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NOTEBOOK TRAVEL & ADVENTURE A Climber’s Cure for Addiction ’s hardest-charging mountaineer summited the Tetons’ 50 highest peaks in seven days. But his greatest feat may be helping adventure athletes kick opioids. by GORDY MEGROZ

Burke, in the lead (and below), makes his way up ’s with a friend.

YAN BURKE EMERGES from his This is not Burke’s first feat. In 2012, sleeping bag at 3 o’clock in the morn- he ran up and down the 13,775-foot Grand R ing. After three days in Wyoming’s Teton in three hours and 35 minutes. (It Teton Range, his limbs are brown with dust takes most people two days.) The follow- and marred with cuts and scrapes. He takes ing year he set the record for the Picnic, an a few bites of a cold breakfast burrito and unofficial race made up of a 21-mile bike ride shoulders his pack, wincing as he picks up from Jackson to Jenny Lake, a 1.3-mile swim the 40-pound bag. “Oof,” he says. “It’s not across the lake, then 10 miles of trail running light.” Though he’s slept only five hours, he to the top of — and then doing seems energized. “Let’s do this,” he says, the whole course in reverse. He completed it flicking on his headlamp to set off for the in 11 hours and 30 minutes. summit of 12,326-foot Teewinot Mountain. But this outing has been much more diffi- It’s a Tuesday in late August, and Burke, cult. He began on the north end of the range, who’s 34 and lives in nearby Jackson, has where the Tetons are thick with bushes and been climbing nearly nonstop for the past 72 scree, loose rocks that slide beneath your feet. hours. Teewinot will be the 18th ascent he’s “I’vebeenfallingfivetimesaday,” hesays. made since Saturday. His goal is to climb to “I’d make it two feet up and then slide back- the top of the most prominent 50 peaks of the ward a foot.” On day two on , Teton Range — 102 miles and 112,000 feet while unroped, he ripped a microwave-size of elevation gained and lost — in one con- boulder from an overhang 800 feet above the tiguous push. It’s never been done, and Burke ground. He saved his life by latching on to believes he can do it in seven days. another rock and holding on with just his

MEN’S JOURNAL32 DECEMBER 2016 photographs by ANDY BARDON TRAVEL & ADVENTURE

fingertips. Smoke from forest fires 20 miles Oluptae. Tibeatem away is also causing Burke to cough up a aut alis am am enis “weird yellow mucus” each morning. mod endi ofcab What makes Burke’s traverse seem even ipsandi tectur si more improbable is that he’s not a profes- aborehe ntium, sional mountaineer. During the week, he worksasadrugandalcoholrehabcounselor, trying to curb Jackson Hole’s growing opioid problem. The drugs have become a scourge Drills like just about everywhere in the country, but underwater knot mountain towns like Jackson are uniquely tying, Burke believes, help affected. They’re home to oft-injured adven- addicts develop ture athletes — skiers, climbers, and bikers — coping methods. who tend to follow a similar pattern: They get hurt, have surgery, and are placed on pre- scription opioids; when those opioids run climbers fell to their deaths from here, but country ski tours, Spackman would patiently out, the athletes often turn to cheaper, more Burke strides like an Olympic speed walker. wait for Burke to catch up. “Early on, he readily available heroin to scratch that itch. He’ll summit another six peaks today, includ- took me skiing on and I fell way “Adventure athletes are kind of always on ing Grand Teton, which looms in front of him. behind,” Burke recalls. “He could’ve become a high,” says Burke. “So when they can’t jump After a final scramble to the pinpoint tip of irritated and never called me again, but he off a anymore to get that high, drugs are Teewinot, I ask why he does it. “To test my didn’t. He saw potential in me.” there to replace it.” limits,” he says. “To see what my potential is.” For Burke, mountaineering was a healthy In 2014, local authorities reported a 30 way to get his endorphin hit. And, eventually, percent increase in heroin-related seizures RYAN BURKE COULD easily have been a vic- he became good at it. “I don’t have an incred- in Tahoe, Nevada; from 2013 to 2015, there tim of the heroin epidemic. He grew up in ible VO2 max or anything,” he says. “But I don’t were almost 40 deaths in Boulder, Colorado, Rumford, Maine, a working-class town whose get tired.” After setting the record for the Pic- due to heroin overdose. And in tiny Jackson, primary industry — paper mills — shrouds nic, the modified triathlon up Grand Teton, police report dozens of opiod-related inci- the vicinity in a distinct odor. “It smells like Burke played in a pickup soccer game later that dents in the past year. This summer, Burke shit,” Burke says. He lived with his single day, and “that’s when I knew I hadn’t hit my devised a long-term outpatient program, mother in a trailer park and spent most of his limit,” he says. “I decided the only way to do which he calls the Mind Strength Project, to youth around family, some of whom suffered that was to make up my own challenges.” help addicts by pairing intense exercise rou- from drug and alcohol addictions. After high But in 2013, tragedy struck. While ski- tines with cognitive challenges — say, tying school, he took out a loan and enrolled at New ing in Grand Teton National Park, Spack- a climber’s knot while holding your breath York’s Hamilton College, where he says he man was killed in an avalanche. “It was the underwater. Burke hopes the program will was the biggest drinker in his class and saw hardest thing that ever happened to me,” says “rewire drug addicts’ brains so that they’re a future in which things would get worse. “I Burke. He left Jackson for eight months, “to producing a natural dopamine high.” was headed down a road of substance abuse,” do some soul-searching” — and spent that As we make our way up Teewinot, Burke he says. Instead, he turned to athletics. time climbing mountains in Nepal, Thai- shows no sign of fatigue. Last summer, two When Burke graduated, in 2004, he helped land, Vietnam, Laos, and China. “Death start a nonprofit called makes you pretty introspective,” he says. Coast to Coast for Hope, “Athletic pursuits are often about you, and On the peaks of his which solicited money for I wanted to do something that took some traverse, Burke cancer research. He raised focus off me and put it on helping others.” dispersed $40,000 riding his bike Burke’s mother had been a drug counselor, the ashes of his close friend Jarad across the country. He also and he appreciated the way she made people Spackman, who fell in love with Jackson feelsafe—nomatterwhatthey’ddoneinthe died in an avalanche. along the way. After the ride past. It was similar to the way Spackman had was over, he packed up his made him feel in the mountains. “I decided I car and moved to the Tetons. wanted to be a counselor,” he says. In 2007, he met Jarad When Burke began thinking about how Spackman, a Jackson he could help, he drew from his own expe- native who was active in riences. He used the physical and mental the climbing, mountain- stresses of climbing mountains — and the eering, and backcountry- rush it induces — to stay off drugs. Perhaps skiing communities. Burke he could devise a program that mimicked was anxious to learn how those highs, and help addicts kick their habit. to do all these things. The A few weeks before Burke set out on this two began spending several Teton traverse, he was working with 12 of his days a week together, and patients at the Mountain Tactical Institute, a Spackman slowly taught gym that trains pro athletes and loans him its Burke how to negotiate the facility. As the group ran between circuits of mountains, encouraging wall climbing, sandbag lifts, and shuttle runs, him to try harder routes on Burke challenged their mental fortitude by climbing trips. On back- blowing whistles and throwing rubber balls

