Jackson Hole & A Yellow Submarine
I’ve always been drawn to explorers and adventurers, be they sailors, mountain climbers, or Teddy Roosevelt navigating his way out of the Amazon jungle. As a kid, I was mesmerized by National Geographic magazines – from how their yellow spines looked on a shelf to photographs of exotic lands and foreign cultures. And if we’re being honest, it was the only place a grade school kid could see a naked woman (go ahead and cancel me now; I’m only 35 years into an indefinite statute of limitations).
Unfortunately, I was born at the wrong time. If I could sit down with the Almighty, I’d request one of the following lives:
Meriwether Lewis
Rock Climber and Mountaineer Conrad Anker
Jacques Cousteau (or Steve Zissou)
Danish Artic Explorer, Journalist, and Anthropologist Peter Freuchen. A towering man at 6’ 7”, he wore a full-length coat made out of a polar bear he killed, escaped a death warrant issued by Hitler himself, amputated his own toes on an expedition in Greenland, became editor-in-chief of a magazine, had a peg for a leg, was the fifth winner on The $64,000 Question game show, and settled in New York City with his third wife, wrote, and joined The Explorers Club.
But alas, I was born at the tail end of the twentieth century, so I’ve made do. My first real adventure was spending college summers working in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. This was in the late 90s when Jackson was a bit sleepier and content with Aspen being the playground of the rich. There were a few celebrities, but it was limited to a run-in with Harrison Ford in the backcountry. The real “celebrities” were world-class mountaineers, climbers, and skiers. They were gods in the Teton Range, and Alex Lowe was Zeus.
Alex was THE preeminent climber in the world. He was sponsored by The North Face (before they sold their soul to the retail devil) and chalked up awe-inspiring first ascents in Antarctica, Pakistan, and Alaska. He also climbed the Grand Teton over one hundred times.
What captured my attention was his legendary completion of the Grand Traverse. Let’s try to put this in perspective: The Grand Traverse is an 18-mile trek in the Teton Range that goes up and down ten mountains. To be clear, you’re attempting to climb ten consecutive mountains. Summiting the Grand Teton alone is a BIG deal; now add nine more mountains and climb them one after the other. It’s a three-day affair for the most physically fit non-professional climber.
The summits, from north to south, are Teewinot (12,324′), Owen (12,928′), Grand Teton (13,770′), Middle Teton (12,804′), South Teton (12,514′), Ice Cream Cone (12,405’), Gilkey Tower (12,320’), Spalding Peak (12,240’), Cloudveil Dome (12,026′), and Nez Perce (11,901′).
Just for shits and giggles: how many of y’all can jog 18 miles while being upwards of 13,000 feet above sea level? If you answered yes, it’s genuinely impressive. The only way I could is if you gave me two weeks, a dozen or so cigar breaks, and allowed the use of a golf cart from time to time (preferably the ones at the Capital City Club that have a bar on the back). Second question: how many of y’all can summit just one mountain in the Teton Range? My guess is there aren’t too many of y’all left. But if you answered yes to both, congratulations! You’re on the ascending limb of the superhuman curve. Now, let’s examine how Zeus did it: Alex summited all ten mountains in eight hours and fifteen minutes. You read that correctly. Do you see why guys like Alex were treated like living Gods (and why NO ONE gives a damn about celebrities in Wyoming)?
I reluctantly came back to Atlanta when the summer was over, but not before I called Dad to tell him I was taking a year off. I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Wyoming. I loved going to rodeos in Jackson, fly fishing in Montana’s Beartooth Mountains, and having two National Parks in my backyard. I also lived in a log cabin on the Snake River and had access to an ‘89 Wagoneer. Why would anyone in their right mind leave? Furthermore, the employee tavern, where a missing leg on the pool table was replaced with a stack of old Playboys, was next door to my cabin. Don’t get me wrong; Athens is THE best college town in America, but it ain’t Jackson.
