High Altitude Leadership: What the World's Most Forbidding Peaks Teach Us About Success

Chapter 4. Danger #4 ARROGANCE

Don't reach the peak but miss the point.

—Dan Jenkins, climber and guide

Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make proud.

—Sophocles

Location: Ama Dablam, Nepal

On the most beautiful mountain in Nepal, a vertical spine slices the imposing West Face from bottom to top. To the trained eye of a climber, it is the most dramatic feature on the mountain, but one that remained unclimbed until we showed up.

The mountain is Ama Dablam, and its West Face is legendary. The first team to attempt it, led by Peter Hillary (his father was the first to summit Mount Everest), ended when an avalanche crushed one climber, tearing him from the mountain. When he came tight on the rope, he plucked his partner off the wall. Tumbling, ...