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."
Lowe leans heavily on canes just to get around. In the climbing world, it's as if Lou Gehrig had left the game. It's like seeing Lance Armstrong on training wheels.
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.
One of his most famous climbs was on the 5,000-foot face of a peak in the Himalayas called Kwangde, 21,000 feet above sea level. In 1982, Lowe and famed filmmaker/mountaineer David Breashears spent four days climbing the face, which was covered with waterfall ice and had an average slope of 80 degrees. Their Kwangde summit is considered one of the greatest climbs in history.
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.
- Kirk Douglas classic on DVD 11:38 a.m.
- Zion fire moving southeast 11:36 a.m.
- More school-money than expected 11:24 a.m.
- Virginia 'Freedman's' project done 11:12 a.m.
- Teen relive Mormon trek 11:12 a.m.
- Oldest American to scale Mount Everest 11:07 a.m.
- Knicks sign first-round pick 10:59 a.m.
- Armstrong third, Leipheimer fourthe 10:58 a.m.
- 6.0 quake in China 10:43 a.m.
- Big Ben celebrates 150 years 10:42 a.m.
- Jazz brass debate Millsap match
- LDS seminary principal arrested
- 2 men cited on LDS plaza
- Jazz finances not quite so bleak
- HBO defends U. logo use in 'Love'
- Reactions on Boozer speculation
- Cash for Clunkers to get rolling soon
- Utahns among Texans' investors
- Man spots his stolen car
- Jazz rookies quiet Thunder youngsters
- LDS seminary principal arrested
244 - Jazz brass debate Millsap match
157 - Bronco collecting a galaxy of recruits
141 - Jazz talking Boozer trade?
139 - Blazers may offer Millsap a contract
124 - 2 men cited on LDS plaza
114 - Stadium of Fire flag burning was fake
96 - Fairness of BCS debated
81 - Chaffetz eyes challenging Bennett
76 - Letters: Single-payer system best
75
As more and more dads are put out of work in this economy, I've been...
The photographs are mysterious, brooding, dark. They show dimples and...
Hey Kent- First of all, the Stadium of Fire is NOT a BYU production. ...
Leave him where he is and make him work or pay to stay there.
And let's put the blame where it all belongs....on Hedo. If he hadn't...
Just when you think Utah could not possibly get any more ridiculous,...
To the 10:51 commentator, Did I say he should not be on the sex offender...
To CJ3: How many centers out there really are their teams toughest post...
(Justice, mercy, charity...continued from previous comment) My heart goes...
So the new disclosure rules reveal what those who understand politics have...
What Brother Pratt allegedly did was unequivocally wrong. The girl and her...
To the 10:51 commentator, There is no law defining pedophilia....


