Renowned mountain climber Graham Zimmerman grew up in Edmonds, Washington, where a childhood subscription to National Geographic sparked his interest in tall peaks in faraway lands. But it was in the Cascades where he got his first taste of the real thing.
“I remember my initial climbs in the Cascades being times when I was hungry, and cold, and tired and scared, I remember getting badly sunburned,” Zimmerman said. “I don't actually remember on some of those initial climbs, having that much fun."
And yet, he said there was something about the challenge and difficulty the mountains presented that kept pulling him back and eventually led him to pursue a career in climbing. He has scaled some of the highest peaks in the world. In 2010, he was named the New Zealand Alpinist of the Year, and in 2020, he was awarded the Piolet d’Or, one of mountain climbing’s highest honors.
Zimmerman visited KNKX's Seattle studio to discuss his memoir – A Fine Line: Searching for Balance Among Mountains. A recurring theme in the book is balancing his drive to achieve lofty goals in an extreme sport with the need to avoid unnecessary risks. For Zimmerman, that has a lot to do with the climbing partners he chooses.
“I don't want to go to the mountains with people who are totally risk averse, because that will keep us in basecamp the whole time,” Zimmerman said. “But at the same time, we need to go into those environments with a lot of caution. And we need to go into them with a vision for survival”
Interview Highlights
On the trip that led him to climate change advocacy
I went and tried a new route on K2, or as the locals call it Chogori, which is the second highest peak on the planet. A place where, to be honest, I had kind of thought it would still be cold up there. I'd still thought it was a place that I could go and be safe from at least the worst of the impacts of climate.
And we were at about 23,000 feet on the West Ridge, climbing in alpine style, under gorgeous skies, no wind, it was perfect weather for climbing, except it was too hot. And I'll share that 23,000 feet is kind of an altitude where you're starting to think about putting on the big puffy suit, you see photos of folks up on those high peaks, and they're wearing the full down suit. And that's generally a place where it's starting to get pretty dang cold. And instead, we were up there and it was 14 degrees Celsius, or in the mid-40s Fahrenheit.
We failed to climb the West Ridge of K2 not because of a storm, not because of our fitness, not because of our equipment, but because of climate change.
And that was a pretty wild moment. And it was a moment in which I was really forced to face up to the fact that this is something that is not going away; this is something that I'm going to have to work on for the rest of my life. And I really doubled down on my work in that space.
On whether future generations will be able to enjoy the mountains as he has
So when I started into the climate advocacy space, we were talking about high altitude and high latitude parts of the world. And how we were seeing changes in those areas that were very indicative of how big an impact climate change was having on the world around us. And we would talk about how at some point, this will show up at our front door. And we need to take this on so that we can mitigate that.
Over the last five years or so, it really feels like that has changed. The impacts of wildfires and wildfire smoke on the American West — the impacts of wildfire smoke across the country, and across the globe. The impacts of increased hurricanes, less predictability in those storms, water scarcity, heat problems, all these things are climate change showing up in our communities.
What that means is that the climate change conversation is moving away from one of just being an environmental issue, and it is very quickly turning into a community health issue, and a social equity issue. And something that is having dramatic impacts on our communities throughout the year. And for me that just really increases the urgency of this work.
Zimmerman's book A Fine Line: Searching for Balance Among Mountains was published in 2023. He and his wife Shannon and their dog Pebble call Bend, Oregon home.
Produced with assistance from the Public Media Journalists Association Editor Corps funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people.
