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  • I'm gonna start

  • before any adventures for the magazine,

  • before I was out in Antarctica,

  • before any of this happened.

  • I'm gonna start by telling you how cool I was as a kid,

  • because honestly, I was pretty cool.

  • I was the first hipster ever, sideways trucker hat.

  • I was kicking OshKosh B'Gosh, popped collar, the whole deal,

  • but really, the point of this picture is to show you

  • that from a very young age, I was in campgrounds

  • and my brother and I were in campgrounds

  • and we were always raised to be in campgrounds.

  • As my parents would have it, they wanted us to go out

  • from the tiniest age, and go out and experience the world

  • and push our boundaries and try to understand

  • what the world was around us,

  • and that was very important in my family,

  • so they started us skiing when we were two,

  • climbing when we were five, and the whole point was

  • to sort of define our own borders.

  • This is me in the Wind River Range,

  • close to where I live now in Bozeman, Montana,

  • at about, I guess I'm 11, 12 years old.

  • You know, this is when questioning boundaries

  • started to take a different turn.

  • I was a smart kid.

  • I went to high school two years early

  • and you know, exploring boundaries took on

  • a completely different texture at that point,

  • and what I mean by that is I started exploring

  • social boundaries rather than physical ones,

  • and when you're 12 years old in high school

  • and you're hanging out with 18 year old kids,

  • you don't have that six years of experience

  • to prepare you for that, and so honestly,

  • by the time I was 14 years old,

  • I was completely dropped out of high school.

  • My parents sent me to rehab.

  • I ran away three times, and on the third time,

  • as they say, the third time is the charm,

  • my parents gave up, and it's not that they wanted to give up

  • or I blame them for that, but they said,

  • "Quite honestly, Cory, we're scared of you.

  • "We don't know what to do,

  • "and if you can't abide by our rules,

  • "then you can't live at home."

  • So I was 14 and homeless.

  • I look back on the privilege of education

  • and I shudder to think what I was thinking,

  • but that was the decision I made,

  • but that time period led me to observe

  • the world from a very curious place.

  • When I'm on the streets, which was rare,

  • because oftentimes, my friends helped me

  • and I wasn't actually sleeping on the streets too much,

  • but sometimes I was, and when I would see

  • people picking out of garbage cans,

  • it took on a different tone to me.

  • When I myself would have to look for food,

  • it took on a different tone, and what I mean by that is

  • I started to see this as closer to our natural state.

  • That is a forager foraging, and everybody in this room

  • is actually much further removed

  • than our evolved trajectory than we like to think.

  • That forager is far closer to the way we evolved,

  • and it was that story, that time, seeing people struggle

  • that actually got me excited about telling bigger stories,

  • and thank God for my parents because they did start me

  • climbing so young that it had a gravitational,

  • or I guess anti-gravitational pull back to it.

  • Climbing was the thing that got me out of this,

  • because I came back, I was driven to do something,

  • and oddly enough, visually

  • and just in the very nature of it

  • it's allegorical to human struggle.

  • It's perfect for telling the story

  • of what humans are capable of and how much

  • we can overcome, and not only that.

  • Visually, it's just stunning, and you can grab people

  • and you can capture their imaginations

  • So my early career was all about this.

  • I would go out and I would take pictures

  • with really crappy cameras,

  • and I would try to sell them to companies,

  • and with that money, I would go on other trips,

  • and I'd save it and I'd save more

  • and I'd go on bigger trips

  • and I'd sell to different companies,

  • and so that's my whole early career worked,

  • and for a while, it was very sustaining and I loved it

  • because I could say I was a professional photographer

  • and people would really respect me

  • and I was really proud of myself.

  • I was kind of proving people wrong at this point.

  • I was proving everybody that said

  • I wasn't gonna amount to anything wrong.

  • I was saying no, I'm gonna amount to something,

  • and I think a lot of my early career was dedicated to that.

  • A lot of it was dedicated to making single images,

  • and I call these single stories, right?

