From Everest to K2, renown climber trains in Las Vegas

Adrian Ballinger had the chance to board a plane within 72 hours and fly to Ecuador and climb a 20,000-foot mountain.

The plane ticket already was paid; all he had to do was say yes.

One problem: He was 17 and had to convince his parents not to say no.

Ballinger told them he would never get this chance again.

They said yes.

“It really set me on this path, this one-in-a-lifetime trip,” Ballinger said with a hint of sarcasm.

He has been to Ecuador more than 35 times and has reached the tops of more than 100 mountains worldwide that stand 20,000 or so feet tall. Little did he or his parents know.

Training in Las Vegas

Ballinger is one of the world’s most skilled mountain climbers, one of four Americans to summit Mount Everest and K2 without supplemental oxygen. He and his fiancee, five-time national champion rock climber Emily Harrington, have been training in Las Vegas for a big summer climb in Pakistan.

Rock climbing is not as natural to Ballinger as it is Harrington, and she has coached him through the process.

“He listens,” Harrington said. “He’s very data driven. He always wants to know why, why. Sometimes I’m like, ‘Just do it.’”

They chose Las Vegas because it’s one of the few American cities where it’s possible to rock climb in the winter. Red Rock gives them the chance to pick from more than 2,000 routes. The Fall of Man at Virgin River Gorge past the state line into Arizona offers a highly challenging and steep rock climb with Interstate 15 below, the traffic making it difficult to hear the person in charge of the rope.

“When you take falls, you take really big falls.” Ballinger said. “You’re very independent there, but many professional climbers would say that single limestone wall above the highway — it’s called the Blasphemy Wall at the Virgin River Gorge — (is) the best single wall in the entire United States for that style of climbing.”

The climb was so demanding that it took Ballinger more than 45 days to complete it.

Ballinger, 45, developed his passion for climbing after moving to Massachusetts from his native England at age 6. Ballinger often hiked New Hampshire’s White Mountains, and at 12 he tried rock climbing for the first time.

Even so, Ballinger thought he would eventually become a doctor, graduating from Georgetown and then getting accepted into its medical school.

Then came another sit-down with his parents. A one-year break, Ballinger said, and back to school. One year that has become nearly 25.

“My parents were not at the time very impressed with my decision,” Ballinger said laughing, “that I’m going to go live on peanut butter and jelly and bean burritos and climb around the world instead of go to medical school. They came around to it over the years.”

Between sponsorship and his Lake Tahoe-based expedition company that in 2019 led hikes in 38 countries on six continents, Ballinger carved out quite a career. He wants to open a Las Vegas office, but guiding permits won’t be granted at Red Rock for at least two years, forcing him to wait.

Conquering Everest, K2

Patience and perseverance are critical for mountain climbers, and Ballinger has made the summit of the world’s tallest peak eight times in 13 tries. His first attempt in 2008 at Everest came up short, but he made it to the top of the 29,032-foot peak the following year — for 45 seconds.

A member of the team quickly became disoriented with high-altitude cerebral edema, which is like severe motion sickness. A Sherpa quickly snapped a photo of Ballinger at the summit, and the team then began the descent that lasted nearly two days. The ill person recovered.

In 2010, Ballinger was invited by Sherpas to help them install the ropes on the way to the peak, and he spent 45 minutes atop Everest as the sun set. He called it “the most meaningful summit of my life.”

“Of course, it’s stunningly beautiful,” Ballinger said. “You’re looking out and seeing the entire Himalayan range and the curvature of the Earth off in the distance. It’s magical.”

Another kind of magic took place there two years later when he met Harrington at 21,000 feet. She was with another team, and he showed up with an espresso machine.

“We bonded over our love of coffee,” Ballinger said.

They chatted, swapped numbers and stayed in touch. She also made the Everest summit, taking in the view for 20 minutes.

“It’s a pretty surreal place,” Harrington said. “It’s a busy place, which is really interesting because it’s one of the most remote places in the world, or you would think that it is, but it’s actually not.”

Then there’s Everest

To scale Everest, located on the China and Nepal border, without supplemental oxygen is a rare feat, though. That’s what Ballinger accomplished in 2017. The final stretch took 23 hours, covering 2,000 vertical feet and less than a mile and a half of walking.

“If there’s anything I’m good at, I have a deep willingness to suffer,” Ballinger said. “Climbing Everest without oxygen is more like long-term pain management over months and seemingly no forward progress.”

Though not as renown at Everest, K2 is in many ways more difficult, earning the moniker “Savage Mountain.” Ballinger said the roughly extra 700 feet in altitude makes Everest more challenging, but K2 — located in northern Pakistan — is unlike anything he has experienced.

Ballinger, who reached the peak in 2019, said he would never take clients of his expedition company because it’s so dangerous given the rock and ice falls and the ongoing threat of avalanches. His own journey was disrupted by a gastrointestinal illness and a series of avalanches that sent about 95 percent of the climbers home.

His team and one other remained, and conditions improved enough to complete the trek.

“I’ll never go back to K2,” Ballinger said. “The mountain for the first month and a half, it really felt like we didn’t belong there.”

Ballinger, though, proved long ago he belonged among the elite level of mountain climbers.

He followed his passion rather than the safer route of becoming a doctor, but isn’t the difficult path what mountain and rock climbing is all about?

“You’re just never going to be that good at something if you don’t actually enjoy it,” Ballinger said. “The frustrations are going to be too great. Money is great, but money gets old.”

Contact reporter Mark Anderson at manderson@reviewjournal.com. Follow @markanderson65 on Twitter.