Aiming High

Aiming

HIGH

When Rob Marshall ’01 joined the mountaineering club as an Air Force Academy cadet, little did he know that climbing would become a lifelong passion.

These days, the Air Force Reserve pilot is spending most of his free time trying to inspire others to enjoy the great outdoors as well. And he’s compiling research on the physical and mental health benefits derived from spending time in nature.

50 SUMMITS PROJECT PROMOTES OUTDOOR RECREATION, RESILIENCY Written by Jeff Holmquist

His BHAG (big hairy audacious goal) is to convince Department of Defense officials that involvement in outdoor activities can pay huge dividends for military personnel around the globe. He’d like all branches of the U.S. military to adopt the British model of providing annual opportunities to airmen, soldiers, Marines and sailors to pursue outdoor activities that can help them better cope with life’s inevitable challenges.

CATCHING THE BUG Marshall climbed his first 14er — a mountain higher than 14,000 feet — when he was a fourthdegree cadet. He went on to summit a number of peaks throughout Colorado and beyond, always finishing each climb with push-ups at the top.

“For me, push-ups were a big part of my cadet experience and push-ups were a strength of mine,” he recalls. “I thought it would be fun to keep track of the number of 14ers I climbed by doing progressively more push-ups for each mountain. It was good for morale, but it also showed that the mountain never got the best of us. It was a way to celebrate being physically strong.”

After graduating from USAFA, Marshall continued to enjoy the outdoors. He went backpacking in Nepal during his 60-day leave prior to his first Air Force assignment, and that’s when he caught his first glimpse of Mt. Everest.

“I thought of how cool it would be to come back to this massive obstacle and find a way to climb it. But at the time, I had no interest in ever climbing that mountain,” he admits. “I thought it would not be a good risk.”

After he reported to his first Air Force job at RAF Mildenhall in Great Britain, Marshall learned about that country’s outdoor and recreation program offered to all military personnel.

“It allows their military members to pick an outdoor sport or activity, and every year they get time off to go do that sport,” he explains.

After completing the 7 Summits Challenge with the successful summiting of Mount Everest (above), Air Force personnel have moved on to a new effort — the 50 Summit Challenge. Approximately two-thirds of the highest points in each of the 50 states have been achieved so far. Air Force airmen and officers are being sought to continue the challenge.

Submitted photo

“Included in that sport is a curriculum that helps boost their stress coping skills.”

Marshall wondered why American military members didn’t have a similar program. He contacted Air Force Sports and also talked to his superiors about getting support for a service-wide mountaineering project he wanted to launch, but nothing worked out.

“I decided to do it anyway,” he recalls. “Ever since graduating from the Academy, I had always asked how one airman could make a big difference for the military? I’m just a lieutenant, what can I do?”

7 SUMMITS Marshall’s mind kept drifting back to his mountaineering experience at USAFA, wondering how he might use his background to motivate airmen to achieve audacious goals.

Then he heard that a team of British Army soldiers had summited Mt. Everest.

“So we started discussing doing the seven summits — climbing the highest point on each of the seven continents,” Marshall says. “No organized team had ever attempted it at that point. I loved the idea that the Air Force was going to set the bar really, really high. Now the question was … can we do it and how long was it going to take us?”

Marshall encountered plenty of naysayers within the Air Force community, but he was never deterred.

Checkpoints · December 2016 · 61

I’M A BIG PROPONENT OF TAKING RISKS. WHETHER IT’S IN BUSINESS, PERSONAL LIFE OR IN THE MILITARY, WE HAVE TO TAKE RISKS TO STAY AT THE FRONT OF THE POWER CURVE.

Marshall teamed up with Heather (Healy) Uberuaga ’99 and her spouse, Mark Uberuaga (an Air Force search and rescue pilot), to plan the quest, but progress remained slow.

In 2005, a fatal aircraft crash took the lives of fellow airmen with a sister squadron, and roughly around the same time Marshall lost friends Derek Argel ’01 and Jeremy Fresquez ’01 to a plane crash in Iraq. Marshall and Uberuaga subsequently sped up the process for getting started on the 7 Summits Challenge to honor the fallen.