  • So a single story is an image that you provide

  • to a company that inspires some sort of inspiration,

  • that really inspires people to buy raincoats.

  • I'm a glorified raincoat salesman, which is fine,

  • or at least, it was okay with me early on,

  • but I started to see this divergence

  • between these single image stories that I was hired to tell

  • and the larger narrative that I was really engaged in,

  • the things that I really wanted to talk about,

  • which was not the heroic moment.

  • It was the absolute opposite; it was the anti-hero moment.

  • It was the thousand yard stare.

  • It was my version of conflict photography

  • in the outdoor space.

  • I wanted to talk about what it's like to hurt,

  • what it feels like, and naturally,

  • as you travel, for those of us

  • who have had the great privilege of traveling,

  • the more you travel, the more engaged you become.

  • You become engaged with culture and you start to grow

  • a certain sense of compassion, or at least, I did.

  • This is a picture that I took a very, very long time ago,

  • but I remember it distinctly because all of a sudden,

  • after looking at this image back in Huaraz,

  • coming out of the hills in Peru,

  • I remember looking at this and thinking,

  • oh, climbing's kinda dumb, and it's true

  • because it's a very self-indulgent act

  • and I realized I needed climbing,

  • A, because it sustained me,

  • and B, because it took me to these places,

  • but the most important thing was the thing

  • that I had missed to that point.

  • I was so engaged in my own struggle and telling that story

  • that I was missing everybody around me,

  • so culture became a very focal point

  • in my early development, but again,

  • I wasn't a photographer of any note at this point.

  • Nobody was gonna hire me to go tell a cultural story.

  • I was always gonna be hired to go tell

  • the story of mountains, and that's okay.

  • This is a picture of Mount Everest on the left.

  • The little one in the middle is Lhotse.

  • In 2010, Conrad Anker, one of our other explorers,

  • asked if I would go here and install time lapse cameras

  • on the Khumbu Glacier to monitor deflation,

  • and it was for Jim Balog's movie, Chasing Ice,

  • 'cause we wanted to look at the impacts of climate change

  • on the glaciers in the Khumbu region.

  • Coincidentally, Conrad could kinda sense this.

  • I mean, Conrad's been a climber for a long time

  • and he could just see me looking up,

  • kinda like, I mean the time lapse cameras are cool

  • but that's really cool.

  • Like, you know, I wanna go there.

  • And so we actually finagled, we called down to Kathmandu

  • and I got a permit to climb Lhotse.

  • There was no way I was gonna get a permit

  • to climb Everest at this point; it was too late,

  • but they got me a permit to climb Lhotse,

  • and it was unlikely that I was gonna do it.

  • There was no way, because most people take about eight weeks

  • and they go up and down and up and down to get acclimatized.

  • I had been there for three weeks.

  • I hadn't been higher than base camp,

  • and you know, I had six days till the summit window,

  • so people were like, well, good luck, have fun.

  • You know, go up, don't die.

  • That's a common theme in my life.

  • Have fun, don't die.

  • But I ended up climbing it.

  • I ended up climbing it in six days,

  • so a total of three and a half weeks from my house

  • to the top of the fourth highest mountain in the world,

  • and that got noticed.

  • It got noticed by a guy named Simone Moro.

  • Now, Simone Moro is an Italian climber.

  • He's known for hard first winter ascents,

  • and he called me after this climb and he said

  • in this awesome voice, I'm gonna do it again.

  • You guys ready?

  • He talked like this.

  • I'm not kidding, he calls like this, he said,

  • "Cory, do you want to go Gasherbrum II?

  • "Winter time, meet with us."

  • And I said, "I don't understand what you're saying,

  • "but I would love to go with you because you're my hero."

  • Where are we going? Gasherbrum II.

  • I'm like, okay, that sounds great, where's that?

