Andy, Art and Keith on their way to the summit during the 2012 Camp Patriot Rainier Climb

Tim and I summited Mt Rainier in July of this year with 2 men wounded in war.  One had a prosthetic leg above the knee, the other, 2 carbon fiber braces supporting his legs that had been violently destroyed.  They summited a 14,000 foot peak, whose average summit success rate is somewhere below 40.  Not an easy challenge, let alone doing it with 1 leg.

I had the opportunity to climb Rainier with Camp Patriot in 2010 during my first year working at Mystery Ranch.  Mark Seacat had done it the past few years and since we became one of the main sponsors of the event, we continued to send guys to shoot photos and video of the summit attempt.

There was a strong crew this year.  Alongside the sturdy and determined Curtis Fawley and Art Rausch, were 2 inexhaustible guys from RMI and IMG, and the invincible Andy Politz to assist in the summit bid for our guests of honor.

Our Guests of Honor, Keith Zeier and Victor Munoz at Camp Muir

Let me introduce –Victor Munoz and Keith Zeier

Capt. Victor A Munoz was born in Sebring, Florida on August 7, 1986.  Raised in a military family, he moved around the United States until he graduated from Robert M Shoemaker High School in 2004 in Killeen, Texas.  In 2008, he received a Bachelors in Science from the United States Military Academy in West Point, NY.  Upon his commission into the Aviation branch as a Second Lieutenant, he went on to attend flight training at the United States Army Aviation Center of Excellence in Fort Rucker, Alabama.  He is currently a rated Aviator in the Chinook CH47D Army helicopter.  His first duty assignment was in Ansbach, Germany as a Platoon Leader in B/5-158 General Support Aviation Battalion, “Big Windy.”  On March 4, 2011, he was involved in a severe motor vehicle accident with a local German national.  After initially spending some time in Germany, he was evacuated to San Antonio, Texas to undergo further surgical treatment.  Since that time, he has participated in the limb salvage physical therapy program at the Center for the Intrepid (CFI) at Fort Sam Houston, Texas.  He wears an orthotic device on both legs called the Intrepid Dynamic Exoskeletal Orthosis (IDEO) which is designed and fabricated at the CFI for severely wounded service members.  Recently, his medical evaluation board found him fit for duty and he plans to attend the Aviation Captains Career Course in September 2012.

Sgt. Zeier was born and raised in Long Island, NY. He graduated early and enlisted in the United States Marine Corps at the age of 17. Zeier served with both the 2nd Reconnaissance Battalion and the 2nd Marine Special Operations Battalion based out of Camp Lejeune, NC. While on deployment, Sgt. Zeier’s vehicle was struck by an IED. As a result of the blast, Zeier suffered a TBI and the amputation of his left leg above the knee due to shrapnel wounds. Zeier is now retired from the Marine Corps and is a full time student at Columbia University.

Thomas and Victor prepping in Paradise

It was hot when Tim and I arrived in Ashford on Monday morning after the previous night’s opening ceremony in Seattle.  Which by the way, was hosted by the Seahawks and showcased presentations by the one and only Billy Waugh (which if you haven’t heard of him, look him up) and the infamous General  William G Boykin.  Both proud Americans and as honored as we to support Keith and Victor in their summit bid.

The legendary Billy Waugh wishing Keith and Victor well before the climb

We took the majority of Monday to get the team prepared, and on Tuesday morning, July 10^th, we started our journey to the highest point in Washington.  This will have been Victor and Keith’s first ever mountaineering trip.

The weather in the Pacific Northwest during the entirety of our trip was flawless.  This gave us enough time to get to high camp at Camp Muir and spend a day doing some climbing and glacier travel techniques.  Rainier is legit; big approach, huge relief, and littered with deadly crevasses.  Neither for the weary nor arrogant, Rainier is a proud mountain, one for whom I have great admiration.

Hotel Hilleberg and the IMG Weather Stations

Life at Muir is as good as it gets.  Tim and I settled into Hotel Hilleberg and fortunate enough, IMG and AAI graciously donated their Space Station tents to our team, which gave us space to cook, hydrate and mentally prepare for the long climb that coming night.

For Tim and me, spending time with veterans is an enormous honor.  Helping them climb a mountain is an even greater one.  I can only sit back and listen to the stories they have to share, and within those first few days, especially that time spent at Camp, they were flowing.  Couple that with the dry, sharp and witty stories Politz was telling about medics on K2, running into Ed Veisters on the summit of Everest, and the realities of wearing plastic bags as clothing.  We had become comrades, and the next 20 hours would prove it.

