Creve Coeur Man Prepares To Climb Mt. Everest In Bid For History

What do you do to "get away from it all," to recharge and refocus?

Take a swim, meditation, or a take a hike? Creve Coeur resident Joe Ashkar takes hikes. Long hikes. Expensive hikes. High elevation hikes. On Friday, he leaves for Nepal as he makes the trek to Katmandu for next Monday's attempt to climb the highest peak in the world, Mt. Everest.

That by itself would be be something to brag about, but Ashkar, 43, and the owner of a Creve Coeur-based IT firm, has something larger in mind. By this summer, Ashkar is attempting to be one of the only people, and possibly the first ever, to climb the highest summits on each continent, plus reach the North Pole and the South Pole, all within 365 days.

The St. Louis-based adventurer said the idea of climbing Everest had been with him since he was as young as 10, studying volcanoes and mountains. After moving around Europe growing up as the son of a father in the hotel business, Ashkar came to St. Louis and graduated from Washington University. Opportunities to rekindle that childhood curiosity with climbing seemed to come at poor times, first with a job change, then with a young family.

But a few years ago, with his company on solid footing and his kids a little older, Ashkar said he decided it was now or never, and the idea of scaling the seven highest peaks came into his thought process.

He took a mountaineering class and scaled Mt. Rainier and Mt. Baker in Washington. Last summer, he reached the top of Mount Elbrus, the tallest peak in Europe when his guide broached the thought of doing the seven highest peaks in a year. Ashkar thought one better and raised the ante: what if you did the seven highest peaks, plus the north and south poles, all within a calendar year? 

That became the goal.

Two weeks after Elbrus, he did Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. In October it was Carstenz Pyramid in Indonesia and Mount Kosciuszko in Australia. In December, it was Aconcagua in Argentina. The most recent destination was Vinson Massif in Antarctica, reaching the summit Jan. 18.

According Ashkar, these journeys are not cheap. Mount Kilimanjaro can run at least $2,500, while Everest could be near $100,000 when you add up transportation, supplies, logistical support and insurance costs. Sometimes, with the best laid plans, things happen.

Ashkar told a story of being "stranded" in Indonesia for a time when the plane he had contracted for the trip ended up getting bought out by other interests. He and his team eventually bought their way via another plane assisting a missionary group.

And of course, there is considerable risk.

Ashkar said he was getting ready to leave his camp to return from Antartica when a plane which had left less than an hour before their's had crashed, killing three.

"It could have been us, it could have been anybody," he said. "So you’re taking a risk, but it’s no different than crossing the street and somebody just texting on the phone and don’t see you on the crosswalk and run a red light and run you over. Accidents happen. I truly believe accidents can happen at any time anywhere whether you’re climbing Mount Everest or you’re just crossing the street in a safe neighborhood."

Ashkar insists that the treks really leave him recharged with adrenaline and that there's a business lesson to be learned:

"Any of those big mountains, if you look at the overall feat, like, 'Wow this is a huge challenge; how do you climb all the way up to 26-29 thousand feet?' And the key is, you always break it down into small chunks, and in business, kind of the same thing when you have a really big unsurmountable project: 'Wow this is just too complicated.' Well nothing's really that complicated….you take it and you break it into small pieces," he said.

If you've heard athletes talk about taking it one game at a time, one day at a time, one play at a time, Ashkar sounds like someone who can relate. 

"It’s very very cliché, but it works," he said.

A trip to Denali National Park in Alaska in June would complete the feat, as he plans to tackle the North Pole right after Mt. Everest. Once that's all done, Ashkar said he may return to Kilimanjaro, with his daughters, later this summer.

As for what's next, he said he may return to another childhood love, and investigate climbing volcanoes. Just not on the same pace as he has with mountains.

"I’m not doing it for the record, I’m not doing it for fame or anything to that effect, I’m doing this because I enjoy doing it and I’m getting a lot out of it in terms of relaxation, ideas, it is helping me evolve as a person," Ashkar said. 

You can follow along with Joe Ashkar's journeys on his blog, which will also be shared on Patch, beginning in the coming days.