Because of the frigid temperatures our first year was the only year we didn’t stay out the entire two-weeks. The first night was minus 24, the second minus 21. The third night was minus 35 and the next day, although no one had frostbite, we thought it best to retreat.

The irony is the cold is not necessarily the most challenging part of cold-weather camping. Ask anyone who’s been on numerous cold-weather expeditions which is more challenging, the physical stress or the mental stress? All of them will tell you it’s the mental stress.

–

Climbing Denali

–

So, how do you keep a positive attitude when your toes are cold, you’re carrying a heavy pack and getting up after you fall is like getting a turned over turtle right-side up? A positive mental attitude starts with yourself but is buoyed by your leader and those around you.

To prepare for my climb of Denali our leaders emphasized, “Individuals should be conscious of the small things that make a big difference in personal relations under stress. Personal appearance, idiosyncrasies, habits of speech,” As the temperatures get colder, the packs get heavier, and the fatigue increases, tolerance decreases.

Regarding expedition behavior, I think it was Sig Olson, writer, environmentalist and advocate for the protection of wilderness who said, “How do you tell someone that they’re driving you crazy by the way they hold their spoon?” Another example shared by Wilderness education pioneer Paul Petzoldt tells the story of two climbers in South America getting into a fight when they couldn’t agree on how to divide their last sardine. It shouldn’t get to that.

For a variety of reasons, we never summited Denali. But because such an excellent tone was set and modeled by our leaders, and because we maintained good communications, I always considered the expedition a success.

–

European Vacation

–

I thought I had learned the lessons of Denali well. But I found out I had a lot more to learn. A year after Denali, a group of five friends and relatives thought traveling through Europe for three-months would be a breeze. But we never anticipated the stresses of group dynamics or planned for them. Within two weeks the group started to splinter and head off into different directions. Why? We couldn’t agree on how to spend what little money we had, we couldn’t agree on where to eat, and we couldn’t agree on what to eat. Essentially, we couldn’t agree on much of anything.

My Sig Olson moment came when we were riding in our VW bus, and we came to an intersection and couldn’t decide which way to go. I screamed to myself, “I don’t care if we go left or right. Just make a damn decision.” We soon headed to different countries. We didn’t regroup for over two months until we flew home.

You would have thought what I learned on Denali about group dynamics the year before, I would have readily transferred to our European trip. But while I realized how stressful climbing a mountain was, I never considered how stressful bumming through Europe could be.

–

Challenging Companions

–

Sir Ernest Shackleton, famous Antarctic explorer, intuitively knew how to deal with group dynamics. When on his 1912 expedition his ship got crushed in the ice he led his 27-man crew safely to an island, but that was only the start of their rescue. While he and five others sailed their lifeboat 600 miles for help, he had to leave twenty-one of the crew on the island. The wind and cold on the island were brutal. To increase the men on the island’s chances of survival he took the most contentious crew members on the lifeboat with him. That decision demonstrated tremendous insight into group dynamics and played a major role in the crew’s survival of over 100 days on the island.

Dealing with difficult tentmates is always a challenge. I learned the importance of open communication when reading a student journal. All our students had to keep a journal. We let them know that we would read their journals to monitor what they were learning and how they were doing. We gave them an option to keep a private journal, but few did. In one journal a student complained about his tentmate. “She takes no initiative to do anything; set up the tent, cook dinner, or clean up after dinner. She’s driving me crazy!” He went on in great detail about how terrible a tentpartner she was.

I sat down with him and asked him if he had confronted her about any of these issues. His response was, “Oh, I can’t do that. She might get mad at me.”

I thought for a moment then said “You’re miserable now because of how she’s behaving. Will you be more miserable if you confront her and she gets mad at you? What have you got to lose?”

He finally confronted her, and the relationship got much better. As a matter of fact, after the expedition they ended up sharing an apartment together.