  • And he goes, "It's in Pakistan,"

  • and for those of you who don't know,

  • there's 14 8,000 meter peaks in the world,

  • so 14 peaks that are above roughly 26,000 thousand feet,

  • and nine of them are in Tibet and Nepal,

  • and five of them are in Pakistan,

  • and the nine in Tibet and Nepal have all been climbed

  • or had at this point all been climbed in winter,

  • but none of the Pakistani 8,000 meter peaks

  • had ever been climbed in winter

  • because they're about 600 miles north,

  • the weather's much more severe,

  • and a lot of people at this point, I think,

  • 16 expeditions over 26 years had tried and failed.

  • But here's the thing, I jumped, I leapt before thinking.

  • I didn't even know any of that.

  • Likewise, I didn't know that if I did this,

  • I would be the first American

  • to climb any 8,000 meter peak in winter,

  • but of course, I said yes, and all of a sudden, I was here

  • on the literal, physical border of India and Pakistan,

  • so that's something to pay attention to.

  • I remember taking this photo

  • mostly because I saw it happening.

  • I knew the sun was gonna crest

  • and I knew that we're on our summit push here,

  • so I ran ahead in crampons, that's really hard.

  • It doesn't look cool, you're like...

  • I ran and because I ran, I was just so out of breath

  • that I immediately vomited, and then I get my camera out,

  • I take my mittens off, I think it's actually minus 50

  • and I pull it up and I realize I can't take it.

  • It's frozen, I can't turn it off shutter priority,

  • so I can't change the shutter speed, I can't do anything,

  • and it's at a 50th of a second,

  • which for those of you who don't know, that's very slow

  • especially when you're just vomited

  • and you're like trying to do that,

  • and I took this picture, and that was that.

  • I knew that moment was special

  • because I also knew in that moment

  • that we were very likely gonna summit.

  • But the summit there was just the beginning.

  • Like I said, I didn't know I'd be the first American.

  • I didn't know any of that, and to be fair,

  • had I known, I don't think it would have been good for me.

  • I was climbing out of pure joy and I loved it.

  • As we got to the summit, a storm hit

  • and on the way down, we were hit by a massive avalanche.

  • Six days out onto our summit bid, one day,

  • the last day to base camp, we were hit by an avalanche

  • and I sent this picture to my mom when we got back

  • and I said, "Mom, we made it, we're back safe."

  • And she goes, "Oh, it's a lovely portrait, is that Dennis?"

  • And I said, "That's me, mom."

  • She goes, oh, like, oh, that's gross.

  • And I'm like, yeah, 'cause I look like I'm 90, it is gross.

  • My face is all swollen.

  • Did you know that more people have died this year from

  • taking selfies than shark attacks and lightning combined?

  • Yeah, it's bad news, don't do it, but do keep taking selfies

  • 'cause apparently, you can get 'em

  • on the cover of National Geographic, that's a thing.

  • But honestly, to get serious for a second, that moment,

  • as much as the avalanche was a defining moment in my career

  • and this image became something,

  • it became much more than I had ever anticipated.

  • It represents something much deeper, and I look at it now,

  • I look at the gesture, I look at the facial expression,

  • and what I see is somebody who's struggling to deal

  • with a traumatic event, a very, very traumatic event.

  • What happens to the brain is when it thinks

  • it's going to die, it quite literally prepares for death,

  • and so when people say my life flashed before my eyes,

  • that's a very real thing.

  • It's not the way you think of it.

  • It's not like all these beautiful visions and things.

  • Sometimes, you're like Cheerios, parking tickets, you know.

  • It's all of it, compiled, but I see this now,

  • and what I see is a person who is alive,

  • realizing they're alive

  • after their brain has prepared for death,

  • and what that manifests as in psychological terms is PTSD.

  • That's where it goes from there.

  • The experience is locked in your brain.

  • Your sympathetic nervous system kicks in

  • and you are continually experiencing that moment

  • from that point on, so it's spinning out,

  • and essentially, that's just a corrosive method

  • for your brain, and what you do is

  • you try to find anything to calm that spinning down.

  • It's where all addiction stems from.

