From Deseret News archives:
An uphill climb: Famed mountain climber from Ogden battling MS
Jeff Lowe, who has dug his crampons into the top of icy 23,000-foot peaks, set out for a run one day a few years ago and fell on his face.
He got up and tried to continue but couldn't coordinate the movements and bagged it for the day. In the coming months, similar symptoms became so pronounced that passers-by stared at him as he lurched down city sidewalks, and still he ignored the signs for a year. He was in denial, but he was busy, too. Who had time for a doctor?
When he finally did visit a doctor in 2001, he was forced to confront the one challenge he never wanted to meet: multiple sclerosis. Give him an ice-glazed mountain, and he could use his will and skill to scale it; but how do you attack MS? By 2004, he was forced to quit climbing completely, at 53.
"I may have had some symptoms as early as 1998 dizziness, vision problems, balance," he says. "Anyway, it's been a progression. It hasn't stopped since I first noticed it. Each year there is a considerable decline."
This is a man who made numerous climbs up sheer 8,000-foot faces in Europe, Asia and South and North America. He has climbed everything that could be climbed sheer rock walls, cliffs, frozen water falls, mountain peaks and glaciers.
He is credited with more than 1,000 first ascents, in the Alps, Dolomites, Cascades, Himalayas, Rockies, Andes. He once calculated the number of nights he had spent bivouacked in a tent on the face of a cliff; it added up to several years.
He climbed up and down the north ridge of Latok 1, a notorious 8,200-foot peak in Pakistan set at 23,000 feet above sea level, for 26 continuous days and nights, carving ledges in the ice to sleep.
He was one of the early American pioneers of alpine ice climbing (glaciers), but his biggest influence was in the frozen waterfall form of ice climbing. In the late 1960s and '70s, he made numerous landmark climbs and established new levels of technical difficulty.
Recent comments
Totally agree climing is great! Even better when you have a climbing...
jenny | April 6, 2009 at 7:22 a.m.
I met Jeff Lowe at one of his evening REI seminars while he was...
William Hooks | April 3, 2008 at 4:28 p.m.
Outdoor sports including climbing have put meaning into a lot of...
Mark Rodell | March 14, 2008 at 8:25 p.m.
- Alta leaders deny canyon subdivision 3:33 p.m.
- Adult sports leagues offered 3:19 p.m.
- Oil prices spike 3:06 p.m.
- Stocks turn higher 3:03 p.m.
- Nature's Way leaving Utah County 3:02 p.m.
- Notre Dame fires Weis 2:52 p.m.
- Daughter: Mitchell fed me my pet 2:51 p.m.
- Mansion tours begin Tuesday 2:48 p.m.
- Chaffetz: Leave Afghanistan 2:37 p.m.
- Mitchell's 'books' are coherent 2:24 p.m.
- Hall mouths off about hate of Utah
892 - Cougars beat Utes in overtime
481 - Max Hall issues apology
367 - Hall's pain reflects self-betrayal
254 - Hall reprimanded by MWC
219 - Utes won't respond to Hall
146 - BYU is champion of the state
140 - Man trapped in Nutty Putty cave dies
121 - Cave to be sealed with body inside
118 - Rivalry Week is highly profane
91
I wanted to tell them not to go. I dropped subtle hints. "My money is on...
When I was a kid, I worshipped my grandpa. He was undoubtedly my hero....
and I think Riley should play in the bowl. Max hasn't being doing well in...
so long to max as you leave your byu career as a donkey. win or lose you will...
Excellent that we have some good choices running! Lets all get behind any...
I love the trailers. To me, they are like looking at a big glossy chocolate...
The rivalry is not fun anymore. Both sides are at fault.
I agree with Mr. Chaffetz desire to obtain some definition about the U.S....
["If the gay movement only wanted their "civil rights," then a "civil union"...
There is a 6' 11 senior and two 7 plus freshman who will continue to improve...
Maybe the "Holy War" should take a two year break to let things calm down a...
Sports is the "controlled" flow of testosterone (even female sports with the...



