July-September 2013 - Sierra Club - Angeles Chapter

Goneclimbing!By Jared VagyEditor’s note:Sometimes life grabs youby the throat and sendsyou packing. That’swhat happened to JaredVagy, an instructor forthe Angeles Chapter’sWilderness Travel Course(San Gabriel Valley,Group 3) who heeded thecall to act on his innerpassions.I tore down the postersfrom my wall, movedout of a beautiful apartmentfour blocks fromthe beach, quit an amazingjob that I had enjoyedfor three years, packedup all of my belongings,put them into storage and traveled to South America for six months.Why? I realized that life is short and I needed to live my passion. Ihad been climbing for the past eight years but I never was able to fullyimmerse myself in the sport because of other obligations. I had anamazing life, but for some reason it didn’t seem real to me; somethingwas missing.I had become too comfortable. I needed something fresh and somethingdifferent. There were parts of my life that I didn’t like and thatI wanted to change. I knew the only way to change was to restart. SoI decided to commit first and figure everything else out later. I saidgoodbye to beautiful, sunny Santa Monica and booked a flight toSouth America.A simple plan, sort ofThe plan was simple: Pack up all of my mountaineering gear andJared Vagy on his adventure.spend six months traveling and climbingthroughout South America. I knew the onlyway to find myself was to get lost. I had nostructure and no obligation. I cut the cordand took off.I had a life-changing trip. It was filledwith the highest of highs and the lowest oflows. I spent entire weeks worth of time sickfrom both ends, I lost 15 pounds of weightfrom my already skinny body, I failed tryingto climb my first two objectives, I wasstuck in my tent in a horrific storm ofminus 40 degrees and 100-km winds. Most tragically, I hadtwo friends die while climbing in the same mountain range.But the tragedy pushed me to dig deep inside. It forced me to reflecton my own life and see how ephemeral and precious it is. It made merealize that life is about living now. I knew that some opportunitieswould only come once. So I seized the moment.The remainder of the trip was filled with dreams to last a lifetime.Climbing 20,000 foot peaks alpine style, technical ascents of 2,000-foot big walls high in the Andes, soloing an 18,500-foot glaciatedmountain and journeying back to the U.S. to climb the 3,000 footgranite monolith known as El Capitan -- just to name a few.Peak-hopping in South AmericaI climbed all over the country stopping in Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia,Argentina and Brazil. Over the next six months, I realized that life isabout the people you meet and the things you create with them. I cre-CONTINUED NEXT PAGEPHOTOS COURTESY JARED VAGY4 JULY-SEPTEMBER 2013 SOUTHERN SIERRAN