Peru 2024 Pt 1: Making the Band

Alright, so we’re more of a band like Robin Hood’s band of merry men than a group of instrumentalists (although Nate’s wife is in a band), but “Making the Band” sounded like a cool title…

So me and a group of awesome guys are doing a little thing called CLIMBING SOME REALLY TALL FREAKING MOUNTAINS! We are calling ourselves “The Great Basin Alpinists” partly because we wanted something to refer to our group and also because when you register for things, group names are required for identification. How we all got to be friends is kind of a cool story, as it’s pretty unconventional. We don’t all work together, nor are we all part of the same communities. There are some ties that connect like a web between us, but we didn’t know those connections until we were already friends. Anyway, it makes sense to start this multi-part Peru story with how we all met. I’ll tell it from my point of view as best as I can. 

Matt is our unofficial leader. This is largely because he is naturally a connector. He meets people everywhere he goes and seems to have a knack for connecting with everyone. I have a similar personality, but mine is matched to a brain that struggles to remember things (especially names); Matt seems to remember names of people for years. Anyway, Matt also started a Facebook group called Reno-Tahoe Mountaineers. While it’s not where any of us directly met Matt, it’s turned out to be a great landing page to direct people in the Reno area toward and get them connected to the local climbing/mountaineering community. Before this group (which now has over 1100 members), there was not much information out there for people wanting to meet other mountaineers in the Reno area. There were only two other groups collecting these people: a Meetup group called Reno-Tahoe Adventures (RTA) and a mountaineering association out of Sacramento called Mountain Ascent Association (MAA). These two groups were instrumental in our group getting together. 

During the COVID-19 era, I was working as a Respiratory Therapist first in San Antonio, TX and then in Reno, NV. I suffered from depression in Texas from not having any mountains around and was excited to be in Reno where, even with the world closed, I could get into the mountains and escape. At some point, shortly after moving back to Reno, I stumbled on the idea of mountaineering because it combined rock climbing, backpacking and hiking, rope skills (I had worked in rope rescue for 10 years prior to COVID-19) and risk management. The problem for me was I didn’t know where to start or who to get in touch with. I Googled “Reno mountaineer” and stumbled on a year-old Reddit post from a guy looking for a mountaineering partner in the Reno area. His post was exactly what I was looking for. His name was Matt. I messaged him and we started talking over a couple of meetings over beers over the computer. We seemed to get along well enough and after a couple outdoor day trips, felt like we could work as a team. Matt told me early on about his dream to climb Denali and I am basically game for any adventure, so it wasn’t a hard sell to get me on board. 

Nate and Matt met in a similar way, by Nate messaging Matt through the San Francisco Backcountry Skiers Facebook group while trying to find skiing partners. Again, another internet friendship began over COVID restrictions and a need to be outside. 

Matt became pretty involved early on with the RTA Meetup group, who were doing a lot of winter snowshoe camping trips and mild to moderate mountaineering trips. Their biggest trips each year are usually a mountaineering trip up Mt Lassen and one annual attempt of Mt Shasta. The Shasta trip in 2022 would have been my first trip with the RTA group and with Matt, but I wasn’t able to make it because it was over my daughter’s birthday. Matt met Alan on this trip. I ended up soloing Shasta the following weekend with the help of some fresh beta from Matt. It was important that I got this summit under my belt, because it ensured that I wasn’t too far behind Matt, Nate, and now Alan on the skills and accomplishments front. 

In 2023, Matt, Nate, Alan, and I all signed on at the last minute with a MAA trip up the Hotlum Left Ice Gully, Shasta’s most technical route. We practiced crevasse rescue and did some risk mitigation coming down from the summit (on account of my crampon falling off and getting lost). On the way back to the cars, we talked a lot about the potential of adding another guy to our group - Miles. The guys had met Miles at a Reno-Tahoe Mountaineers meet and greet and liked his charisma. I hadn’t met Miles, but my biggest concern was that he blended well personality-wise with our group, as skills can be trained but attitude can’t. Turns out, Miles fit right in.

I met Miles on our next big trip a few months later when we climbed Rainier via the Disappointment Cleaver. Our meeting was unique because I came into our shared hotel room in Seattle at 1am, dropped my stuff in the living room, and introduced myself to Miles while crawling into bed next to him for a few hours’ rest before heading to the mountain. He passed the vibe check right there by not being weirded out by this interaction. Miles took a short break from through-hiking the PCT to climb his first big mountain with us and was by far the most energized of our entire group. He learned fast, picked up crevasse rescue skills on the mountain, and blended in pretty seamlessly. 

Our group originally started off with another major goal: climbing Denali in 2025. When we first started, that seemed like such a long way away, but after Rainier, we learned that there are some skills we really needed to work on before spending 2-3 weeks on a mountain together. A couple other people have been a part of this goal and were with us some of the training trips we took. Ryan and Tiam are awesome guys and for their own independent reasons have stepped out of our group over the past couple years. Nevertheless, they brought a lot to the discussions and had perspectives that helped change our training lead up for the better. Ryan, having been to 17,000 feet on Denali already, helped us a lot with planning and gear decisions. I hope to still do some local adventures with them. A couple other people who have helped a lot are Walt from RTA and Darren from MAA. Neither of these guys are guides, but both have years of experience and our group wouldn’t be where we are without them. 

Check out Pt 2 about our training and lead up to Peru 2024!