing for more than a decade.

Haley’s greatest single alpine achievement is the Torres Traverse in Patagonia, which he and Rolando Garibotti pioneered in 2008. But what really sets him apart is the staggering volume of his success in the mountains. He has completed major new routes or first solo ascents in Alaska, Patagonia, Canada, or Pakistan every year since the Picket Range Traverse.

This summer, he plans to attempt an alpine-style climb of the 6,000-foot north face of Ogre II in Pakistan. If successful, it would not only be the first ascent of that face, but also the first major route up one of the main peaks looming over the Choktoi Glacier: the Ogres and Latoks. More than 30 expeditions of the world’s best alpinists have attempted huge routes on these mountains, and all but one—including two of Haley’s own trips—have failed.

I’d wish Haley luck, but that would seem trite and misplaced. He’s racked up mega miles on increasingly difficult routes in every range he climbs; he sets challenging but attainable goals every year, progressing his lifetime vision of continuous improvement; and he chooses partners with whom he shares a synergy. Haley’s measured approach to alpine climbing exploits skills, smarts, and psych, and that makes him much better than lucky.