Proving the doubters wrong, Spring Lake man takes on Mount Everest

SPRING LAKE — Dave Miller has always been wired to swing for the fences, meet the target and achieve the objective.

Growing up the son of teachers, the 1982 Spring Lake High School graduate was often told he wasn’t capable of achieving things. But Miller says he found a way to turn that hate into jet fuel and prove doubters wrong. Otherwise, distractions, or “fumes” as he calls it, get in the way.

So when Miller, 58, received an invitation to trek to the base of Earth’s highest mountain above sea level, all it took was one naysayer to fire him up.

“There were some rough times back then and kids would tell me, ‘You’re no good, you can’t do this or that,’” Miller said. “Kids would pick on me, and I developed a very self-deprecating sense of humor.

“But instead of those kids laughing at me, they were laughing with me. I could control the narrative,” he added.

That narrative came in handy on a 10-day ascension to Mount Everest’s South Base Camp in Nepal last month, at an altitude of 17,598 feet.

There was some apprehension at first. But after talking it over with his wife, Karen, his boss and doctor, the consensus was that it would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Miller says he’s never been one for bucket lists, but close ties with Kevin DeVries – the founder of Base Camp Nation, a ministry group – gave Miller the opportunity, along with 12 others that commenced on April 21.

The training

In early October 2021, Miller began his training regime with 6-mile walks – something he thought was sufficient as a starting point.

After conversations with the trekking company, Miller was told to train “verticality,” and a lot of it. Several maxed-out inclined treadmill and stair stepper sessions later, Miller quickly shed more than 30 pounds.

“As I got further along, I started wearing my hiking boots and gear on the treadmill,” he said. “I kept a spreadsheet and, over six months, I’d walked 296 miles and 206,000 feet vertical.”

That’s equivalent to summiting Mount Everest more than seven times, as Everest’s summit is just over 29,000 feet. Needless to say, Miller was ready but continued to swing like a “pendulum” between emotions as anticipation built toward the trek.

“Exactly four weeks before I left, God reminded me of all the things he got me through,” Miller said. “He said, ‘Why would this be any different?’”

‘Betting that they’re wrong’

After being told he couldn’t build his own house by his then in-laws, Miller instead built two and gutted one, and helped three others in building theirs.

“I’d never done anything with houses, but I grabbed onto it and I owned it,” he said. “It was like game on. They may be right, but I’m betting that they’re wrong.”

He’s tallied 37 years in the engineering industry, and tacked on several more helping his youngest son, John, through his journey earning Eagle Scout status.

Miller has a rich family history in the Spring Lake area, renovating and now living in a house his great-grandfather lived in during the 1940s.

But even with his previous experiences, Miller says facing the trek up Everest was like nothing else he’s ever done.

The journey

Several days of travel on little to no sleep made for a “brutal” kickoff, and the crew’s connecting flight in Nepal from Katmandu to Lukla was particularly fraught. Coined the most dangerous airport on the planet, the runway design, terrain and length combine for difficult takeoffs and landings.

“When you land, the whole plane cheers because you lived,” Miller said. “Winston Churchill once said, ‘Nothing is so exhilarating as to be shot at without results.’”

By now, Miller said his lack of sleep was starting to catch up with him. A six-hour hike to Monjo, Nepal, didn’t make things any better, as Miller said he was 20 minutes behind the pack.

In spite of that, Miller said it was an “enlightening” experience to be flying solo for the first hike of the trip.

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“It becomes very personal, and I don’t have that support network,” he said. “It’s a lot more work, and half of it is mental. It makes you look a lot at life in the same way – you’re trying to do it all by yourself, but that can be really difficult.”

The crew trekked toward the Sherpa capital of Namche Bazaar, with sights set on Dingboche (13,980 feet). Stops in Tyengboche and plenty of suspension bridges were highlights, Miller said, and led to several days of getting acclimatized.

The trek to Tyengboche delivered dramatic scaling in elevation, with the finale dropping 1,000 feet to then climb back up 2,300 feet.

The views during this portion? Miller believes they were impeccable.

“It’s mind blowing all the time,” he said. “You hear groaning music in the morning by the monks with their massive horns, and it’s the welcome to the morning. It reinforced the idea that I’m a speck.”

Miller and the crew would finish their ascension through Lobuche and Gorokshep, before forking up to Kalapathar — an elevation of 18,192 feet — all in one day.

After eclipsing the 18,000-foot threshold, Miller said he knew that was as high as he wanted to go.

“At that point, you’re at 50 percent oxygen and things are starting to swell up because of the air pressure,” he said. “I wanted to make sure I got home, and I think that was the smarter move. I was stoked about that.”

Several 10-degree nights made for less-than-ideal sleeping conditions in tea houses, but some immaculate pictures of the Milky Way made up for it, Miller said.

“Some of the most beautiful scenery in the world is the hardest to get to,” he said. “That’s what my roommate told me.”

‘Inward perspective’

A planned documentary of Miller’s trip is expected to be released in November.

Miller says the Base Camp expedition changed a lot of different perspectives, and it reinforced the power and perseverance of God.

“A lot of inward perspective in, if I can do that, it’ll set me up for later on,” he said. “I’ve been through financial issues, divorce. But it all comes back to God saying, ‘Why would this be any different?’”

And, of course, it was just another opportunity for Miller to prove others wrong — something he photographed, printed off and handed to one more nonbeliever as proof of flipping the script.

“He said I couldn’t do it,” Miller said. “I wasn’t mad at the guy — I just took it as a challenge and I owned it.”

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Spring Lake reflects on training, journey to base of Mount Everest