\n
\n
<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
By Sara Ann Hutto \u201917<\/b>
\nPhotography by Dallas Glass \u201903<\/b> & Josh Wilson<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div><\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
Dallas Glass \u201903,\u00a0avalanche forecaster and mountain guide, has lived the mountaineer\u2019s dream: summiting Mount Everest.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> Thelonious Monk\u2019s \u201cEverything Happens to Me\u201d is playing on repeat in Dallas Glass\u2019s mind. It\u2019s the middle of the night. The snow around him is illuminated only by the small pool of light shed by his headlamp. In front of him is a drawn-out string of slow-moving climbers. Some are clients, some Sherpa, each marked with a dot of light. Beyond, there\u2019s nothing but the stretching shadow of Lhotse Face. His breaths are shallow, digits freezing. Glass is on Mount Everest, and he has put his body on autopilot as he trudges through the thin air. The rhythm of the jazz music keeps him moving. He doesn\u2019t have to think about setting the metal spikes of his crampons in the ice; he just does it. Slow and steady.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> BASE CAMP<\/b> Khumbu Icefall<\/b> Western Cwm<\/b> “[Dallas] also doesn\u2019t seem to have the need to prove anything to anyone. He does this all because of his passion for the outdoors \u2014 a quality that will keep him alive in a dangerous profession.”<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>
\n
\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
\n
\n
<\/div><\/div><\/div>
\n
\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/clemson.world\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Base-Camp-Coordinates-1.png\")
<\/a>
\nSagarm\u0101th\u0101. Chomolungma. Zh\u016bm\u00f9langma F\u0113ng. Everest. In March 2017, Glass was at the foot of the 29,035-foot peak at South Base Camp in Nepal about to embark on his first Everest climb as a guide with International Mountain Guides \u2014 alongside three other guides, two expedition leaders, about 50 Sherpa and 23 clients between them. Every year, thousands of climbers visit Base Camp, which sits at 17,598 feet, but most don\u2019t continue up the mountain. For Glass and his team, it was only the beginning.
\nThe first time Glass ever clipped into a climbing rope was when he was a teenager in rural Alabama. He\u2019d grown up outside, hunting and fishing with his father and grandfather, but there weren\u2019t a lot of rock-climbing opportunities \u2014 until he went to a Boy Scout camp in the southern Appalachians. \u201cThere\u2019s a wood-framed tower there that they had you climb, and that\u2019s where I was really first exposed to climbing,\u201d he says.
\nBefore long, Glass was working after school at a climbing gym that opened in Birmingham, where he was mentored by the gym\u2019s owner, a well-known Alabaman climber at the time by the name of Maurice Reed. Glass was climbing at least once a week in those days, but it never occurred to him that his hobby could become a career path.
\nBorn into a die-hard Auburn family, Glass says it was all but assumed he would go there for college. But he gives his parents credit: They wanted him to choose Auburn rather than go there by default. So one fall, the family made a trip to Clemson to watch a football game against Wake Forest and tour the forestry department. At the end of the weekend, Glass was sold.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re driving back through Atlanta, and I\u2019m terrified to talk to my parents because I really wanted to go to Clemson,\u201d he says. \u201cMy dad just looks at me as we\u2019re driving, and I won\u2019t ever forget this conversation because he started it with, \u2018What will it take for you not to go to Clemson?\u2019\u201d
\nGlass thought for a moment before answering, \u201cI want a senior trip. I want to go ice climbing in Canada, and I want all the gear.\u201d
\n\u201cDone,\u201d was his father\u2019s reply.
\nIn the end, Glass couldn\u2019t bring himself to take the deal. \u201cI had to go to Clemson,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>
\n
\n
<\/div><\/div><\/div>
\n
\n
<\/div><\/div><\/div>
\n
\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
\n
\n
<\/div><\/div><\/div>
\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/clemson.world\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Khumbu-Icefall-Coordinates.png\")
<\/a>
\nAfter leaving Base Camp, the first major climbing phase of Everest is the Khumbu Icefall, essentially a frozen waterfall tumbling slowly down the southwestern side of the mountain.
