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Carlos Buhler
Mountaineer
Carlos Buhler’s climbing resume is a long,
long list of some of the world’s most challenging
mountains: Everest, Ama Dablam, Cho Oyu. He is the
man Climbing Magazine called “the most accomplished
North American climber in the Himalaya,” but
the first mountain he lists on his resume is none
other than Pyramid Peak in Wyoming, Buhler’s
first mountain ascent. He climbed to the summit at
age 15 while a student on a Wind River Wilderness
course with NOLS in 1970.
Buhler still remembers the NOLS course that would
ultimately change his life. “That was a wonderful
experience for me to reach the top of something,”
he says. “I remember that rocky scree-field
going up to the top; it was beautiful and really made
an impression on me.” Buhler also remembers
the first time he tried to lead a climb on that course
and placed a piece of protection upside down in the
rock. That, he says, was the beginning of a long career
learning and climbing.
From Alaska to Tadzhikistan, Buhler has gone on
to climb not only the hardest mountains, but also
the hardest routes on the hardest mountains, oftentimes
on light-weight, high-altitude expeditions with just
a few climbers. A New York Times article once called
him a “super-alpinist,” and in his 30-year
mountaineering career he has no doubt earned the title.
His first ascent of the Tibet Kangshung East Face
of Everest is still unrepeated and remains one of
the most technically demanding routes on the mountain.
In 1988, he joined an ultra-light team to make the
first American ascent of Kangchenjunga, the third-highest
peak in the world, via the North Wall. On Changabang
in 1998, along with a team of Russians, he established
one of the most difficult routes ever done at that
altitude. Imagine all of this in a high-stakes field
of expeditioning where, according to Buhler, only
10-15 percent of difficult ascents in Asia succeed
and about one out of every 30 climbers dies each year
trying.
At his home in Bozeman, Montana, Buhler prefers
to talk about the philosophical side of climbing rather
than the fame he’s reached in the mountaineering
world. Climbing, he says modestly, is just a way for
him to do all the things he’s always been searching
for. Today he combines a climbing career with a consulting
business, Buhler Alpine Professionals, which sends
him out speaking to groups about how the lessons of
climbing can be brought home to everyday life.
Philosophical by nature, it’s obvious that
Buhler hasn’t stopped learning since that first
experience on a mountain with NOLS. “When I
take risks in climbing,” he once wrote, “I
can carry some things back into my life as a non-climber;
a new set of problem-solving techniques; an enhanced
appreciation for another culture; an insight into
the strengths of a friend; or a shift, however slight,
in the way I look at my own resources and ability
to improve the world. The higher the risk, the more
I want to come away having learned something.”
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