Outdoor Retailer PreShow - Summer 2019 - 25

C H R I S VA N L E U V E N

S

ome called it the dream
team. Jess Roskelley, David Lama, and Hansjörg
Auer were three professional climbers and The North
Face athletes-alpinists, specifically-who had come together to
climb the biggest, toughest routes
they could find. This past April,
after completing the notorious
3,000-foot M16 route on 10,810foot Howse Peak, the highest point
in the Waputik Range in Alberta,
in Banff National Park, the trio
were killed in an avalanche as they
were attempting to descend.
"It's just one of those routes
where you have to have the right
conditions or it turns into a nightmare. This is one of those trips
where it turned into a nightmare,"
accomplished high altitude climber and Jess' dad, John Roskelley,
told the Spokesman Review after
the accident.
David Lama, 28, from Innsbruck, Austria, was twice crowned
an IFSC Youth World Champion.
He was the youngest World Cup
champion in history, winning the
European title in lead climbing
and bouldering in 2006. In 2009,
the young Austrian, who was
brought up mountaineering with
his family, turned his attention to
professional alpine climbing. His
skills continued to evolve during
his multiyear project to free climb
the 4,026-foot Compressor Route
on Cerro Torre in the Patagonia region of Argentina, which
he accomplished with partner
Peter Ornter. The peak had been
dubbed "an impossible mountain"
by French climber Lionel Terray
in 1952. Lama and Ornter's free
climb was caught on film in the
Red Bull documentary Cerro
Torre: A Snowball's Chance in Hell.
In the movie, Lama reflects: "I
think in the first two years on the
Torre wore me down so badly that
when I stood on the top at the end
of the second year, I really didn't
care if I'd free climbed my way up
or pulled myself up on the bolts,
because it was the first time I
realized how hard it is to reach the
summit at all. I think that was the
moment I stopped being a sport

Jess Roskelley
at the Ouray
Ice Festival in
January.

"IT'S JUST ONE OF THOSE ROUTES WHERE
YOU HAVE TO HAVE THE RIGHT CONDITIONS OR IT TURNS INTO A NIGHTMARE.
THIS IS ONE OF THOSE TRIPS WHERE IT
TURNED INTO A NIGHTMARE."
-JOHN ROSKELLEY

climber and became an alpinist."
Lama's mountaineering success also includes a stunning first
ascent of the 22,621-foot peak
Lunag Ri in Nepal, done solo, and
a first winter ascent on Sagwand
in Austria, with Hansjörg Auer
and Peter Ornter.
HAILING FROM ZAMS, AUSTRIA,

Hansjörg Auer, 35, had amassed a
list of achievements on pure rock
and in the alpine that will remain
legendary. In 2011, he notched the
first free ascent of the Hallucinogen
Wall in Colorado's Black Canyon
of the Gunnison National Park, a

route rated 5.13+ R. It remains one
of the most sought-after big wall
free climbs in the world. He made
the first free ascent of the 1,300-foot
Free as the Birds (5.14a) route in
Austria's Wetterstein Mountains,
and he free soloed the 37-pitch Fish
route rated 5.12c in the Italian Dolomites. Auer's alpine climbs include
the first ascent of 24,278-foot Khunyang Chhish East in Pakistan in
2013. Another standout climb is his
ascent of Nilgiri South (22,437 feet),
in 2015, in the Annapurna Massif
in Nepal. During the descent, one of
his partners, Gerhard Fiegl, fell to
his death.

He also soloed Lupghar Sar
West (23,559 feet) in Pakistan's
Karakorum in 2018. "He was one
of the few alpinists pursuing, with
success, the 'height of the practice'-new routes on 7,000-meter
peaks. [These] peaks offered the
best balance of challenging height,
unclimbed terrain, but without
being snow plods," polar explorer and Australian mountaineer
Damien Gildea told me in one of
many phone conversations we had
shortly after the tragedy.
JESS ROSKELLEY, 36, FROM

Spokane, Washington, climbed
Everest with his dad when he was
just 20. But big mountains weren't
for him, nor did he want to live in
his father's shadow, so he made a
name for himself on technically
demanding routes on the lower
peaks. He knew with his father's
help he could get on The North
Face team, but that's not how he
wanted it. He needed to earn it
on his own. A climb that helped
put him on the map was his first
ascent of the Mount Huntington

SUMMER MARKET 2019

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