“I realized we are not indestructible, life is short, and now is the time,” he recalls. “It really motivated me — the loss of some of my friends made it happen.”

Within a few months, the first 7 Summits team was headed to Russia to climb Mt. Elbrus, the highest point on the European continent.

“We started off very small, but I wanted it to boost morale and the public image of the Air Force,” Marshall notes. “Pretty quickly, we realized how powerful this was.”

Over the next eight years, various Air Force personnel would join the 7 Summits team and climb the highest peaks on each of the Earth’s continents.

Each team member was screened prior to their involvement to ensure that they had the necessary mountain climbing skills to be successful.

“I’m a big proponent of taking risks. Whether it’s in business, personal life or in the military, we have to take risks to stay at the front of the power curve,” he notes. “But we have to take smart risks. In today’s world of star seeking, there are a lot of people who will go climb mountains and do technical feats that they aren’t prepared for. We weren’t going to allow that.”

After each summit was achieved, the climbers knocked out several push-ups and took a picture of the successful climbers holding an American and/or an Air Force flag.

“When you’re climbing these peaks, you’re meeting new airmen from all over the Air Force,” Marshall says. “The next 62 · usafa.org

thing you know, you’re roped up and you’re functioning as a team in stressful situations. I think the analogy between mountain climbing and military life is significant. You’re depending on each other — if one person is careless, you can put everybody else in jeopardy. But when you reach the summit, the success is shared by everyone.”

The successful climbs occurred in the following order:

2005 — Mt. Elbrus (18,481 ft.) in Europe 2006 — Mt. Kilimanjaro (19,339 ft.) in Africa 2007 — Mt. Aconcagua (22,840 ft.) in South America 2008 — Mt. McKinley (20,320 ft.) in North America 2010 — Mt. Vinson (16,077 ft.) in Antarctica 2011 — Mt. Kosciuszko (7,310 ft.) in Australia 2013 — Mt. Everest (29,035 ft.) in Asia

THE TOP OF THE WORLD The 7 Summits organizers saved the Mt. Everest climb for last.

Twelve airmen set out to tackle the world’s highest peak, including three Wounded Warriors who were assisted up to Everest Base Camp. Of the six team members who had the climbing expertise required to safely try for the summit, four reached the top of the world. Two of the expert climbers had to turn back just shy of the summit due to health concerns.

“When I first saw the summit, I was 200 or 300 feet away and there were maybe three or four people on it,” Marshall recalls. “I’ll be honest, the thought of all the people who said we couldn’t accomplish this came to mind. We never gave up. I got pretty emotional.”

When he reached the summit, Marshall said he was euphoric. The first thing he wanted to do was complete the requisite push-ups.

Rob Marshall snapped this panoramic photograph above Everest Base Camp. Team member Drew Ackles is pictured at the left. (Submitted photo)

Submitted photo

“I felt like I could have done push-ups for an hour, but I knew that 30 was probably plenty, since I didn’t have my oxygen on,” he recalls.

Next, the team used a satellite phone to call their Air Force superiors from the summit. Word was quickly passed to Gen. Mark Welsh ’76, Chief of Staff of the Air Force at the time, that the team had successfully reached the summit of Everest.

“It was really cool, because Gen. Welsh was our commandant when I was in the Class of 2001 at USAFA,” he notes. “It meant a lot to me that we were summiting when Welsh was our chief of staff.”

50 SUMMITS Just months after climbing to the top of Mt. Everest, Marshall transitioned out of his full-time role as an USAF Osprey pilot.

He joined the Reserves in 2014 and returned home to the Pacific Northwest.

Earlier in 2014, Marshall and his climbing buddies started to hatch a new mountain-climbing challenge that even more Air Force airmen could participate in.

“It took us eight years to climb the seven summits, and it took a lot of money and a lot of time off,” he says. “It was an amazing experience, but it also seemed cost and time prohibitive to continue it. But I wondered how I could bring this experience to more military members?”

The 7 Summits organizers hatched the 50 Summit Challenge, encouraging airmen to form teams to climb the highest peaks (and a few small hills) in each of the 50 states, plus the District of Columbia.

