After conquering Everest for the 19th time, the world’s most successful expedition leader returned to campus to speak about life on top of the world.
When Kenton Cool (Geological Sciences 1994, Hon LLD 2018) first reached the summit of Mount Everest in 2004, he sat down and took in the view. “I told myself to enjoy it,” says Kenton, “because you might never be up here again.”
Little did he know.
Kenton has now summited more than any non-Sherpa in the world, as he guides expeditions to the highest point on earth. “Every time it takes my breath away. I have a moment of bliss, I take in the peaks below me, then it’s back to reality – what’s the time? How much oxygen have we got? How’s my client doing? What do we need to do next?”
It might be the highest, but for a climber of Kenton’s calibre, Everest is considered an “easy climb”. This is a man who has established new routes and first ascents on peaks in Alaska, France and India. He’s the first British person to complete a ski descent of an 8,000m peak – and then became the first Brit to repeat the feat. He was the first person in history to complete the Everest ‘triple crown’ by climbing the three mountains that make up the Everest Horseshoe in a single push, a challenge many thought impossible. He’s been nominated for a Piolet d’Or award, described as the Oscars for mountaineers, for new a route on Annapurna III in Nepal.
Everest, on the other hand, is a well-trodden path. Yet he keeps going back.
“It’s a privilege,” says Kenton. “I love the culture of the Himalayas, the food, and life stripped bare on the mountain. I love being part of someone else’s journey to the summit. I’m quite shallow in that I don’t need to be climbing hard to have a great time in the mountains. That feeling when we reach the top is as powerful as it was on my first ascent.”
Kenton’s first trip to the Himalayas came when he was still a student at Leeds. He had been introduced to climbing through the Leeds University Union Mountaineering and Climbing society, and he met with the club for a Q&A session on his return to campus. “The society was amazing back then, and it’s great to see it’s still strong today. You meet all these like-minded souls and it’s impossible not to get caught up in the ground swell of it.
“I spent many hours honing my skills on the Henry Price traverse along the bottom of the flats, going out on day trips to the Cow and Calf rocks at Ilkley and the boulders on Otley Chevin. If we could get hold of a car we’d go to Malham Cove and Kilnsey Crag.
“In second year I spent several weeks in Pakistan discovering new routes, mainly because it was cheap. We just felt as if we could do anything.”
After graduating, Kenton worked as an industrial rope access specialist, inspecting, maintaining and repairing difficult-to-reach infrastructure, but his real joy came from adventures to the Peak District and abroad. Kenton remembers getting stuck in bad weather for six days whilst climbing the south face of Denali, Alaska in 2002. “You can be scared, alone, cold and you don’t know if you’ll survive,” Kenton tells students. “But you have to use fear as a superpower. You’ve got to harness it as a motivator instead of an inhibitor. I tell myself, ‘don’t get dead’, and I do all I can to achieve that. Fear can be addictive.
“I will always keep going in those situations. I don’t take failure well at all.”
As a mountain guide, Kenton faces fewer unknowns nowadays – which suits him just fine, with shifting priorities and family dependents. He’s gained a reputation for his guiding abilities instead, taking the likes of Sir Ranulph Fiennes and Ben Fogle to the Everest summit during his extensive career on the mountain.
There are few better placed to discuss change on Everest. Negative press describes increasingly long queues towards the summit and piles of rubbish at basecamp, but Kenton shakes his head: “It’s true that things are different, but most of the change is around tech – we now have much better equipment, fixing teams put the ropes in place, the weather forecasting is so much better, and Sherpas have improved. Life at basecamp has become more comfortable, which I don’t think is a bad thing.
“Climbing the mountain is the same as it always was, it’s just more accessible. The queues that are spoken about might happen every four years or so when weather systems result in funnelling on specific days. It’s not usually an issue.”
He is more concerned with changes related to the climate and has documented the extent of glacial retreat in the Himalayas on social media. He recently met with a team of Leeds researchers on the mountain to discuss their exploration of why the ice of the Western Cwm glacier is so close to the melting point, and how intense radiation from the sun could be melting the snow even when air temperatures are below freezing.
“This Leeds expedition to Everest was arguably the most important scientific expedition to the mountain for nearly 20 years,” Kenton said. “The team conducted groundbreaking glacial science at over 6,400m, and their findings will potentially impact millions of people.
“Being a Leeds alum, I’m proud to be associated with the expedition to a mountain that has played such an important role in my life.”
Further information
For more information, email Ed Newbould, Digital Communications Officer at the University of Leeds, at e.w.newbould@leeds.ac.uk.
Read more about Leeds research to explore why Everest glacier is so warm
Alumni volunteers like Kenton support Leeds students by offering careers advice, sharing knowledge about their industry, mentoring students or providing work experience. If you’re interested in volunteering at Leeds complete our volunteer registration form.