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Andy Lausch

I'm a Dad. I Build Memories.

By 29029 Everesting

April 29^th, 2022

29029 has truly been one of the best experiences of my life.

I’ve done a lot of cool things throughout the years, but nothing quite as meaningful as doing 29029 with my kids.

I first did 29029 in Utah in 2019 with my two older daughters. Then I did Idaho in 2021 with my two younger daughters. This is our story.

In the early 2000s, I started running as a way to stay fit. It started by being invited (or more accurately, coerced) to run the 5k "Trick or Treat Trot" in Chicago with my wife. It was 6:30 am on a late-October Sunday morning along the shores of Lake Michigan.

It was cold, breezy, and just straight-up not pleasant outside. But everybody there was wearing a colorful costume and beaming with a full-faced grin.

What is wrong with these people? Shouldn't we all still be inside sleeping?

The energy of the recreational athletes surrounding us was infectious. I finished my first 5k, around all these 'crazy' people, and just like that, I decided to run a marathon.

How hard could it be? If somebody else can do it, why can’t I?

I’ve run over 30 marathons since then: not at record-breaking speed, but I finished them all. One year, I thought I’d train for speed - to try to qualify for Boston.

Now you have to understand, I’m not a small guy. I’m not built like a competitive marathon runner. The speed training didn’t work - I battled through injuries and could never quite get fast enough.

If I can’t run faster, maybe I’ll just run farther.

So I worked my way up to doing 50k trail runs, and then even a few 50-mile races. Every single time I finished, I found myself eagerly awaiting the next one.

The logical progression was a 100 miler, so I found the flattest one I could, and entered.

It took me 28 hours, and let me tell you, when I finished those 100 miles, I was NOT excited for the next one.

Now that I’d found the perceived limits of my enjoyment with endurance running, I needed to find a new way to scratch the itch. That’s when I discovered 29029.

It was different - something totally new to me.

It was what I wanted to do next, but the time it would take to prepare - and the time away from family - felt too selfish. I went to my wife and asked her if she wanted to do it with me.

“Absolutely not,” was her answer.

You see, my wife is the strongest, most driven, hardest-working person I know. She's constantly conquering challenges by default. She 'summits Everest' daily, whereas I have to manufacture my own challenges to stay motivated.

In other words, she didn't have an itch to scratch.

“Fair enough. What if I convince the twins to do it with me?” I asked her.

“You’ll never get them to agree!”

As a parent, I’ve always known that kids will be with you, then they will leave you, and eventually - hopefully - they come back. They grow up, become independent, and if you’ve done your job right (with a little luck), they may want to hang out with dear ol' Mom and Dad once again.

As a parent of adult children, it’s all about finding opportunities to throw a lure, catch them, and keep them in the boat a little longer. I’m not above bribing my kids with cool experiences to continue growing our relationship long after they’ve moved away from home.

My twin daughters, Shazia and Zareena were in their late twenties at the time, and had never even run a 5k. I texted them a link to the event: Hey, check this thing out… Daddy/Daughter thing? I buy, we fly, let’s go. You have 10 months to train. Are you in or are you in?

It didn’t take long for them to commit, so I booked it.

I can’t say enough good things about our time at 29029 in 2019. It put me in a situation to improve my skills at what is the most important job in the world: being a good parent.

Partway into the event, we chatted as we rode the gondola back down. One of my daughter's talked about her desire to move overseas, and the other about making a big career change. They were significant, challenging decisions that weighed heavy on their minds.

29029 provided an opportunity for them to realize they could handle it, no matter what that it is.

“What you’re doing on this mountain is a hundred times harder than your challenges at work, or moving away. If you want to do it, just do it!” I told them.

"The months of preparation you've done to get yourselves ready for this challenge - the sweat you've poured out on this mountain - is all far more effort than you'll ever put into meeting these career and personal goals. You've got this!"

It felt like such an important moment because it brought to life the lessons that all parents tell their kids - those same lessons that we all ignore because we’re kids when we hear them!

A lesson experienced in real life is always more impactful than hearing about it. You can tell someone all day they are capable of amazing things, but often they need to experience it themselves to truly believe it.

Shazia and Zareena experienced it, and now they believed it, thanks to the slopes of 29029 Utah.

After that life-changing experience - after using the 29029 mountain to help me flex my father skills, there was no doubt that I would do it again, this time with my younger daughters.

So I signed up myself, Nadia, and Bibi for Idaho in 2021.

Part of my job as a parent is to be a memory builder - a general contractor of meaningful, and hopefully cool, experiences in my kids' lives. Another part of my job is to be a lesson provider, whether my kids like it or not.

I wanted to help Nadia and Bibi build memories. And I wanted to help them learn about themselves and their capabilities.

The mountain gave us the opportunity to do just that.

There can be a sense of learned helplessness when it comes to thinking about large obstacles - those mountains, both proverbial and real - standing in our way.

While toddlers are often oblivious to big challenges, as we progress through life and get older, we sometimes shy away from doing hard things. Fear of hard work, formidable obstacles, or even failure isn't something we're born with. It seems to come later.

But what if there was a way to avoid that? What if we did something hard early on in our lives? What if we persevered through a major challenge to achieve greatness before we develop preconceived notions of our limits?

That's what I wanted Nadia and Bibi to do. I wanted them to conquer the challenge of 29029 now, and use that accomplishment to fuel their confidence going forward.

Conquering the mountain at 29029 at such a young age - an age where they still have a bit of blind faith in doing what I tell them they can do - turned into a transformative experience. Nadia and Bibi were both teenagers at the time - among the youngest to ever attempt to conquer the slopes at 29029.

And conquer it they did, but it didn’t come easy.

One of the scariest, yet most fulfilling moments in Idaho came on the evening of day 1. We had done 7 grueling ascents in the heat of Sun Valley, and were sitting down for a quick meal to regain some energy. Our plan had been to make it up the mountain 10 times before going to bed for the night, then finishing the final 5 ascents the next day.

It had been a rough day 1. There had been breakdowns. There had been tears. We were all struggling.

And we still had a long way to go.

As we sat eating, in near silence, I noticed a look on their faces. It looked like they were scheming.

Oh no. They’re done. This is the end.

One of them finally broke the silence.

“I don’t think we can get to 10 summits today, Dad.”

A brief silence lingered. I still subscribed to hope.

“Dad, let’s just get to 9 tonight, and knock out the rest tomorrow.”

YES!

My greatest fear was that they were going to give up before they gave everything they had. I brought them here, but I didn't know what I'd do if they decided it was too much. I didn't know what I'd do if they decided to quit.

It was such a proud moment for me. They were struggling and suffering, but instead of giving in, they knew enough about themselves to pull back just a little bit. They weren’t quitting, they were managing their energy to make sure they could continue to make it to the summit!

I have a dirty secret that none of my daughters knew during our time on the mountain.

I wanted to quit. Every. Single. Time.

Climbing that mountain is damn hard work! It was because of them - because of Shazia, Zareena, Nadia, and Bibi - that I kept going. They had faith in me - they trusted me - and I had to live up to that. I couldn't let them down.

Memory builders don't stop until construction is complete.

While they didn't know it, they were the ones getting me up that mountain!

Pulling on a Red Hat alongside all of them is the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done. It was a proud Dad moment four times over.

The lessons my daughters’ learned on the mountain - the lessons I learned on the mountain - were some of the most impactful parenting moments I could ever ask for.