“America has a phenomenal range of outdoor opportunities,” Marshall explains. “Why travel around the world or to another continent when we’ve got everything here in our own backyard? We thought it was a pretty patriotic idea, and it’s way more affordable to climb your local state peak.”

The USAF 50 Summits Challenge is almost two-thirds complete. A map on the challenge’s website, www.usaf50summits.com, shows which state peaks have been summited, which

Rob Marshall ’01 uses a crossing ladder to traverse a crevasse at 20,000 feet as the team approaches summit of Everest.

Submitted photo

climbing trips are currently being planned, and which state peaks have yet to be achieved.

The highest peak in the U.S. (Denali … formerly Mt. McKinley, 20,320 ft.) remains on the to-do list for the 50 Summits Challenge. The nation’s least strenuous summit, Florida’s Britton Hill (345 ft.), was knocked off the list in March 2015. Some of the state hikes completed in 2016 include Nevada, North Dakota and Missouri.

“If it’s an easy climb, I always ask teams to do it in a little bit harder way. Take a circuitous route to the top or do Checkpoints · December 2016 · 63

(Top left) Rob Marshall, left, and Drew Ackles pose with the Air Force flag on the summit of Mount Everest. (Top right) Marshall shows off his USAFA management patch after making it to Everest’s Camp 4. (Below) A team scaled Mt. Rainier in July 23, 2016, as part of the 50 Summits Challenge. Marshall called it one of the toughest climbs in the U.S. Submitted photos

push-ups along the way,” Marshall laughs.

“I leave it up to their ingenuity to find ways to make it tougher.”

Each team that reaches a state’s highest point takes the ubiquitous flag photograph and posts it on the challenge’s website, along with a few details about the hike.

Marshall estimates that more than 100 USAFA graduates have participated in 50 Summits climbs so far. The largest team to summit a state’s peak was in September 2014 in Colorado.

About 70 airmen, USAFA staff members and USAFA cadets climbed Mt. Elbert (14,433 ft.).

Marshall is hoping additional officers and enlisted airmen will get involved to complete the 50-state challenge.

“The hard part now is just reaching out to airmen in each state and reminding them that we need you to take the American flag up to your state high point,” he says. “The cool part is that it’s an adventure in your own backyard.

They might be stationed in a state where they didn’t grow up, but we encourage them to take advantage of the opportunity to go out and explore. You might as well make the most out of your time at each PCS location.”

ENJOY THE OUTDOORS Marshall is working with several national outdoor organizations to develop marketing strategies that encourage military members and their families to “get outside.”

He’s also gathering various research studies on the health benefits of outdoor recreation, with an eye toward working with the Department of Defense on a future program to promote such activities.

“The DOD is trying hard to help people with mental, physical, spiritual and social health … but the dollars aren’t being spent in a scientific manner,” Marshall claims.

He’s convinced that a program, based on the lessons learned from successful outdoor-related organizations such as Outward Bound and the National Outdoor Leadership School, can help military members and their families cope when difficult things happen.

“Trauma happens to everybody in one form or another … whether it’s financial, or you have a relationship issue, or physical trauma or emotional trauma,” he explains. “We as a 64 · usafa.org

military service can get better at proactively teaching people how to deal with it before trauma strikes. That’s the dream.”

Teaching healthy coping skills — rather than alcohol use, drug use, violence or video games — is the right path to follow, he says.

“It may not be THE answer, but is one answer,” Marshall claims. “When someone gets stressed out, they can turn to backpacking, mountain biking, kayaking, even bird watching if that’s what they choose to do. The British have been using outdoor programs for years, with great success.”

Marshall says he has some “great proponents” behind the idea at the Pentagon. He just needs to collect all the empirical data to prove the effectiveness of such programs.

“We’re collecting data and formulating a plan. You could have a million different ideas, but you have to have a plan to make it happen,” he says.

Marshall says he is making connections with other service academy graduates to strengthen his case for a new DOD-wide program.

“I’m just excited about how things have progressed,” Marshall admits. “And it all started at the Air Force Academy and the cadet mountaineering club. That was ground zero.”