Two years ago, Brook Alongi was sitting at a desk working a 9-to-5 job.
About two months from now, he’ll be standing on top of the world.
The 28-year-old Marysville man, who’s been climbing rocks and mountains for 15 years, is going as high as he can – to the top of Mount Everest.
Alongi is leading a six-man expedition up the North Ridge of the tallest mountain on Earth.
He leaves Sunday, arriving in Kathmandu, Nepal, nearly two weeks ahead of the rest of the team to coordinate last-minute details. When the team arrives, the 70-day expedition begins.
Alongi’s Marysville home was strewn with dry food supplies, tents and backpacks on a recent Friday.
A satellite telephone, two laptop computers and a satellite modem sat on his dining room table. They’ll keep him connected to the world as he rises higher and higher above it.
It was about a year and a half ago that Alongi decided to make work out of his passion. Four years in the Navy, including some time in Japan, got him hooked on travel and jumpstarted his love of climbing.
But when he left the service, the walls closed in.
“I had to come back and sit at home and have a 9-to-5 job. It drove me crazy,” said Alongi, who worked in electronics. “Every few months, I’d be asking for a month or two off. That doesn’t work in corporate America.”
So he sold his house, quit his job and started his expedition company, Ogawa Mountain Adventures. Alongi takes care of the logistics “without the hand-holding.”
Later this year, Alongi will lead an expedition to the site of his first 8,000-meter peak, Cho Oyu, the sixth-highest mountain in the world. Spots are still available for that trip, as well as a journey up Everest’s South Col route in 2006.
Last year, Alongi and three others topped Cho Oyu, which stands 26,906 feet tall.
But his next trek loomed not too far in the distance.
“When I got to the top, the entire north face of Everest was in my face,” Alongi said, noting that Everest is just 15 miles from Cho Oyu. “It was right in my face, and I was thinking about it as I was climbing back down the mountain.”
Alongi dropped his bags at the hotel in Kathmandu and headed straight for the Chinese consulate to get all the information and permits he needed to make his dream come true.
“My secret goal was to try to go to Everest before I’m 30,” he said. “My climbing life and my professional life have finally made it possible to go and I’m taking advantage of it.”
Alongi gathered a team of five paying clients – Scott Streett of Everett, and Ryan Allen, Al Baal, Ambrose Bittner and Michael Frank, all of Seattle – in two months and began training for the rigors of the 29,035-foot ascent.
After months of lifting weights, running trails and swimming, Alongi said the team looks strong and ready to go. The climbers will likely lose 15 to 25 pounds on the trek.
“I don’t know if you’re ever prepared to climb the highest mountain in the world,” said Streett, a former engineer. “But the other things in my life were in a pretty good place to allow me to try to do this.”
Streett, 31, recently quit his job and sold his house, which helped pay for the Everest trip. He now works part time at REI, which at least gets him some breaks on gear.
“This could be my only chance to go to Everest,” Streett said. “I think anybody who enjoys hiking or mountaineering probably wants to see what it’s like on Everest.”
Alongi and the team are taking the North Ridge, which is tougher than the more popular South Col route. The North Ridge has a success rate of about one in 10.
Clearly, the odds are against Alongi’s entire group reaching the summit.
The trek starts in Kathmandu, where the team will get a private blessing at a monastery and jump on Chinese military trucks that will whisk the men out of Nepal, across the Chinese border and through much of Tibet.
The team will be driven to base camp, which will be about 15,000 feet up the mountain – higher than the summit of Mount Rainier.
After several days of rest at base camp, the group will move directly on to advanced base camp, about 20,000 feet high, in two or three days. More than 100 yaks will assist in carrying supplies, and a Sherpa staff will come along, as well.
There will be four more camps between advanced base camp and the summit, but the process to get there will be deliberate.
The team will climb high and sleep low, meaning it will go on daily climbs from camp only to come back down to where that day’s climb began. On each trip, climbers will bring supplies up to the next camp. Coming back down each night will give their bodies a chance to acclimatize to the altitude change.
After several days of climbing high and sleeping low, the team will be ready to stay at the next highest camp.
The higher the team goes, the closer the camps become. But the journey to each one will get more and more difficult, and slower.
Once the team is ready to make its ascent to the summit, it will go all the way back down to the original base camp, and possibly lower.
Five or six days of rest at base camp will give the body one last chance to prepare for the rigors of the five-day climb straight to the top.
“The summit is 15 minutes of 70 days,” Alongi said. “People make the summit because they were patient, took their time on the mountain and didn’t rush.”
Safety will be Alongi’s top priority, looking to avoid bouts with acute mountain sickness, or AMS, the most common illness that comes from gaining altitude too quickly.
He completed Cho Oyu without oxygen, but that isn’t an option on Everest.
“Here, there are five guys depending on me if anything happens,” Alongi said, stressing the importance of safety. “I’ve lost summits before because I was taking care of myself.”
If Alongi and company take care of themselves just right, they will add their names to the list of just 2,249 people who can say they have truly reached the pinnacle.
Reporter Victor Balta: 425-339-3455 or vbalta@heraldnet.com.
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