\n\u201cThe Khumbu Icefall is super fun,\u201d Glass says. \u201cIt\u2019s got ladders and steep sections, and then you rappel and walk over these knife edges with like 200-foot chasms next to you.\u201d
\nThe danger, he explains, comes less from the chasms and more from the possibility of the icefall calving blocks of ice, \u201cand you\u2019re talking about something that\u2019s the size of an office building and that weighs thousands and thousands of tons.\u201d
\nGlass is no stranger to the threat of natural disasters \u2014 or close calls.
\nWhen he was at Clemson pursuing forestry, he spent mornings in the classroom and afternoons in the Clemson Experimental Forest, but his climbing expeditions were few and far between. There were, however, a few memorable trips with his roommates, Drew Witt and Greg Darley, one of which brought Glass face to face with an avalanche.
\n\u201cWe would just come up with ridiculous things to go do,\u201d he remembers. \u201cWe decided one spring break that we were going to go climb Longs Peak in Rocky Mountain National Park.\u201d
\nDuring the climb, the weather was brutal. After making it partway up the peak, they crawled up to a famous notch in the side of Longs Peak known as the \u201cKeyhole\u201d and took refuge.
\n\u201cThe winds were ripping so hard that I couldn\u2019t even stand up,\u201d Glass says. Looking across the valley at the surrounding 13- and 14,000-foot peaks, his eye caught on a massive cloud rushing down one of the slopes. He was witnessing an avalanche.
\n\u201cWe were like, \u2018Oh my gosh, this is so cool!\u2019\u201d he continues wryly. \u201cAt no point were we thinking, \u2018If there\u2019s an avalanche there, there could be an avalanche here.\u2019 No, no, no. That didn\u2019t cross our brains.\u201d
\nThey never summited Longs Peak, but Glass will remember that climb for other reasons. \u201cWe probably should have died on that trip because we just didn\u2019t know what we didn\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>
\n
\n
<\/div><\/div><\/div>
\n
\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/clemson.world\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Western-Cwm-Coordinates.png\")
<\/a>
\nAfter the team topped out of the Khumbu Icefall, they came into an area known as the Western Cwm, a flat glacier surrounded by walls of towering peaks: Everest, Lhotse, Nuptse. By then, they were in sight of Camp II, a few orange dots at the end of the cwm. They had to reach the camp by sunrise. If they didn\u2019t, the sun would roast them in the thin atmosphere.
\nLike the Khumbu Icefall, this area is prone to ice calving, when blocks of ice slough off of the larger glacier. It isn\u2019t likely, but it\u2019s possible. According to Glass, the technical term for a place with low-likelihood events and very high consequences is a \u201cwicked learning environment\u201d \u2014 an environment where you can make a bad decision without negative repercussions.
\nIn areas like the Khumbu Icefall or the Western Cwm, there wasn\u2019t much the team could do to save themselves from ice calving. \u201cYou have to simply accept the risk,\u201d Glass says. But in other environments, it\u2019s possible to make mistakes without realizing it.
\nFor example, an experienced skiier might decide to go skiing in the backcountry (not in a managed ski resort). The skier ventures into an area on the slopes that\u2019s at risk of producing a slab avalanche, when an unstable layer of snow breaks away from the snow pack. They get lucky and go on their way without incident, but they\u2019re oblivious to the fact that they made a bad decision.
\nFor Glass and other mountain professionals, it\u2019s all about risk management in wicked learning environments. Once off the mountain, they systematically try to differentiate between when good decisions were made and when luck was on their side.
\n\u201cWhen I\u2019m entering the mountains, when I\u2019m skiing, when I\u2019m climbing, I sit down, and I have a formal process that I walk through to make sure that I\u2019m critically assessing key pieces of information,\u201d Glass says. \u201cBecause the alternative to that, which a lot of people do, is rolling the dice. And because it\u2019s a low-likelihood situation, they\u2019re probably going to be fine. I just don\u2019t really like playing Russian roulette.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/div><\/div><\/div>
\n
\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/clemson.world\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Lhotse-Face-Coordinates.png\")
<\/a>
<\/div><\/div><\/div>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/clemson.world\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/South-Col-Coordinates.png\")
<\/a>
<\/div><\/div><\/div>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/clemson.world\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/South-Summit-Coordinates.png\")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/clemson.world\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Summit-Coordinates.png\")
<\/a>
<\/div><\/div><\/div>