Eventually, Dad made a deal with me. I agreed to come home for one quarter of college, and if I didn’t like it, I could go back. I ended up with a diploma from the University of Georgia. I went back for another summer, but my heart never left. My version of Tony Bennett’s “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” is below:
The loveliness of Aspen seems somehow sadly gay
The glory that was Vail is of another day
I’ve been terribly alone and forgotten in Atlanta
I’m going home to my city by the Tetons
I left my heart in Jackson Hole
Low in a valley, it calls to me
To be where massive cable cars climb halfway to the stars
The morning snow may chill the air, I don’t care
My love waits there in Jackson Hole
Above the grey and windy peaks
When I come home to you, Jackson Hole
Your golden sun will shine for me
Even though I’m stuck in the 21st century, my biological predisposition for taking risks manifests in everything I do, from hobbies to my career to personal aesthetics (I’m currently growing a robber baron mustache). For starters, I’m a dyed-in-the-wool entrepreneur. I tried to be a good corporate citizen in my twenties and early thirties, but it was a bridge too far. I was a terrible employee. Scratch that: I was the worst employee in Atlanta, which is no small feat in a pool of six million people. Don’t get me wrong; I was respectful and got along with everyone, especially upper management, but it became obvious I had to start a company or be a ski lift operator in Jackson.
So, I started a company raising capital for private equity funds, and it failed. Then I started another one, and it failed too. Guess what I did next? You guessed it; I started another company, but with submarines. I needed an adventure, and with an unblemished track record of laying eggs in finance, it made sense.
My squash partner introduced me to a gentleman named Guillermo Adrian Miguel Söhnlein. A Berkeley grad with a J.D., Guillermo was an officer in the Marine Corps before getting into oceanic exploration and joining The Explorers Club. Meetings with this guy were exhilarating! Gone were the days of discussing EBITDA and capital calls; now it was stories about astronauts and the Deep Blue Hole in Belize. I was ready to exchange my suit and tie for Stand Up shorts and a KAVU visor.
Guillermo and I would go on to launch an adventure travel company called Odin Expeditions. When I shared the news about my new venture, I was told by damn near everyone that I was making a calamitous error.
“You’re doing what?!”
“You heard me. I’m getting into the submarine business.”
“The WHAT business?! That actually exists?!”
“Of course it does. I’m in it.”
“How in God’s name did you manage to get yourself into…forget it.”
I flew to Seattle to meet one of Guillermo’s colleagues in the sub business. As far as badasses go, this cat is on a whole ‘nother level. His name is Stockton Rush, and he’s as cool as his name. Picture a guy with the presence of Clint Eastwood and the confidence of Sean Connery. He spent his summers at Princeton flying DC-8s to Cairo, Zurich, and Bombay as the youngest transport pilot in the world. He’d go on to work on F-15s and an anti-satellite missile program before founding OceanGate, an ocean exploration venture that designs deep-sea subs. He’s also the guy who’s known internationally for taking explorers on expeditions to the Titanic. I took a tour of his factory and checked out his fleet of subs.
Guillermo and I planned our first expedition to the Farallon Islands, 30 miles off the coast of San Francisco. For three weeks, a team of scientists and explorers were to conduct a series of dives to study the marine environment, collect data to support conservation efforts, and create sonar scans of a 1920 shipwreck. Stockton agreed to let us use one of his submarines – a yellow submarine, believe it or not (cue The Beatles). We worked on partnerships with outdoor companies, acquired permits on account of it being a National Wildlife Refuge, and called several hundred folks to find fellow explorers (with deep pockets).
I was having the time of my life, but like most entrepreneurial ventures, money was tight, and there just weren’t enough hours in the day. In the end, we had to close the shop, but I left with a good story and a ton of experience. I went on to start another financial services company, while Guillermo moved to Switzerland to work in the space industry. Stockton is still taking people to the bottom of the North Atlantic.
I’ve been asked many times why I take the risks I take. Why I “gamble” with my career. Why I won’t get a “normal” job. The answer is simple: I don’t see traditional standards of risk. Where others see puzzles, I see opportunities (some of which are admittedly delusional). Add to that an unwavering (and completely unfounded) belief in myself. But I’m not an aloof optimist. I’m just not afraid to fail. I might also add, and this drives risk-averse people in my life crazy, that I’m equally blind to traditional standards of failure. Every business “failure” had overwhelming elements of success in my mind. Several important people in my life have pleaded with me to reconsider the choices I make when it comes to risk, and my reply is always the same: “Asking me to change is no different than asking me to change the color of my eyes.” I was born this way. And to be perfectly honest, I love living this way; it feels like an adventure.
In the town where I was born
Lived a man who sailed to sea
And he told us of his life
In the land of submarines
So we sailed on to the sun
‘Til we found a sea of green
And we lived beneath the waves
In our yellow submarine
-The Beatles
*Authors Note - This article was written two months before the tragic loss of Stockton Rush, Hamish Harding, Paul-Henri Nargeolet, Shahzada and Suleman Dawood.