DEC EMBE R 2016MEN’S JOURNAL 34 DECEMBER 2016MEN’S at them. This is the testing ground for his BURKE HOPES TO turepedic. The end is near, and thoughts of a vision. If it shows promise, the goal is it may warm shower and pizza bring a second wind. serve as a model for other drug-ridden towns. “REWIRE DRUG He’s also motivated by thinking about his “I can’t say right now that this program is ADDICTS’ BRAINS patients. “You can see the look in their eyes going to save the world,” says Trudy Funk, in the gym, like they’ve accomplished some- executive director at the Curran-Seeley SO THAT THEY’RE thing,” he says as he tiptoes over more scree. Foundation, the drug and alcohol rehab PRODUCING “Maybe this is something they can aspire to.” clinic where Burke works. “But we’re hope- A NATURAL Atop the knife-edge summit of Rendez- ful that this helps teach them how to think vous Peak, Burke peers out and spots a few clearly when faced with taking drugs. And DOPAMINE HIGH.” couloirs he likes to ski. “Jarad showed me we’ll continue to look into how well it might all of this,” he says. “I wouldn’t be up here if work to keep people off drugs.” it wasn’t for him.” I ask if this is it — has he Danny is one of the first lab rats. Making found his limit? “I thought so,” he says. “But his way up a wall climb, Danny looks down ON DAY SEVEN of the traverse, I meet Burke there’s still a sense of yearning.” and shakes the pain out of one of his hands. at the top of Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. Seventeen miles and five peaks later, we “This is gonna kill me,” he says. Danny, an He’s gaunt, having lost 10 pounds over the approach the final summit, appropriately avid snowboarder, is 24 with short blond hair. course of the week; his gray shorts are tat- named . “Holy shit!” Burke He looks like an all-American kid — which he tered; the rubber on the bottom of his shoes shouts. He sprints to the top and spikes his was. Then he broke his arm in eighth grade, has almost completely worn off, and he’s pack like a football. “That’s a long fucking was placed on opioids, and became addicted developed a powerful stench. The past few way.” He pulls a plastic baggie from his pocket to heroin. Despite years of traditional therapy, days have been rough. He encountered a and sits on a rock. The baggie contains ashes — he relapsed 10 months ago. snowstorm on and 65-mile-per- Spackman’s ashes — and Burke has spread While Danny stands on a balance ball hour winds on the north face of the Grand, some of them on each of the peaks he’s sum- trying to find the differences between two and he didn’t sleep one night because he was mited. “I wanted to share the experience with pictures, I ask if he thought Burke’s uncon- freezing. “Every step feels like I’m going up him,” he says, “to show him what I’d become.” ventional therapy was working. “I think it’s Everest,” he says as he shovels spoonfuls He takes a handful from the bag, pushes a exactly what I needed,” he says. “When I was of Nutella into his mouth. clenched fist into his lowered forehead, and active in my addiction, I avoided confronta- But as we leave, Burke begins to jog, leap- whispers to himself. After a minute, he looks tion and problems. Now I’m able to face those ing over logs and boulders as though he’s up and lets out a big sigh. Then he tosses the things. I don’t feel scared anymore.” just spent a restful night on his Sealy Pos- ashes into the wind. n

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