CHAD KELLOGG WAS ONE OF ALPINISM’S MOST ACTIVE PRACTITIONERS, BEATING CANCER AND TACKLING HIS OWN AMBITIONS ON HIS QUEST TO BECOME THE FITTEST AND FASTEST THETIMEKEEPER CLIMBER IN THE WORLD > BY ANDY ANDERSON 01:OO / 02:00 / 03:00 / 04:00 / 05:00 > 06:00 > 07:00 / 08:00 / 09:00 10:00 / 11:00 > 12:00 / 01:00 / 02:00 03:00 > 04:00 / COLIN HALEY RACHEL SPITZER Kellogg about midway up the Northeast Buttress of Mount Slesse (V 5.9), one of the 50 Classic Climbs, and first done by Fred Beckey, Eric Bjornstad and Steve Kellogg on Cerro Torre with Colin Haley in 2013. Marts, in 1963. 58 | NOVEMBER 2015 / ROCKANDICE.COM ROCKANDICE.COM / NOVEMBER 2015 | 59 01:OO / 02:00 / 03:00 / 04:00 / 05:00 > 10:00 / 11:00 > 12:00 / THE TINY ROOM IN EL CHALTÉN, ARGENTINA was dark when Chad Kellogg snuck in at 3 a.m., but his Washington for visits to save money. climbing partner Jens Holsten felt an unsettled energy In December of 1991, he was a forerunner reverberate through the space. The two were packed and ready for the 1992 Olympic trials, but fell short of the time cut-off for making the team. For the next to hike into the mountains in the morning, and for a guy like two years, he traveled on the Junior World Cup Kellogg, with a near religious devotion to training, maintenance circuit, becoming one of the fastest starters on and rest, the late arrival was out of character. the national team. The night before the trials for the 1994 Olympics, his then girlfriend Their trip so far had been marked by and he had rough plans to leave for Nepal in dumped him. The next day, he missed the cut- unrelenting storms and poor conditions—a March, just a few weeks after coming home off by fractions of a second. grim season even by Patagonian standards. from Patagonia. “I could picture myself on the award stand Marginal windows had allowed them attempts He and Jens ran a few final errands and accepting the gold medal,” Kellogg later told at Exocet on Cerro Standhardt and the Kellogg e-mailed his friend Dan back in Seattle the Tacoma News Tribune, which in 2004 Supercanaleta on Fitz Roy, but they had to arrange a flower delivery to Mandy. He ran a profile of him as a climber. “When I been beaten back by storms. With only a few would be in the mountains on Valentine’s Day. didn't make it, I thought I had wasted seven weeks remaining in the trip and the climbing He tucked a pinch of tobacco under his years of my life.” season, the forecast showed four days of lower lip, and the two shouldered their packs The team invited him to stay in Lake Placid stable high pressure with no wind—the best for the long walk into Niponino base camp. and train for the 1998 Olympics, but Kellogg weather in three months. The gnarled beech trees still swayed in the was burned out. The plan was to climb the Afanasseif on last winds of the dissipating storm, and they “He felt like he hadn’t gotten the breaks Fitz Roy. At nearly 5,000 feet, it was one of talked about Kellogg’s dilemma. that he wanted to get, that he needed to get,” the longest climbs in the range, but with “There’s just not enough time, Jens,” Ric says. much easy scrambling and moderate, low- Kellogg said. With dwindling funds and his next shot angle climbing, it should fall quickly to the As they crossed the glacier into the Torre nearly four years away, he left his sled in a experienced alpinists. And maybe, just Valley, where toothy granite spires reared up Lake Placid storage unit and hitchhiked back maybe, the weather would hold long enough on both sides, Kellogg grew quiet and focused to Washington for good. for them to regroup and climb a route on the on the goal at hand, as he had done so many Kellogg on the first fair-means Torre massif. times before. Life back home would have to (without Maestri bolts) ascent Kellogg and Holsten had big plans for wait—the clock was ticking. of the Corkscrew link-up of the Back IN SEATTLE, the 23-year- the future, and had recently been awarded Southeast Ridge and South old Kellogg searched for direction without a grant for Labuche Kang III in Tibet and Face of Cerro Torre, in 2013. the rigid structure his training for the luge Lunang Ri in Nepal. They had attempted a Chad LEWIS KELLOGG was had provided. Now that he was living near the number of serious climbs in their two years born in 1971 in Omak, Washington, a short tribal lands and thousands of Kenyans living “He might have gotten some inspiration from became captivated by a luge race on TV. An ad Cascades, climbing