Climbing with Erik Weihenmayer

By Brent Crane

It’s just after 6am and Erik Weihenmayer is wheeling a tandem bicycle out of his garage on a winding, suburban street in Golden, Colorado. Our destination is a 20-metre-high rockface halfway up Lookout Mountain, named after its vista of the city. But climbing isn’t enough for Weihenmayer. He wants to bike there first. As he gets ready, the 51-year-old career adventurist wonders aloud, “What else can we do to make it a triathlon?”

Weihenmayer has spent his life pushing at limits and expectations. He’s climbed the highest mountain on every continent, kayaked the length of the Colorado river through the Grand Canyon, scaled the notorious “Nose” route of El Capitan in Yosemite and completed some of the world’s most gruelling races. His accomplishments would be jaw-dropping even if he could see. But Weihenmayer is completely blind.