Holland native attempting climbing history among the skies
HOLLAND — As Jenn Drummond outstretched her arms and held onto her steering wheel for dear life, she had a realization.
A semi-truck slammed into her Porsche Cayenne on a busy highway in Utah, it flipped three times and smashed into a median. Doctors told her that 99 times out of 100 when they see an accident with that kind of damage to the vehicle, the person ends up in a casket. To this day, they're not entirely sure how she survived. Not only was Drummond able to get out of her car on December 18, 2018, she did it with nary a scratch on her. She was able to spend Christmas at home with her seven children and looking at her, it would've seemed like nothing happened.
Mentally though, something started to shift that day.
Shortly after the accident, she was helping one of her young boys with his math homework. Like most children do when they have equations staring back at them, frustration took over and he started to complain. That's when Drummond fired back with one of her go-to phrases, telling him that we're put on this planet not to just coast by, but we're here to do hard things.
His reply to that changed the course of Drummond's life.
"If we do hard things, why don't you go climb Mount Everest?" he quipped back.
The 42-year-old had always been an athlete. She's run triathlons and made health and fitness a major part of her life. Shortly after moving from West Michigan to Park City, Utah back in 2015, she started hiking more and climbed Grand Teton in 2016, falling in love with climbing in the process. After her accident, she made plans to summit Ama Dablam in Nepal, but her son's remark made her set her goals a little bit higher, 2,036 meters higher to be exact.
She took on her original goal of Ama Dablam, worked her way through several smaller peaks around the globe starting in the summer of 2020. Then in May of 2021, she conquered the tallest mountain in the world.
While most people unfamiliar with the climbing community would see that as the literal peak of mountaineering, that's not exactly true. In a good year, close to 1,000 people can summit Everest. It's become a bit of an industry for extraordinarily fit thrill seekers to take on the mountain. But there's not a ton of technical climbing involved in comparison to other peaks.
Drummond set her goals taller than the tallest spot on Earth and decided that she wanted to take on the seven "second summits," which are the second tallest mountain on each continent. She currently has five of the seven down, having just summited K2 earlier this month, which is widely considered the most treacherous mountain on Earth. Fewer than 500 people have ever made the trek to the top. She tried to summit it last year, but a member of her climbing party passed away on the mountain, which made the rest of them turn back to basecamp.
Going back somewhere where you saw somebody's life expire right before your eyes is intimidating. It's even more so when you think you're going to be taking on the same challenge that's killed nearly 20% of all who have attempted to reach the top. It's not easy, but Drummond can push past that potential anxiety because of the reverence she has for the rock.
"I know I'm in an extremely dangerous environment statistically, I know all the stats, but when I'm with the mountain I really feel like I connect with it," Drummond said. "You want to be one with the mountain instead of taking it on because the mountain always wins, so you want to be respectful and consciousness the entire time because it's sacred ground."
Her plan is to summit Mount Logan and Puncak Mandala, the final two-second summits, by May of 2023. If she accomplishes that goal, she'll be the first woman and just the second human to ever conquer the goal.
Sandro Gromen Hayes, a UK-based videographer and documentarian, has accompanied Drummond on a few of her climbs, including her recent accent of K2. He's made a living out of filming incredible feats at high altitudes and telling the stories of the humans who come closer than anybody to reaching out and touching the heavens.
But even to a guy who works day in and day out with extraordinary people doing extraordinary things, Drummond still stands out.
"She's just insanely driven, I know very few people who are that driven and the ones I do are very successful," Gromen Hayes said. "She's accomplished so much, has done so much and when she decides to do something, she's going to do it, it's really cool to be around."
Her name would certainly be plastered in mountaineering lore for eternity if she finishes the goal, but that's not why she's doing it. She's not after the accolades or hype surrounding the achievement, she's just hoping she can inspire people, particularly mothers, that you can raise a wonderful family without putting your own ambitions on the back burner.
"Before that car accident, I was teaching my kids to put themselves second by my own example. They have a purpose here and their purpose is to live their lives out [to the fullest]," Drummond said. "I don't ever want them to put themselves second, so I changed my entire philosophy to say I'm doing me and you, not you instead of me."
That mentality that Drummond, a Hope College graduate, lives her life by has already inspired those close to her. Sarah Dunlap, her endurance coach, did the same thing that Drummond did after she had her kids. She put her life entirely on hold and focused entirely on her children.
But once she saw what Drummond was doing and how stellar she was at taking care of her children, she realized that to her having those lofty goals is what pushes her to be great as a person and a mother.
"I just admire her so much, it's really easy to just let everything about ourselves go once we have kids, and not take care of our own ambitions," Dunlap said. "But those [goals] are the things that make us a good mother, we have to have that in order to be able to perform for our families."
Dunlap said it could be easy for people on the outside looking in to want to criticize Drummond for taking so much time away from her family to go and do these daunting things, but that's simply because they don't know her.
Drummond plans out several of her summits so that she misses minimal time with her children. When she was in Pakistan for five weeks to climb K2, her family in Holland watched the kids for one week before they headed off to summer camp. She arrived back home in Utah just a day or two before her kids got back from camp.
The kids were excited to tell her all about their time at camp, but she had some pretty cool stories of her own they wanted to hear a bit more.
"Of course, it's hard for her to leave them behind whenever she goes [on an expedition]," Gromen Hayes said. "But they also love that they have that cool mom that's climbed Everest and they love to hear all about it."
The videographer has seen it first hand over the last several months, shooting with Drummond for weeks at a time out in Utah. He's gone on family vacations with them as well to shoot and can see the overwhelming pride and love the climber has for her family.
Dunlap, who does most of her coaching online now after moving out of Utah, knew Drummond for years. She said she pours even more into raising her kids than she does climbing mountains.
"She puts in so much effort and is truly there for her kids whenever they need," Dunlap said. "She's raising amazing children, I fully admire everything about her."
Drummond is seen as an inspiration to people, not just mothers, everywhere. Not only is she an accomplished athlete, mountaineer and mom, but she also is the founder of Clearwater Wealth Management, a successful financial planning firm, headquartered in Michigan.
She can be an intimidating force, knowing all that she's done in just 42 years on the planet. She also knows not everybody has the access to be an incredible mountain climber.
Still, the Holland native is hoping to inspire everybody who hears her story to go ahead and take that leap. She wants to make sure nobody else has to go through a death-defying car accident to realize that they have the ability to attack and accomplish their goals, no matter how bold they are.
"I'm just like you, stop the excuses and stop living life because anything can happen at any time," Drummond said. "I'm doing this thing, so what is it in you that needs to be done [to accomplish your goals?]"
—Contact Assistant Sports Editor Will Kennedy at Will.Kennedy@hollandsentinel.com. Follow him on Twitter @ByWillKennedy and Facebook @Holland Sentinel Sports.
This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Holland native Jenn Drummond attempting to climb seven second summits