rapidly began to fill the as regular partners, but the only successes drive from his parents’ home in the Methow in mud huts. Kellogg’s first climb was up the the dog,” says Ric. “Not to be too confined.” ran across the screen, calling those interested void left by his unrealized Olympic dreams. He they had shared were a major traverse and a Valley. Ric and Peggy Kellogg were pastors at large blue gum eucalyptus in the backyard. He was outgoing and loved to play with to try out for a Junior Olympic training camp, moved into a house with some snowboarding climb of Dragontail Peak, both back home in an Assembly of God church and began taking Life in Kisumu was rife with objective other kids, and was driven and competitive in a kind of feeder program to cultivate future friends, grew his hair out and got a job at the the Cascades. Their friendship and ambition their new son into the nearby North Cascades hazard. Hawks and small leopard-like genet both sports and the classroom. Olympians. Kellogg was incredibly athletic REI in Seattle's Capitol Hill area. were strong, but their partnership needed when he was only a few months old. In 1973, cats crept into the yard in pursuit of the “If he couldn’t be the top achiever, he and had dabbled in organized sports—he’d “He was probably raising and selling pot,” validation, and they both felt the pinch. they were called away as missionaries, and family chickens. Down by the lakeshore, wanted to do something else,” says Peggy. lettered in golf and played basketball, soccer says Ric. “Our good kitchen scale disappeared “Noticed you came in pretty late,” Holsten the young family moved to Kisumu, Kenya, a hippos and crocodiles lurked. Intense dry The Kelloggs spent time hiking and camping and baseball—but his independent nature about that time.” said when they both woke. Kellogg confessed small port city on the shore of Lake Victoria. lightning storms occasionally crackled in the Cascades, and also began skiing. For clashed with a traditional team approach. After years of living by hundredths of that he had spent much of the previous night The family’s home was a stone’s throw from over the parched landscape to the east. The the middle-class family, the passion required In the luge, he saw a sport that provided a second, Kellogg found in climbing the in a cramped phone booth, talking with his the city limits, beyond which lay untitled Kelloggs once found a spitting cobra in Chad’s some sacrifices. the kind of adrenaline and introspection he freedom to experience the world on his own girlfriend, Mandy. playhouse, and later a green mamba curled up “Why do we always drive beater cars?” the thrived on, and required the kind of focus and terms. He dedicated summers to building For years Kellogg’s life had been a under his crib. boys asked. “Why can’t we get a nice one?” determination he knew he possessed. his alpine resume on remote mountains in continuous and often chaotic series of major By the time the family moved back to “Do you want to ski?” was Ric’s standard He flew to Los Angeles, and after a series the North Cascades, and shoulder seasons to alpine climbing expeditions, often financially AFTER YEARS Washington in 1980, Kellogg had a new reply. of tryouts on a wheeled luge course, he was living in a cave behind Camp 4 and ticking off jerry-rigged with just enough work as a younger brother, Shawn, and a quite different When Chad was in high school, a climber selected for the program. After his first walls in Yosemite. In the winter, he’d return contractor in Seattle to fund the next plane OF LIVING BY world-view than the kids in his grade-school and carpenter named Dan Waters rented an quarter at UW that fall, he put school on hold to Washington to snowboard. ticket. But a part of him had always yearned HUNDREDTHS classroom. He came home frustrated that unfinished basement room in the family’s and moved to Lake Placid, New York, to train During a trip to Joshua Tree in 1996, for a more traditional existence—to have a OF A SECOND, no one believed his wild stories about life in house. Pinching pennies to save for his next full time. Kellogg, then 25, ran into Mike Gauthier, an wife, kids, a home base—and that feeling Kenya. He felt like an outsider, stunned by how climbing trip, Waters would finish a contracting Kellogg trained with an ex-pat Russian old friend from Washington who was working sometimes conflicted with his strong desire KELLOGG FOUND different life was in the States.