Get him. Get him. Get him, bitch. Get him, bitch.
All right, go! Go! You fucking go!
Woo! Woo! Yeah!
Joey and Thomas call me up and hit me with this idea.
They want to ski an 18,500 foot peak in a weekend.
And I'm thinking this is the dumbest idea I've ever heard, and I'm definitely in.
Carl's strong, but this trip is going to be really hard.
Carl's just a working stiff. This is going to be a struggle for him.
I'm definitely the old man on this trip.
I mean, these guys get paid to bike and ski.
I get paid to sit in front of a computer and type and use a mouse.
I mean, I don't think these skills are going to actually help me climb a mountain.
He's like the rest of us. He's got a mortgage and he's got bills to pay, and he's got to work to do that.
So when Carl first told me about this adventure, I just thought there was no way he'd be able to pull us off.
There's just way too much to accomplish and such a short amount of time.
The goal is to pack in an adventure of a lifetime in a weekend.
How far into an adventure can you get in one weekend?
When we had the idea to go to Mexico and ski the third highest peak in North America, Pico de Orizaba, it all seemed easy.
We just fly from Denver to Veracruz, rent a car, drive from sea level up to 14,000 feet.
Then we'd stay in this hut, wake up early in the morning, climb the volcano, ski off the summit, head back to the airport,
and then fly right back to work for Monday. How hard could it be?
Boom, boom, boom. Ultimate weekend.
What do you want?
My old knees.
We touched down in Mexico and we have exactly 55 hours to climb and ski Orizaba, starting now.
So we land in Veracruz and our ski bags don't show up.
Lose half a day right off the bat.
We go to the rental car place. What should take minutes ends up taking hours.
We have to be at the hut tonight and we're already 10 hours behind schedule.
Tensions are high. What can go wrong?
We hit the road, spirits are high, but we have absolutely no idea what we've gotten ourselves into.
We roll into the town of Coscomota Peck and we realize we don't have a map.
During all of our planning, I guess we forgot to print out directions.
It's the third tallest peak in North America and we can't even find it.
I didn't understand everything you said, but we have a map.
And you kept on saying go straight, straight, straight, straight, straight, straight,
but I think I start with a left. I'm not sure.
We're following the map. Everything is going great until it starts to rain.
And then the road ends.
I don't know if we're going to make up the road to the hut.
We're coming into a pretty rutted area.
We've tried a couple of times to move forward. It's just not looking good.
We've got a two-wheel drive, Jeep, Patriot, or something like that.
It's not performing.
Give them a push.
And push.
Ready?
This trip is about to be a total failure.
Back, back, back.
It's getting dark. We can't see a thing.
And then all of a sudden we emerge through the clouds and we see Orizaba for the first time.
We get to the hut and it's the best feeling ever.
We just pushed this car from 4,000 feet to 14,000 feet.
And all I'm thinking is this climb is going to be a piece of cake compared to that.
Everybody's about to go to sleep and we're trying to get our food for dinner
and get packed up for tomorrow morning.
I guess we'll do a 2 a.m. push.
The summit is the plan.
It's packed wall-to-wall with climbers who've been there for days acclimating.
We've got two hours to sleep and then we're going to the summit.
We had one shot at climbing this thing.
If we got altitude sickness in the night, we're done.
We hike all night under the moonlight and it's a beautiful night.
We finally see first light at the base of the glacier and at this point I'm higher than I've ever been.
You're looking out and you can basically see all of Mexico.
It was definitely beautiful but all of a sudden you stop noticing everything around you
and all you can focus on is breathing and taking one step after the next.
We went from sea level to 18,500 feet in a matter of hours.
And your head starts to feel like it's getting crushed and you're sipping these tiny breaths of air.
It just starts to go downhill.
At about 17,000 feet, I probably should have turned around but I couldn't.
I just had to keep going.
Halfway up the altitude really started to get to us and it was slowing us down
and Carl was definitely struggling pretty hard.
Altitude sickness would be the only thing that would stop me
and I thought that's probably not even going to stop me.
And then I'd get to the top and I just, I felt terrible.
You're the fucking man.
Yeah, I got a lost.
I was even done.
I never felt so bad when I turned around.
I'm fucking crying.
I'm all emotional. I'm all emotional.
I'm all emotional.
Dude, Carlos.
So we're on the summit and all I'm thinking is I got to get off this mountain as fast as possible.
I feel like there's a bass drum, just boom, boom, boom.
And I'm totally dehydrated.
And I just felt like I should have turned around a long time ago.
This trip was full throttle from the start.
For when we landed in Bearcruise, this was 110% full-on adventure.
And now we're standing on this massive mountain. I can't even believe it.
It's always a question of where we should go.
I can't believe it.
It's always a question in the mind of the nine to fiver.
Why am I working all the time?
And what else could I be doing with my life?
Skimming off the top of this mountain may not be the answer,
but I think it's pretty close.
It's in Mexico.
With all the bills.
And we dragged some Sierra Nevada's to the top.
It's a two-wheel drive.
I declined all the insurance.
They couldn't like, look, you're wrong.
What is up?
I think getting tracked down to climate 18,000 foot peak is a little ill-advised.
I would say it's not really something that I would recommend.
