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Roof of the World! - Page 2

Climbing into history

Dave Arnett '84 and his family
Dave Arnett ’84 is an experienced high altitude climber who stood on the roof of the world this past May after a two-month trek that took him thousands of miles away from his wife, Victoria, and their two daughters, Sarah, 9, and Kathryn, 5. It was not a decision taken lightly. During a climbing expedition on Kilimanjaro with Victoria in 2006, the guide for his Adventure Consultants expedition quietly observed Arnett’s climbing skills and queried him about his high altitude experiences. Shortly thereafter, he asked Arnett if he ever considered climbing Everest.

“Once I began climbing in my 30s, I initially thought about Everest a fair bit,” Arnett said. “However, as time went on, and especially after I was blessed with my wife and our children, I pretty much wrote it off,” he added.

But after the guide approached him about Everest, he admits that it was the first time in years that his thoughts turned to the big mountain again. When they returned home, he spoke with his wife about it. “She was very supportive,” he said, adding that she “is pretty amazing, most spouses would have made it a short (and not very pretty) conversation, but she has wonderful vision and is very giving.” They took some time to consider the proposition, prayed about it, spoke in depth with their children and in the end decided Dave would give it a strong try. But he noted that as hard of a climb that Everest is, “my wife basically carried both of our loads at home for nine weeks—which I suspect was more work than being on Everest and I am very grateful for her.”

Dave Arnett's Climbing Background

As a director of Field Applications and Design—In Centers for Intel Americas, where he has worked for the past 23 years, Arnett is used to a methodic approach to making difficult, high-pressure decisions. Because of this, the attempt at Everest had to make as much sense as possible in terms of his family and career. And while he admits colleagues initially thought he was crazy for this endeavor, he explained that climbing “is one way for me to put life in perspective, to think about my priorities at home and my spirituality. Maybe it is a little crazy, but through a challenge like this I gain a great deal of understanding about life and the things that are most important,” he explained. Intel, which provides a generous paid sabbatical program of eight weeks for every seven years worked to employees, supported his desire to climb Everest. 

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