  • So I didn't know it at the time,

  • but G II had given me the first American to do something,

  • 8,000 meter peak in winter, and PTSD.

  • It's the gift that keeps on giving, but we'll get into that.

  • I went home and I got married.

  • I got married to a wonderful woman.

  • We had a wonderful group of friends.

  • We had incredibly supportive families.

  • We lived an alternate lifestyle

  • that some parents would be a little alarmed by.

  • Like, okay, you're gonna go climb mountains

  • and you're gonna go climb rocks,

  • and we had very supportive family.

  • But the problem was that even right after my marriage,

  • I started to feel disassociated

  • and I started to feel withdrawal

  • and I started to feel confusion and darkness,

  • and I didn't know what it was.

  • I felt like there was a weight pushing down on me.

  • Like, a literal weight.

  • I'd wake up in the morning and my brain was just going,

  • and it was like this very loud silence,

  • and it reminded me of a quote that I read,

  • a quote from a book.

  • It says, "They carried all that they could bear,

  • "and then some, including a silent awe

  • "for the terrible power of the things that they carried."

  • That's by Tim O'Brien from the book The Things They Carried.

  • G II didn't just leave me with PTSD.

  • It gave me something else.

  • It gave me an opportunity to provide

  • a storytelling example to National Geographic.

  • There was a Pakistani military camp at base camp

  • and because we were there in the winter,

  • they were very welcoming.

  • They opened up their doors to us.

  • They were sort of intrigued by us.

  • Who are these three crazy guys climbing in winter?

  • 'Cause in the summertime, you can't go here.

  • It's just off limits

  • because there's too many people up on the glacier,

  • and these guys are 18 to 24 years old.

  • I was so alarmed by what I had seen in western media

  • and what was actually happening there,

  • so I took on the task of trying

  • to communicate their story in very, very brief terms,

  • because I wanted to come back and have something

  • to show to Sadie Quarrier, who had asked,

  • she's my photo editor here, who had asked,

  • hey, can you show me some storytelling examples?

  • It was a very unique opportunity, extremely unique,

  • and to look back at these and see what I was trying to do,

  • I can understand it, and I think, you know,

  • some of 'em are okay, but oddly enough,

  • I just wanna tell how we got here.

  • These guys would come over to our camp

  • and they'd kinda peek in

  • and it's like they were six year olds

  • and then they'd kinda nervously walk in

  • and we'd have tea with them, and then finally,

  • the reason it all worked out,

  • the reason we became friends is because they asked,

  • hey, Cory, I know you guys have internet.

  • Could I check my Facebook?

  • So now, I have a ton of friends named Farooq, Muhammad,

  • and I'm on the TSA watch list, which is awesome.

  • Can't get on a plane to save my life.

  • But it was a real lesson in creating intimacy

  • and learning through non-verbal communication

  • and trying to take pictures that told

  • deeper, more meaningful stories,

  • and really using that which is different

  • to show that which makes us all the same.

  • I love this photograph.

  • It's not technically perfect.

  • What self respecting photographer leaves

  • a shadow in the bottom?

  • It's hardly in focus, but the guy has a purple tracksuit.

  • Like, that is dope, that is awesome.

  • And who dries their clothes in minus 40?

  • Why would you do that?

  • But the thing is, it's just like,

  • I'm a guy out drying my clothes.

  • Sure, I'm in the Pakistani military

  • in the highest battlefield in the world, but guess what?

  • It's relatable, and that's what brings us together.

  • That's the power of photography.

  • It brings us together; it brings us closer.

  • This is hard living up here.

  • This is very intimate space, and to be invited in

  • and to be shown that level of friendship was a true gift,

  • and it made me connect with these guys in a way,

  • a very real way, where I started

  • feeling much more for their struggle,

  • and their struggle is one that is very, very real.

  • Bertrand Russell has a wonderful quote.

  • He says, "War does not determine who is right,

  • "only who is left," and I found this foot

  • of a Pakistani soldier frozen in the ice on the glacier,

  • and it occurred to me that this is somebody's son

  • and probably somebody's brother and maybe somebody's uncle.

