I remember when I first heard the term. Charley Mace and I were a couple pitches up a mellow, fun route in Clear Creek Canyon, trying unsuccessfully to outclimb thunderstorms, and talking about climbing, ego, and the like. One mutual climbing acquaintance kept coming up, one whose ego had come to define his persona, his identity, his reason for climbing.
“You know, I think he truly believes his own creation myth,” Charley said in his quiet, cutting way as he stepped out on lead. “That’s the problem.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, feeding out rope. “I’ve never heard that one before.”
Charley climbed silently for a moment, eventually pausing to explain.
"You know, he's done some great climbs, impressive, hard, big things. He got lots of praise for those, made into this godlike thing, and he chose to believe and adopt it," Charley smiled and kept climbing. "I think he then forgot what the point was, and the point became proving the creation myth, becoming it."
I've written a lot before about why we climb mountains - or at least why I do - and how it informs who I choose to share the mountains with. It’s probably unfair of me, an example of one of my many shortcomings and intolerances, but I find it unpleasant to climb with people who are doing it for an Instagram shot, a title or record, an outward ego boost of some sort. To each their own, but I prefer to spend my time in the hills with people like Charley who are there, by-in-large, for the pure, unadulterated joy of it, for the simple pleasure of climbing, pushing, seeing what can (or cannot) be done, what they can (or cannot) do, creation myth be damned.
In the climbing world, it’s been the rare few who’ve drawn my (inconsequential) admiration: John Evans, Tom Hornbein, Charlie Houston (and really all members of the 1953 K2 expedition), Teddy Norton and Howard Somervell. Charley Mace of course has a spot in there, too, along with several others. And, a new one got added just last week: Tracee Metcalfe.
Haven’t heard of Tracee before? Well, that’s understandable, as she’s flown - by choice and by circumstance - quite under the radar. Eight months ago, on October 4, 2024, Tracee reached the summit of Shishapangma, the world’s 14th highest peak at 8,027 m (26,335 ft). It was the final 8000er for Tracee, the last bits of a decade-long personal journey, and with those final steps she became the first US woman to climb all 14x 8000m peaks.
But, that’s not what impressed me. It’s Tracee’s personality: There’s no flash, no ego, no attempt to make herself be or seem something she isn’t, no creation myth to be invented or lived into. She just…is. In articles I’ve read where authors try to mold her into the climber of a generation, she gently, authentically reminds them she’s not Edurne Pasaban or Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner or Wanda Rutkiewicz, and climbs in a very different style, guided up as a client on commercial expeditions. Similarly, when criticized by social media trolls suggesting she’s not a “real alpinist,” she’ll respond calmly, saying: “I have never pretended to be in elite alpinist, but I do love climbing mountains, and this has been an amazing 10 year journey to visit the highest places in the world.”
Tracee never set out to set a record, to climb all these peaks; it just kind of…happened. She fell in love with mountains, got introduced to the high peaks as an expedition doctor, started climbing, and then never really stopped. In her words, climbing the 8000ers was a personal goal to push herself and see what she could accomplish, and to spend as much time as possible in an environment and with people she loves. There were no sponsors, no influencing, no splashy social media, just a woman with her teammates climbing and doing what she loves.
In Vail last week for a fundraising event for dZi Foundation, Tracee gave a great, humble presentation on her journey. Chatting afterward, she said, shaking her head a bit: “I was so nervous seeing you in the audience - a real climber!” I was taken aback: I’ve climbed a couple 8000ers, waddled around the mountains for decades, but haven’t been on K2 or Kangchenjunga, Annapurna or Dhaulagiri, nothing in my mind of the caliber of Tracee. If I am somehow a real climber, then she sure as hell is, too.
And, maybe - likely - that moniker of “real” is part of the illusion, the fatal error in the climber’s creation myth, that climbing is somehow about how badass you are (or are perceived to be), how fast and high you go, how hard you pull, and all the other ultimately meaningless metrics. That goes for how many 8000ers you’ve climbed as well.
In his detailed analysis of the meaning (or lack thereof) of climbing the 8000 meter peaks, Pintér László speaks of Reinhold Messner’s feats on the high peaks, writing: It's the 'how' of his performances on the 8000ers that makes him one of the greatest. I don’t disagree that “how” we do things is more important than what we do, but as I’ve argued recently, I think the bigger question at the heart of mountaineering - and of life - is why we’re doing it in the first place. Records? Fame? Fortune? Or something subtler, quieter, internal, something that defies the hubris of a creation myth?
“I am really proud of myself for doing this,” Tracee recently told 5280 Magazine.
Enough said.
