Evan Jacobsen: A Natural High
By Elisabeth Deffner
On Dec. 27, 2006, Evan Jacobsen, 16, climbed the highest mountain peak in Australia: Mt. Kosciuszko (7,310 feet).
So did his parents, his older sisters, and his cousin.
“It’s easier than Saddleback,” says Evan, referring to the 5,687-foot peak of the Santa Ana Mountains near where he lives in Laguna Niguel, California.
Even though the mountain trails were easy, climbing Kosciuszko was a special kind of challenge. It’s one of the Seven Summits (the highest peaks on each of the seven continents). And it’s a mountain that defeated Evan the last two times he tried to climb it.
Snow in Australia?
Evan and his dad first flew to Australia during his summer vacation two years ago—not realizing that it would be winter in Australia, and that an Australian winter might be very cold indeed. They were driving about three hours north of Melbourne when they spotted a sign that read “Snowy Mountains.” They laughed. Kosciuszko is in a desert wasteland!
But then they reached the mountain and saw that the sign was no joke. The trail up to the peak of Kosciuszko was buried beneath three feet of snow.
They started up the mountain anyway, glad they’d brought their double plastic boots, hiking poles, and ice axes. But the snow grew deeper. The wind was blasting them at a speed of 100 kilometers per hour. And because of the whiteout conditions they weren’t even sure they were on the right trail.
Reluctantly they decided to turn around—without reaching the summit. It was a good decision; they later found out that a few local teens had gotten lost in the snow not long before and died on the mountain.
Evan’s first attempt to summit Kosciuszko was especially disappointing because it immediately followed a failed attempt to summit the highest mountain in Europe: Mt. Elbrus in Russia (18,549 feet).
Despite rough weather Evan and his dad had started up the Russian mountain along with a few other climbers and a guide. Evan felt the power of the winds blasting him. “I was just kind of spooked out a little,” he admits.
And then there was the fog. It was impossible to see more than three yards in front of him, so Evan couldn’t gauge how far he and his dad had progressed or how far they had left to climb. At last they decided to turn around.
“Physically, it’s not terribly challenging if you’re conditioned, which I was. I just wasn’t mentally prepared,” says Evan. “I just wanted to get out of the cloud. It was a very discouraging trip.”
Another Try
After his difficult experiences in Russia and Australia, Evan decided to work even harder to achieve his goal. Together, he and his dad started training again.
Evan plays football and wrestles for his high school, so he was used to tough physical workouts. But now he added additional training sessions to his schedule. He ran on the treadmill regu-larly. He did weight training. And he ran for 90 minutes at a time on the Stair-master—while wearing a vest that weighed 25 pounds! That was to help him get used to the weight of all the equipment he would be carrying on his climbs.
And, of course, he steered clear of drugs, alcohol, and tobacco. “I don’t do drugs because it will ruin my life,” Evan says. “It would interfere with my sports, school, family—and my goal to climb the seven summits.”
Last summer evan felt ready to attempt another of the Seven Summits.
He traveled with both his parents to Tanzania to scale Mt. Kilimanjaro (19,340 feet). For six to eight hours each day, the family climbed the mountain. Every day they felt more and more tired, but every day they kept climbing. After six days of hard work they reached Uhuru Peak, the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro.
It was everything Evan had thought it would be. The feeling of triumph and freedom he experienced at the summit was the reason he decided to pursue mountain climbing in the first place.
When he was a 10-year-old Webelos Scout, his troop climbed Mount San Jacinto. At 10,834 feet it is one of the highest mountain peaks in California. Climbing it was cool—but Evan had already done it once before with a friend and both kids’ dads.
When he was 13 years old he attended a one-week mountaineering school—the same one his father had attended a few years before in Washington. There Evan learned how to tie strong knots, how to set up tents, and how to use a climbing harness, crampons, ice axes, and other tools. And he learned different kinds of mountain climbing steps: the duck step, the sidestep, the toe kick, and the plunge. His dad attended the class with him so they were able to practice climbing together.
It wasn’t long after completing mountaineering school that Evan began planning to climb the Seven Summits. Then he got an idea to make his project even more interesting.
Summit 7
Climbing the Seven Summits is a challenge for Evan—and it’s a lot of fun. But he wants more out of this experience than just fun. He wants to help people in the countries where the mountains are located. Evan has started a nonprofit organization, Summit 7, through which people can donate money to help those who live in the target countries.
Summit 7 plans to help people in the Seven Summit countries by distributing money to organizations that already work there, like Habitat for Humanity. So far Summit 7 has raised about $30,000—enough to build five homes in Tanzania and help build homes in Russia, Australia, and Argentina. But Evan hopes to raise a lot more money so he can help a lot more people.
“They give us so much,” he says. “We want to give something back in return.”
Want to learn more? Check out Evan’s Web site at www.Summit7.org.
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