Sunrise in the Pacific Northwest

Throughout the entire ascent and descent, neither of these guys asked for help. Not with gear, nor terrain. Incredible showcase of determination and will power.

We left camp at 10 o’clock at night and made it to the top of the Disappointment Cleaver around 3 am.  By then it got cold.  Numerous other teams gathered below the upper snowfields, and we got in line for our final push to the summit.   Keith and Victor, despite their injuries, pioneered their way up that massive snowfield, in and around crevasses, and without a single doubt took the final steps to the summit.

Rainier’s Upper Snowfields

Near 9 am, on July 12^th, the 9 of us were greeted with applause from various other teams, as we crested into the summit crater of Mt Rainier.  Victor and Keith, determined to succeed, had completed their first major climb having been wounded from war, and they celebrated.  It was an emotional scene up there, grown men crying from accomplishment.  Myself included.

Congratulations Capt Victor

And you Keith Zeier

Camp Patriot’s 2012 Summit Team
l-r Tim Gates, Dallas Glass, Curtis Fawley, Victor Munoz, Keith Zeier, Thomas Greene, Art Rausch, Ben Nobel, Andy Politz

This was, however, only the halfway point.  We still had to get down and the sun was beginning to soften up the surface snow on those massive upper snowfields.  We began our decent.  Our last maintenance break, as Curtis likes to call them, came on the Flats just above Muir.  Two days ago, one day even, we might have been talking glacier travel, hydration, nutrition, proper clothing. Instead, we laughed at bad jokes, the way old friends do.  It was 5 pm by the time we saw Muir again, and by the time we settled back into camp, it had been well over 20 hours since we’d begun climbing.  We slept.

En route down the Dissapointment Cleaver

The next morning we began our descent back to Paradise and home.  The benign terrain down from Muir leads to grassy meadows, creeks and increasing populations of photographing tourists taking a walk from the National Park entrance.  I could hear the applause before I saw the crowd.

Paradise erupted when we arrived.  Dozens had gathered to witness our return, led by Keith and Victor.  5 years in a row Camp Patriot has been successful in summiting Rainier.  This was their 6^th: their flawless record intact.  As we descended back to Ashford for the ceremony, the bus eventually fell silent.  Exhaustion, and the bittersweet feeling of an epic adventure coming to an end, began to become a reality.  Everyone at the ceremony could feel how important this had been, how much more meaningful than another, more standard brand of expedition.  The strength of those two guys’ spirit up on that mountain is secured in Tim’s memory, and mine, forever.

Victor and Keith after their July 2012 Rainier Summit Climb

Congratulations Victor and Keith. Your determination, your optimism, your work on the mountain, all inspire me.  Thank you for your service to our country, your appetite for adventure, and most of all, your friendship.

-Ben Nobel

Dana Gleason and Luke Buckingham at the Official Ribbon and Tie Cutting Ceremony!

Moving into a brand new building this January was quite the event!  We captured the three day process through the camera lens… it only took 10,369 photos stitched together to make this video!

Dana had more fun than should be allowed... check it out!

Did you win?!  Watch the video to find out!!!

The entries have been received, the chads dimpled, ties settled with sewing machines at 20 paces and recounts recounted. We are proud to announce and showcase the winners of the 2011 Mystery Ranch photo and video contest. Congratulations to grand prize winners Ryan Krueger, Matthew Irving and KGB Productions and thanks to everyone who entered your unbelievably awesome photos and videos.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Graham Ward and Keelan McNulty on the Summit of Denali. Photo by Graham Ward

FORT WAINWRIGHT, Alaska – Capt. Keelan McNulty, 1st Battalion, 52nd Aviation Regiment, Task Force 49, and 1st Lt. Graham Ward, 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment, 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, reached the 20,320-foot Mount McKinley summit May 17 despite often debilitating challenges during all stages of the expedition. The first major challenge for expedition leader and UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter pilot McNulty was finding a partner to accompany him on the arduous trek. He said he planned for three years to make the climb by taking a mountaineering course at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, buying equipment and training.

McNulty said he had partner prospects for months, but they all backed out due to scheduling conflicts. However, Ward offered to partner with McNulty, despite having no experience climbing any of the world’s major peaks.

McNulty said he didn’t take Ward seriously until the infantry scout platoon leader made plans for the duo to participate in training and firmly established his intentions when he purchased more than $5,000 of mountaineering equipment.

“I wasn’t going to let this dream of his fail because someone couldn’t pull through,” Ward said. “It is the chance of a lifetime, and if there is anyone I want to climb anything with, it’s Capt. McNulty.” The two trained tirelessly for three months, Ward said, entering into a rigorous physical fitness regimen that included uphill ski marches in the Delta Range and on Moose Mountain with 130-pound rucksacks.