  • These wars are ugly and they leave scars,

  • and our actions as humans have consequences.

  • They all do, but this led me

  • to my first assignment for National Geographic.

  • They said, yeah, you can take a couple pictures.

  • We'll try you out.

  • Might not go so well, but we'll give you a shot.

  • It was to an area called Mustang.

  • It's on the northern border of Nepal, just south of Tibet,

  • and it was pivotal for Tibetan freedom fighters

  • at the end of the cultural revolution,

  • but before that, for thousands of years before that,

  • it was a space of absolute beauty and mystery.

  • We were using climbing to access these caves

  • and what I love about that is,

  • back to one of the previous photographs, it's the hook.

  • Adventure is the hook to get people involved in science

  • and then we can talk about culture and human migration,

  • so when you're telling stories,

  • you wanna bring these elements together.

  • That's sort of what I've found works best for me,

  • and effective storytelling always brings you in.

  • It brings you very, very close.

  • It takes you into the caves.

  • It gives you the smells and the textures.

  • It shows you that dry, dry, that sort of sand everywhere.

  • But it's interesting, when I look at these now too,

  • I feel like there's a parallel

  • with what was happening in my life.

  • I felt like I was standing at the opening of a cave,

  • looking in, not wanting to go in,

  • but just sort of being sucked in, and not being able to see

  • and feeling completely this sense of vertigo.

  • I didn't know what was happening,

  • and much like Matt is doing here,

  • I was picking up random pieces

  • and trying to fit them together and figure them out,

  • but nothing seemed to work.

  • In this image, Matt is actually finding a piece of pecha.

  • Pecha is ancient script.

  • A lot of times, it looked like this.

  • Pick it up, blow the dust off.

  • You know, it was tax records and things like that.

  • Sometimes, it would look like this,

  • and that is an illuminated folio that predates Buddhism.

  • This is Bon, so this is the animistic tradition

  • of the Tibetan plateau before the spreading of Buddhism.

  • It gives a deeper understanding

  • of how the culture there evolved.

  • It's really about taking images

  • that take tiny little pieces of the puzzle

  • and then put them all together.

  • That's what a visual narrative is,

  • and some of 'em have to take bigger leaps than other,

  • but it's construction from the ground up,

  • and you have to open yourself up

  • to seeing things in a very different way.

  • After a very long time, we finally found

  • what we were looking for, which was human remains.

  • This is rescue archaeology.

  • These caves are actually literally exfoliating

  • off the side of the mountain, so we'd go in

  • and we'd collect samples that we could.

  • What we were really looking for here were teeth.

  • Now, if you think of this in a way,

  • basically, human remains are like finding

  • the corner and the edge pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, right?

  • Once you have that, you start to piece things together.

  • The reason teeth are important is 'cause

  • in your tooth enamel, there's something called strontium.

  • It's Sr 38 on the periodic table,

  • and what that has in it is a geo thumb print, essentially.

  • It tells you where you were born,

  • so if you can find somebody's remains

  • and you get their strontium index

  • and they were born someplace different than where they died

  • and you do that with everybody in the burial crypt,

  • well, all of a sudden, you're painting a very real picture

  • about human migration and trade,

  • and this is the story of our human family.

  • This is why this matters.

  • We're connecting the pieces,

  • and what's so important about that,

  • and I think it's more important now than ever,

  • now, this is ancient history, but ancient history matters

  • because it's only through understanding our past,

  • I mean this so much especially this week,

  • only through understanding our past

  • can we hope to navigate our future.

  • So we have to pay attention to this stuff.

  • When we look back and we look at the events that happened,

  • how can we predict the future, and hopefully,

  • how can we alter it to go down a better road?

  • Because honestly, we all look up at the sky

  • and we think the world's so big and it's infinite.

  • You know what? It's not.

  • The sky might be infinite,

  • but the world is very, very, very finite.

  • It's extremely finite and extremely fragile.

I'm gonna start

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