5 Things I’ve Learned: Melissa Arnot on Everest

June 25th, 2012 • BY

Last month, Melissa Arnot completed her fourth [Editor’s Note: now fifth in 2013] successful summit of Mount Everest. At the age of 28. As such, the Eddie Bauer First Ascent Guide is holds the second place for Everest summits by a woman of any age (Lakpa Sherpa has summited six times). If you’re not impressed yet, let it be known that the natural beauty has also summited Mount Rainier 91 times, she is a lead guide with Rainier Mountain, Inc., and she has also climbed all manner of significant peaks in the Himalaya, South America, and Africa. Arnot has also worked with Everest Team Inspi(RED) to promote HIV/AIDS awareness. Here, Women’s Movement catches up with Arnot in between mountaineering and wedding planning (she’s getting hitched in two weeks) on 5 of the most important things she’s learned about Everest…and life. [Photo: Eddie Bauer/ Didier Gault]

1. What’s the most important thing you’ve learned about climbing Mount Everest? The most important thing I’ve learned is that the mountains don’t really care who you are, where you came from, or how many times you have been there before. It’s a very equalized playing ground in that way, and you really do have to show up with a level of commitment to the un-controllable and unknown. That’s a lesson that seems to translate right back into my day to day life all of the time.

2. What’s the most important Everest safety technique you’ve learned? I’m not sure if it could formally be considered a “technique,” but patience. When you are climbing a very high mountain like that, you really have to approach it with a long-term focus. It’s hard to be excited about summit day when you start the trip almost 3 months before that day will come, if it comes at all. You have to be willing to wait for the mountain to tell you that the timing is right. You have to be patient when the weather is bad, or you don’t feel good or when waiting for others to have their chance to climb. It really isn’t a sprint; I could never stress that enough.

3. What have you learned from the scariest experiences you’ve had on Everest? The scariest experiences I have had on Mount Everest have all been related to people’s attitudes—when they think start to think of themselves only, instead of realizing that they are part of a community (and one that absolutely has to be able to be interdependent). This season, 2012, I was involved in multiple rescue scenarios that involved the local people, the Sherpa. It scares me to see Western climbers who are oblivious to the risk that these people, these Sherpa, are taking for them. If every Western member made a commitment to be a climbing partner to the Sherpa they have hired, I believe a number of incidents and accidents could be avoided. It is a big mountain, but it isn’t so big that you should lose sight of personal accountability for your actions there.

4. What has summiting Everest 4 times taught you about yourself? That I am boring and repetitive? Kidding (sort of). Seriously, though, it has taught me that life is a constant venue for growth. My second time on Everest, I was so sure that I had all the answers and I knew what I was doing. This time, I think back on that and feel incredibly silly and very humbled by all I have learned. I am sure in 10 years time I will look back at this year and feel the same. That is oddly inspiring, though, to know that even at the times you are sure you know it all, there is so much to learn.

5. What have you learned about getting married that’s surprising? That it is a terrible idea to get married 3 weeks after coming home from an Everest expedition! There is so much to do but, fortunately, I have a partner who is amazing and very organized. There is always a very socially awkward time for me when I get home from a long trip—a time of re-connecting to my “other” life and putting all of the emotions and actions from the expedition behind me. It’s even harder to do all of that while focusing on a wedding. But it has surprised me, and I am sure it will continue to do so, to learn how balanced my fiance is. If I am chaos, he is calm.

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Erinn Morgan

About

After a 10-year career as an award-winning New York City-based editor launching and redesigning urban, style-driven magazines, Erinn Morgan left her downtown Manhattan digs after September 11th, 2001, in search of a less encumbered, freelance lifestyle. A life-changing, two-year-long trek around the country in a motorhome eventually landed her in Durango, Colo., which she now calls home. Her writing has appeared in numerous— More about this author →