29029 Snowbasin #2 Recap

Welcome to the Grit Party

By 29029 Everesting

September 1^st, 2022

What does it take to Everest a mountain?

An elite level of fitness? Bulletproof motivation? The lungs and legs of a professional athlete?

Sure, all those things can help, but you don’t need them.

To climb 29,029 vertical feet you only need a single thing.

All you need to climb a mountain 13 times is grit.

Grit is the #1 indicator of future success

What exactly is grit?

It’s perseverance.

It’s passion.

It gives you the ability to dig deep.

It gives you the ability to achieve your wildest dreams.

Grit is the number one indicator of future success. If you want something, you have to walk the path that takes you there, regardless of what obstacles stand in your way.

If you want the Red Hat, you need to walk the path up the mountain 13 times.

The grit jar

Grit isn’t a skill, it’s an attitude. Everybody can have it if they want it.

Grit is about having a persistent, tenacious, resilient, driven, consistent attitude. Those attitudes live deep down inside all of us - you just have to open your grit jar and let them out.

And the beauty of that is once that jar is open, you can’t close it. Once you let those attitudes out, guess what? You’re gritty.

And because you’re gritty, you’re going to achieve so much more.

All 272 people on the mountain displayed grit in spades. Here are just a few of those stories.

Box of grit

Most people have a jar of grit, but Tonk prefers a grit box.

You couldn’t miss him on the slopes - he was climbing all of his ascents with a massive ShelterBox on his back.

13 times he climbed the loose, rocky slopes of Snowbasin, and 13 times, he reached the top, took the ShelterBox off for a brief respite, and loaded it into the gondola for the ride down.

Tonk did this for himself, but he also did this for a cause much bigger. ShelterBox provides disaster relief aid to those who need help most. Much like Tonk, ShelterBox goes the extra mile, giving aid to those even in the most hard-to-reach areas after disasters strike.

With such a bulletproof why, and a healthy dose of grit, it was inevitable that Tonk would pull on the Red Hat.

Asking for help

Steph hit the mountain with the support of a loving husband and kids. Having loved ones cheer you on is always a boost when it comes to climbing a mountain.

But even that well intentioned support and love isn’t enough to get you all the way - you still need a little dose of grit.

At 3:45 am, it didn’t look like Steph was going to make it. Although there was still a day of climbing left, she could feel deep fatigue settling in. Some might think that asking for help is a sign you don’t have grit, but the 29029 community knows otherwise.

Asking for help takes grit.

In desperation, she texted Coach Brent, asking him to help her come up with a plan.

He encouraged her, provided some wisdom, and hiked an ascent with her. He gave her the space to let her grit show, and that was all she needed.

Steph kept climbing the mountain, husband and kids screaming out encouragement from the gondola above.

In the late afternoon, Steph pulled on the Red Hat - the same Red Hat she had almost given up on achieving that same morning.

Grit.

Running the clock out

At 4:50 pm, time was running out. Kimberly had 12 ascents completed, but that wasn’t enough for her. She wanted that Red Hat.

10 minutes before the start line closed, Kimberly started climbing the mountain a 13th time with Coach Chris.

The pace was fast - it needed to be - and with 35 hours of mountain fatigue in her body, it was taking a toll.

At the final aid station, Kimberly laid in the dirt, eyes closed, clearly suffering.

“If you want this, we have to leave now.”

Her eyes still closed, body a heap in the dust, Kimberly’s reply came quick: “I want it.”

She ran. She speed-walked. She hobbled. A mix of all three saw her round the bend in sight of the finish line with just 5 minutes left on the clock.

With the 29029 community roaring in encouragement, they cheered her across the line with just seconds to spare.

Grit.

272 stories of grit

These stories are only a microcosm of the tales that unfolded on the mountain. 272 outstanding people climbed at Snowbasin #2, which means there are at least 272 stories of grit.

It takes grit to climb. It takes grit to ask for help. It takes grit to show up and do something you’d never thought possible. It takes grit to leave it all on the mountain. It takes grit to keep climbing, even if you learn the Red Hat is out of reach.