The Soldiers used the Fort Wainwright rappel tower to become familiar with traversing crevasses, Ward said, but more importantly, McNulty mentored Ward to get him up to speed on the mountaineering knowledge required to summit the highest peak in North America, which is widely regarded as the second toughest climb after the world’s highest mountain, Mount Everest.

“I had 100 percent confidence that Capt. McNulty was going to teach me what I needed to know,” Ward said. “We were going in there as a team, and if he was going to slide off a ridge, I was going to try and stop us, or I was just going off with him.”

Word got around the national climbing community, and the duo quickly picked up sponsorships for additional equipment. Their title sponsor, Mystery Ranch, specializes in making custom packs for the U.S. special operations community and wanted the Soldiers to test their equipment in the toughest conditions on the continent, said Mark Seacat, a company field representative. According to McNulty, Seacat also provided invaluable mentorship to the team.

It was touch and go, Ward said, as the two worked out arrangements for leave with their commanders. They also needed approval from their chain-of-command to complete the dangerous climb prior to deploying to Iraq later this summer.

The two officers prepared a PowerPoint brief, meticulously detailing their plan, their risk assessments and their equipment to show how prepared they were to take on the expedition, McNulty said. Any questions about moving forward with the climb were settled when it was revealed the two officers would summit the mountain in honor of their units, bringing the United States of America flag, their battalion colors and several unit coins to the ceiling of North America.

Still, Denali National Park staff members were reluctant to grant Ward’s application to climb Mount McKinley, McNulty said, because he had checked “none” under mountain climbing experience. Upon an interview and a review of his experience as an Army Ranger and a scout platoon leader, his petition was granted upon the recommendation of Park Ranger John Loomis. According to McNulty and Ward, Loomis’ reputation was riding on the Soldiers’ ability to conquer “the Great One.” That same reputation would be irreparably damaged if either of the officers required a rescue operation during the expedition.

The two Fort Wainwright Soldiers made the drive from Fairbanks to Talkeetna Junction May 3, where the Talkeetna Ranger Station was established in 1977 to serve mountaineers climbing in Denali National Park. The two officers, their two 130-pound rucksacks and their sled were then transported by small plane to the base camp at 7,700 feet.

The team quickly made an impression, with McNulty wearing a huge bushy wig and jangling a cowbell in honor of a “Saturday Night Live” skit starring Will Ferrell and Christopher Walken to motivate others climbers on the mountain. According to Ward, their enthusiasm was contagious and word got around about the extraordinary duo.

Although it took the team several days to ascend to 14,200 feet, McNulty said, they made the trek from 14,200 to 17,200 feet in an astonishing nine hours.

Not all was well, however, and it looked like the wheels would come off the expedition when Ward developed what was likely Acute Mountain Sickness, which stems from a lack of oxygen at altitude and includes a headache, a loss of appetite and lethargy. McNulty said he was ready to call the expedition off, but Ward wanted to wait it out.

“That was the hardest mental day of my life,” Ward said, “because it was so easy to quit. I was about to say for the first time in life, ‘I just failed at something I really tried to do.’” All was not lost, though, as two days passed and so did the illness.

There was another problem, however, as 60-knot winds kept anyone from attempting to summit the mountain, McNulty said. Other expeditions were aborting in the face of the daunting weather. On their fourth day at 17,200 feet, the officers decided they would wait one more day before calling their own expedition off.

“We decided from the get-go, because we weren’t super experienced, that we weren’t going to push weather or our bodies,” McNulty said. “We made a pact that we weren’t going to push it. It’s the greatest peak in North America, but it isn’t worth dying over or not being able to do our jobs in Iraq.”

On day five, Ward said, the weather cleared at 17,200 feet, and McNulty and Ward continued on to reach the summit of Mount McKinley on the 15th day of the expedition.

The two said they ensconced several unit coins at the peak as they had promised, and the national and battalion colors were flown in honor of the country and the units who had trusted them to come back triumphant and ready to deploy.

“This is a motivator to Soldiers not to sit around, but to take Alaska in to its fullest,” McNulty said. “There is so much this state has to offer. Go to MWR (Morale, Welfare and Recreation) and rent equipment if you have to in order to enjoy the state.”

Although McNulty climbed as a member of 1-52nd, he said he will be assigned to 6th Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment, during their deployment to Iraq this summer. He said he honored both units during his climb.

Ward attended Special Forces Assessment and Selection immediately following the expedition. Although he was selected, he will deploy to Iraq with 1-25th SBCT before attending the Special Forces Captain’s Career Course next summer.