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Charlie Fowler: A Climber's Life
Fowler wrote the following mini-travel essays for Climbing No. 252, the 2006 Danger Issue. We unfortunately ran out of room to use them, so held them over, with Fowler’s permission, to run the following year. The first is about a trip to the Cordillera Blanca of Peru, the latter about hitchhiking (true “adventure travel”) across Tibet.
Too Much of a Good ThingBy Charlie Fowler Sometimes you can have too much of a good thing. I learned that lesson the hard way on my first trip to Peru, in 1985. I'd already traveled to some big mountains: The Alps had great climbing with good access, but it's crowded, the weather is unstable, and Chamonix is too pricey for dirtbags. On Denali it was life in the arctic zone — stunning and challenging, but cold … way cold. Patagonia had fantastic routes on sticky ice and firm granite, but demanded infinite patience. When I first visited the Cordillera Blanca that season to guide, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. The weather was nearly perfect, and awesome peaks were easy to reach. Food and lodging in the nearby towns cost next to nothing — we could live like kings for pennies a day. The weather, meanwhile, was so good I got brutally sunburned on our very first climb — Nevada Pisco. My face became a painful, festering scab that would not heal for the duration. Descending from our next mountain (Huascaran), I neglected to wear sunglasses for a short time and went snowblind. Crippled with more pain and double vision, I stumbled around for days, unable to climb. At the end of the guiding gig our team celebrated at a restaurant typical for Huaraz — the food and beer were dirt cheap, and hygiene was in the dirt, as well. The next morning my partner, Sandy, was violently ill with a dysentery turbo-charged by a hangover. We went to a local clinic, but the doctors could do nothing. I sought out an American doctor, who made a diagnosis: “Your friend is really sick, and there is nothing I can do.” Sandy spent his last week in Peru in bed. We wasted a lot of time in Paradise.
Fowler wrote the following mini-travel essays for Climbing No. 252, the 2006 Danger Issue. We unfortunately ran out of room to use them, so held them over, with Fowler’s permission, to run the following year. The first is about a trip to the Cordillera Blanca of Peru, the latter about hitchhiking (true “adventure travel”) across Tibet.
Too Much of a Good ThingBy Charlie Fowler Sometimes you can have too much of a good thing. I learned that lesson the hard way on my first trip to Peru, in 1985. I'd already traveled to some big mountains: The Alps had great climbing with good access, but it's crowded, the weather is unstable, and Chamonix is too pricey for dirtbags. On Denali it was life in the arctic zone — stunning and challenging, but cold … way cold. Patagonia had fantastic routes on sticky ice and firm granite, but demanded infinite patience. When I first visited the Cordillera Blanca that season to guide, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. The weather was nearly perfect, and awesome peaks were easy to reach. Food and lodging in the nearby towns cost next to nothing — we could live like kings for pennies a day. The weather, meanwhile, was so good I got brutally sunburned on our very first climb — Nevada Pisco. My face became a painful, festering scab that would not heal for the duration. Descending from our next mountain (Huascaran), I neglected to wear sunglasses for a short time and went snowblind. Crippled with more pain and double vision, I stumbled around for days, unable to climb. At the end of the guiding gig our team celebrated at a restaurant typical for Huaraz — the food and beer were dirt cheap, and hygiene was in the dirt, as well. The next morning my partner, Sandy, was violently ill with a dysentery turbo-charged by a hangover. We went to a local clinic, but the doctors could do nothing. I sought out an American doctor, who made a diagnosis: “Your friend is really sick, and there is nothing I can do.” Sandy spent his last week in Peru in bed. We wasted a lot of time in Paradise.
Fowler wrote the following mini-travel essays for Climbing No. 252, the 2006 Danger Issue. We unfortunately ran out of room to use them, so held them over, with Fowler’s permission, to run the following year. The first is about a trip to the Cordillera Blanca of Peru, the latter about hitchhiking (true “adventure travel”) across Tibet.
Too Much of a Good ThingBy Charlie Fowler Sometimes you can have too much of a good thing. I learned that lesson the hard way on my first trip to Peru, in 1985. I'd already traveled to some big mountains: The Alps had great climbing with good access, but it's crowded, the weather is unstable, and Chamonix is too pricey for dirtbags. On Denali it was life in the arctic zone — stunning and challenging, but cold … way cold. Patagonia had fantastic routes on sticky ice and firm granite, but demanded infinite patience. When I first visited the Cordillera Blanca that season to guide, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. The weather was nearly perfect, and awesome peaks were easy to reach. Food and lodging in the nearby towns cost next to nothing — we could live like kings for pennies a day. The weather, meanwhile, was so good I got brutally sunburned on our very first climb — Nevada Pisco. My face became a painful, festering scab that would not heal for the duration. Descending from our next mountain (Huascaran), I neglected to wear sunglasses for a short time and went snowblind. Crippled with more pain and double vision, I stumbled around for days, unable to climb. At the end of the guiding gig our team celebrated at a restaurant typical for Huaraz — the food and beer were dirt cheap, and hygiene was in the dirt, as well. The next morning my partner, Sandy, was violently ill with a dysentery turbo-charged by a hangover. We went to a local clinic, but the doctors could do nothing. I sought out an American doctor, who made a diagnosis: “Your friend is really sick, and there is nothing I can do.” Sandy spent his last week in Peru in bed. We wasted a lot of time in Paradise.
Fowler wrote the following mini-travel essays for Climbing No. 252, the 2006 Danger Issue. We unfortunately ran out of room to use them, so held them over, with Fowler’s permission, to run the following year. The first is about a trip to the Cordillera Blanca of Peru, the latter about hitchhiking (true “adventure travel”) across Tibet.
Too Much of a Good ThingBy Charlie Fowler Sometimes you can have too much of a good thing. I learned that lesson the hard way on my first trip to Peru, in 1985. I'd already traveled to some big mountains: The Alps had great climbing with good access, but it's crowded, the weather is unstable, and Chamonix is too pricey for dirtbags. On Denali it was life in the arctic zone — stunning and challenging, but cold … way cold. Patagonia had fantastic routes on sticky ice and firm granite, but demanded infinite patience. When I first visited the Cordillera Blanca that season to guide, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. The weather was nearly perfect, and awesome peaks were easy to reach. Food and lodging in the nearby towns cost next to nothing — we could live like kings for pennies a day. The weather, meanwhile, was so good I got brutally sunburned on our very first climb — Nevada Pisco. My face became a painful, festering scab that would not heal for the duration. Descending from our next mountain (Huascaran), I neglected to wear sunglasses for a short time and went snowblind. Crippled with more pain and double vision, I stumbled around for days, unable to climb. At the end of the guiding gig our team celebrated at a restaurant typical for Huaraz — the food and beer were dirt cheap, and hygiene was in the dirt, as well. The next morning my partner, Sandy, was violently ill with a dysentery turbo-charged by a hangover. We went to a local clinic, but the doctors could do nothing. I sought out an American doctor, who made a diagnosis: “Your friend is really sick, and there is nothing I can do.” Sandy spent his last week in Peru in bed. We wasted a lot of time in Paradise.
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