Home

10%

Juan Chico

Carrying The Name

By 29029 Everesting

April 11^th, 2025

I’m the last of the Chico name - two sisters, three daughters, and me.

Ever since my dad passed away, that reality had started to carry more weight.

I had this idea: I wanted to put our name on the highest point in the world.

I wanted to honor my father by placing the Chico name on Everest.

But for more than a few reasons, the actual Everest was out of the question.

I’ve been associated with sports all my life - marathons, triathlons, all that stuff - but nothing like 29029.

These days, I’m more of a pickleball guy. I play almost every day, and one of my traditions is inviting people I meet on the court to dinner.

It was at one of those dinners that I first heard about 29029.

As I listened to the stories they had of the mountain, something clicked.

This could be my chance to honor my father.

This could be my chance to put the Chico name at 29,029 feet.

When registration opened, I signed up.

My daughter was expecting a baby the week after the climb, so my plan was to fly directly to her after Snowbasin.

Just a few days before I left to tackle the mountain, I FaceTimed with her.

Her belly was huge.

“That baby is popping out anytime now!” I told my wife.

I rebooked my wife's flight that day to get her there early, and sure enough, on Tuesday as I was preparing to head to Snowbasin, my 2nd grandchild was born!

There was no shortage of meaning for me with the mountain, but having a new grandchild who had just entered the world added another layer.

In fact, we call her the Red Hat Baby because I went straight from the mountain to the airport to see her.

Oops, there goes the suspense around if I finished or not... Anyways, back to my story from the mountain!

I was nervous heading into Snowbasin.

I live in Florida - my local “mountain” is a converted landfill with 152 feet of elevation…

But that didn't mean I showed up unprepared. I had followed the training plan closely, and got very well-acquainted with the incline mode on my gym’s treadmill.

I was as ready as I could be, and at 5:50 am on Friday, I went up towards the front of the start line chute to listen to Colin’s hype speech.

It didn’t dawn on me that the people in the front are often looking to climb fast.

The horn went off, and I started climbing, following whoever was in front of me.

I hit the top just over an hour later.

Feeling tired from just a single ascent, I realized I had made a mistake.

Too fast. That’s not my pace.

I slowed down as I continued on, and by my 3rd ascent, I started to realize it was going to be a loooooong day.

On the 4th, the elevation started getting to me. At the summit, I was over 8,000 feet higher than where I lived in Florida!

Physically, I felt okay, but I was getting quite dizzy. I stopped at the medic tent up top, and they checked me over.

“You’re going to be fine, but try to take a bit of a break. Go down, eat some food, sit in the recovery room… take a short rest, and then you can get back to climbing.”

I followed their advice, sat in the recovery room with Normatec boots for a while, and then got back at it.

I never doubted that I was going to keep climbing.

My mindset is very much one that if you start something, you finish it.

Full stop.

This is something I learned as a Boy Scout. I was 9 years old, and we were doing the mini-Olympics. We got to the park, and immediately, I was in awe of the 400-meter track.

I want to run that.

I told the coach that’s the event I wanted to do. It was my first competitive experience, and I started running the race like I was about to win the Olympics! I was blazing fast, absolutely flying for the first 300 meters.

Then I ran out of gas.

I thought I was dying, and I pulled out and quit.

My Dad met me at the finish line, and he was very disappointed.

“When you start something, you finish it. It doesn’t matter if you finish last, but you finish,” he told me.

That lesson has stuck with me for the rest of my life.

So I knew that when I put my feet down at the start line of 29029 Snowbasin, I was going to go until there was nothing left, until time ran out, or until I climbed it 13 times!

The 5th ascent felt much better. I’d recovered from my fast start, and I settled into a rhythm.

On my 6th ascent, the weather changed dramatically. It went from hot and sunny to black skies in an instant. A crazy storm was rolling in: hail, rain, wind… You name it!

I took shelter in an aid station.

This mountain is crazy. This is ridiculous. This is hard.

By the time the storm finally cleared, it had been over two hours!

It was around 8 pm by the time I got down from that ascent. I ate dinner, and then rejoined a group I had been climbing with at 9 pm to head up again.

I kept going.

Now let me tell you, out of all the hikes I did up the mountain, the night hikes were by far my favorite.

The temperatures had cooled down, and it was quiet on the mountain. There were fewer people climbing through the night than during the day, so there was plenty of time alone - but in a good way.

It felt peaceful.

But that doesn’t mean it was easy.

I’d been struggling through the heat, the dust, the incline… everything had been hard just to get to this point in the middle of the night.

And that gave me an opportunity to dig into myself and appreciate why I was there, climbing the mountain.

Why am I doing this? Because it’ll be an honor to put my dad’s name on the top of this mountain. Because I am welcoming another grandchild into the world, and she’s going to be a Red Hat Baby!

I had zero appetite by morning. I could barely drink, let alone eat.

I still had three ascents to go, so I tried to down what I could, pushed through, and kept climbing.

As the afternoon rolled around, I had nearly done it!

It was time to pull on my Red Bib!

Although I was exhausted, that final ascent truly does give you a boost of energy.

It was a celebration climb, and with the pin of my dad proudly stuck to my bib, I started the final ascent.

There is an incredible amount of camaraderie on the mountain. I had built some extremely strong friendships just in the previous 30 hours or so of climbing the mountain.

And when I say strong, I mean strong - like stronger than childhood friendships!

Going through something as difficult as the mountain together is part of the reason those bonds build so fast, but I think it also has something to do with the kind of people the mountain attracts.

I had spent the last 30 hours leaning into people on the mountain. Sometimes talking, sometimes not. I’d hiked with people for hours without saying a word, but I’d also hiked with people for hours where we talked endlessly.

It didn’t matter - the connection was the same.

Strong.

Deep.

Important.

Through my time on the mountain, I had joined a group chat with about 20 other climbers. We were all strangers before 29029, but now, this far in, the bonds had been formed.

We had started a group text to support each other, even if we weren’t climbing together.

I sent a text before starting my final climb.

“I’m going to be on my last ascent. If any of you are available, I’d really appreciate if you’d be at the summit.”

As I stepped onto the Red Carpet, there they were - my new mountain family. Cheering, hugging, and high-fiving. These were strangers just 36 hours ago, but now they were part of one of the most meaningful moments of my life.