"Bringing up kids is an 8c"

Stefan Glowacz is practically in the last phase of preparation for his next climbing expedition. His mind and heart are already on Baffin Island on Canada’s north coast. In the second part of our interview he talks about passion and life-threatening situations.

The Film about your struggle, which lasted for years, with the Cerro Murallón, the ‘forgotten wall’ was filmed on the vast ice land of Patagonia and is called ‘Facing Obsession’. How thin is the line between obsession and addiction in extreme climbing?

I prefer to call it a passion rather than an addiction – also when you sometimes get caught up in the maelstrom and you can’t take anything else in other than your goal. But passion is important in every part of life if you want to achieve something great. Acceptable achievements can perhaps also be accomplished without passion. But then, not any more.

How does an idea for a project like the Baffin-Island expedition develop?

There’s usually not a specific catalyst. The fascination arises from being confronted with books, newspaper reports and pictures that you see somewhere. At the beginning of my last expedition it was Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel ‘The Lost World,’ for example: In Venezuela, you know, I climbed a high plateau where flora and fauna has been able to grow in isolation over umpteen years.

What’s it like then, your relationship to nature, with this kind of project? Is nature an adversary whom you have to wrestle with? Or the All-Powerful, which you feel totally submissive to?

If you saw nature as your opponent, you’d be drawing the short straw. No, you have to accept that you’re the foreigner in this environment; someone who has to adjust to the conditions as best as possible. I go there with the awareness that I’m going to be freezing all the time, and that I have four to six weeks of agony ahead of me.

What role does risk play? Is the danger of death part of your motivation?

No, I’m well beyond that age. I’ll admit, though, that I used to get a kick out of it. In my Sturm and Drang period I liked to climb without a rope to savor the feeling of excitement. Then one time I fell and survived some serious injuries. I took that as a sign that it’s unnecessary to challenge fate.

Your wife and kids probably wouldn’t have anything against having a father who’s happy with one of those all-inclusive holidays instead of solo trips to the pack ice?

Oh, I don’t know. Without these experiences I’d be a totally different person. But sure, it’s not that easy for my wife to accept my need for adventure. But if the tables were turned and she went on expeditions all by herself, I’d probably wouldn’t be able to cope with that at all.

Speaking of family: There you’re also not happy with run-of-the-mill challenges: for you, instead of one child you had to have triplets. How does this measure on the family scale of difficulty? An 8b?

In total we actually have five kids because my wife had two from her previous relationship. We have such great fun together … but, that things get easier the older the kids get is a lie. Because to teach children about values that help to develop their characters in our fast-moving world – that’s tough work. That’s why I’d make a correction and say that it’s a 7b. But there are also parts that would rank as an 8c.