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‘Youclimbitwithahopeandaprayer.’
SHARONWOOD,THEFIRSTNORTHAMERICANWOMANTOCLIMBMOUNTEVEREST,
TALKSABOUTHEREXPERIENCECLIMBINGHOWSEPEAKprobably shouldn’t have,” John says.
Jess wanted to be a Navy Seal, but his
love for mountaineering won out. He had
numerous tattoos, including words ascrib-
ed to British explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton
on his chest: “Fortitudine Vincimus.”
Translation: “Through endurance, we con-
quer.”
At 6 feet and 165 pounds, he was skinny
as a rail. He made first ascents across South
America, Asia, Alaska and the Canadian
Rockies, and in the summer of 2018
climbed two 6,000-metre peaks in Pakis-
tan. Men’s Journal chose him one of the
most adventurous people in the world that
year. At 36, his rising profile led to an in-
vitation to join fellow North Face climbers
Auer and Lama at Howse Peak.
Auer, 35, was the first person to free-
climb Italy’s Marmolada Peak via the south
face in 2007. A decade later, he made three
huge climbs in the Dolomite Mountain
Range in northwest Italy – and connected
each by paragliding between them.
Lama, 28, was the son of a mountain
guide from Nepal and an Austrian nurse.
In 2012, he became the first to free-climb
Cerro Torre, one of the most striking peaks
in the Andes. In 2018, he reached the sum-
mit of Lunag Ri, a 6,895-metre peak in the
Himalayas.
In the days before the trio began the as-
cent of Howse Peak, Jess called his father.
By then, the three had already scaled the
ice on Mount Andromeda. Jess was
thrilled. “Dad, these guys are beasts,” he
told John. “They run right up this stuff.”
Jess had a white English bulldog named
Mugs, named after Mugs Stump, a U.S. rock
climber who died when he fell into a cre-
vasse while climbing Denali. He laughed at
stupid jokes, enjoyed dressing up his dog
and could fart on command.
“He gave all of us unspoken permission
to be in touch with our inner child,” says
Ben Erdmann, a climbing buddy.
Jess and Ben spent weeks on expedi-
tions. To entertain one another, they spoke
only in exaggerated Scottish accents.
The middle child, Jess was bracketed by
older sister Dawn and kid sister Jordan.
Jordan is a neat freak, so to irritate her
Jess tore her freshly made bed apart and
mangled her perfectly rolled and clipped
toothpaste tubes.
He was away at college in Montana
when Jordan turned 13, but had roses deliv-
ered to her at middle school. As they got
older, they met for long runs and climbed
Mount Rainier and Mount Hood together.
“Jess was my rock and my protector,”
Jordan, 30, says. “Whenever I was screwing
up, he was the only one that could steer my
stubborn ass back to the right path.”
When she was young, her father would
leave for months on climbing expeditions,
but always returned.
“I didn’t understand the risk of dying,”
she says. “Finally, when I was 18 or 19, I got
it and would tell Jess, ‘Don’t screw up.’ ”
They talked about the possibility that he
could leave on a climbing trip and not
come back. “He told me, ‘If something hap-
pens, take care of Mom and Dad,’ ” Jordan
says. “He didn’t want anybody to mourn.”
Six years ago, she set her brother up on a
blind date with a friend of a friend. They
met in Spokane at a wine bar. The firstwords out of Jess’s mouth were, “Wow! You
are way prettier in person!”
Eight months later, they were engaged.
“I fell in love with him the first day we
met,” Allison Roskelley, 32, says. “His hu-
mour and authenticity drew me in.”
Months before he left to climb Howse
Peak, Jess signed a sponsorship contract
with the North Face, which in 1992 estab-
lished a team of adventurers and the best
extreme-sports athletes. He could finally
give up a part-time job as a welder and
spend more time with Allison. They talked
about a starting a family.
On April 15, Jess sent her a text message
from the campsite at the base of Howse
Peak. He promised to send an update the
next day.!00"merica’s greatest alpinist, John
Roskelley, climbed Howse
Peak in 1971 with a friend. They
ascended the mountain
named after a Hudson Bay fur trader after
hiking 25 kilometres down a river. “I did it
once,” Roskelley, 70, says. “Once is
enough.”
In recent years, as he drove past, he
would scrutinize its face. “I almost felt in-
timidation coming from it,” he says.
Early in the morning on April 17, John
called an RCMP dispatch centre in Alberta.
He explained that his son Jess had not
checked in with him or Allison the night
before. In turn, the Mounties contacted
visitor-safety officials in Banff National
Park.
“I didn’t think anything major had hap-
pened,” John says. “Getting stranded on a
difficult route is not unusual.”
At 9:50 a.m., Paul Maloney, a pilot with
Alpine Helicopters, was notified the three
climbers were missing. He flew a Bell 407
out of the heliport in Canmore and stop-
ped to pick up search-and-rescue teams in
Banff and Lake Louise.
They arrived at Howse Peak at 11 a.m.,
and found the mountaineers’ tent pitched
in the snow near the base. “There was noindication that anything bad had hap-
pened,” Maloney says. “We get a lot of
these calls and more often than not every-
thing turns out all right.”
It was snowing and visibility was limit-
ed. Fog and clouds obscured the summit.
Maloney flew as close to the mountain as
he dared. “It was a white, white world,” he
says. “In conditions like that it is easy to
lose your reference point. I was concerned
I could get vertigo.”
He flew along the face and worked down
in intervals of a few hundred feet. In a
scarce window of visibility, he saw a large
pile-up of snow at the bottom of the slope.
Then, a safety officer with Parks Canada
made out a dark spot. Maloney was unable
to set down, but made four or five passes
over. Downwash from the blades exposed
the toe of a boot.
“We knew there was one fatality,” Malo-
ney says.
Conditions were so poor that it was im-
possible to retrieve the body.
Maloney saved the GPS co-ordinates.
The search team filled orange highway
cones with rocks and dropped them from
the helicopter to pinpoint the location.
Two avalanche beacons were placed in Zi-
ploc bags and dropped to the ground. The
devices use radio signals to help find the
buried. None of the climbers carried one.
Weather forced the team to turn back.
Statham called John Roskelley and told
him one climber was dead. “We still had
reason to hope one or two survived,” Ros-
kelley says. “All three had climbed much
more difficult peaks in much worse condi-
tions.” 4 "2$
$!-
"
<ccording to data collected by
Avalanche Canada, an average
of 11 people a year have been
killed in a barrage of snow and
ice in each of the past 10 years. That is the
lowest figure since the mid-1990s – and re-
markable considering the exponential in-
crease in winter backcountry use over the
past couple of decades.BROOKEANDADAMSHERIFFTOOKPARTINTHESEARCH
FORTHECLIMBERS.BROOKEISAGERMANSHEPHERD
TRAINEDFORAVALANCHERESCUES‘Ihearpeoplesayyoucandoitwhenconditions
areright,butIdisagree.Itisneversafe’WILLGADD,WHO,ALONGWITHTWOPARTNERS,WASTHEFIRST
TOREACHTHESUMMITINTHEWINTER,INDECEMBER,2002