Stacked Blocks

Stacked blocks are an alpinist's worst nightmare. You've come to a place where the only path forward is through a loose, vertical pile of giant boulders, held together by an unknown combination of ice, grit, and gravity.

It is not obvious that a good outcome even exists:

• If you climb up through the stacked blocks, you might bring down the whole pile, killing yourself and your partners below.
• If you climb around the stacked blocks, your route might end there, with no path forward.
• If you retreat from the stacked blocks, you'll never forgive yourself for backing off the line of ascent.

Every entrepreneur knows the helpless feeling facing stacked blocks in her startup. The way forward could be fatal, but there are no clear alternatives. Retreat feels lame, but unavoidable.

It is here that the great venture capitalists find a path to success with their entrepreneurs. The key to surmounting stacked blocks is not luck, but experience. Looking carefully at the pile, understanding how they weigh against each other, judging the angles, and comparing these against the prior configurations we've encountered - all of these inputs lead us to the solution.

Steve Chambers and I were determined to claim the first ascent of the white face on the East flank of Boulder Mountain in the Adamants. You could see it from the deck of the lodge lit up in the afternoon, a plumb line from the summit. Best of all, Unterberger had tried and failed to climb it.

But 200 feet up the steep wall, we realized that the entire upper half of the face we were climbing were stacked blocks, balanced against each other and frozen to the ice behind them. It was the most precarious place I'd ever encountered in the mountains, and utterly terrifying. Steve took a deep breath, and led out on the boulders, testing each one carefully, making choices based on his experience, insight and intuition.

Hours later, we stood together atop the first ascent of the Chambers/Lefkoff, satisfied that we'd done our best together.

There is always a path up through the stacked blocks, but it requires patience and attention to detail, and it is rarely simple. In the middle of a difficult climb, with all the turmoil that surrounds us, it's hard to relax and focus on what is in front of us and then piece together the solution. But that is precisely what is required of a competent mountain guide, and of a successful venture capitalist.