Princeton University Athletics
Climbing Against All Odds
August 01, 2000 | General
Legally blind at birth, totally blind by the time he was 13 years old, Erik has become a sky diver, downhill skier and --the love of his life--mountain climber.
Erik, who has been featured on Inside Edition, Today Show, ABC's 20/20 and in People and Parade magazines, has climbed Kilimanjaro, Mt. McKinley and Yosemite's famed 3,000-foot rock face El Capitan, the tallest exposed monolith in the world. Next on his list of conquests is Mount Everest, which is on his 2001 schedule.
This isn't Erik's story.
This is about Ed Weihenmayer '62 and a father's love and devotion to his son.
Ed, who captained the 1961 Princeton football team before becoming a jet attack pilot who flew more than 100 missions over Vietnam, knew his son would eventually lose his sight. He never let him lose his fight.
For every mountain Erik has climbed, and every trek the two have made through the jungles of Africa and Asia, Ed has a story.
One of his favorites is the time he and Erik trekked with Yali tribesmen in the highlands of Irian Jaya in 1989. There they came across 150 natives, men on one side, women and children on the other, and as the tribe descended on their visitors, the leader spoke.
Translated loosely, his words were: "We've heard today of a blind man who has come across our mountains. We would never have thought such a difficult journey was possible. Our blind people sit in huts and weave baskets. Maybe we have something to learn from this blind man. Maybe there is a better way for the blind people of our villages."
Erik learned at a young age that his lack of sight would not keep him from enjoying the things he loved in life. His father wouldn't allow it.
"He used to call his mother and I the dustpan and broom," Ed says. "I was the broom who swept him out there, and when he shattered, his mother was the dustpan. Then I would sweep him out there again."
In his sweeping, Ed came up with ways and ideas to help his son. There was the time when he was 12 and his sight was beginning to fail. Erik couldn't maneuver his bicycle over the ramps he had set up at the bottom of his driveway any longer.
One day after he fell as he missed the ramp, Erik stormed into the house, whisked past his father, went to his room and slammed the door.
The next day when Erik went back outside the ramps were now painted a bright orange, "a Princeton orange," Ed says with a chuckle.
"He could see the bright color, and he was able to ride his bike over the ramps again," Ed says.
"I talk to parents all the time about overprotectiveness. There's nothing wrong with risks, as long as they are sensible risks.
"When Erik was 10 he had a friend who was blind. It was his only blind friend. They went to a stream behind our house to swim, and his friend was afraid. His parents had told him never to go in the water."
Erik was at the gym when he was four. He played basketball when he was eight. In his sightless world, there wasn't anything he couldn't see himself doing.
In high school in Weston, Conn., Erik captained the wrestling team and represented his state at the 1987 National Freestyle Wrestling Championships in Iowa. This came about after he went just 2-10 as a freshman wrestler, but improved to 33-3 as a senior.
"Why couldn't he be a wrestler?" Ed asks. "A blind person can wrestle at probably a five to 10 percent handicap. It's not like baseball where you're at a 90 percent handicap. What's the worst thing that can happen, he gets a bloody nose? A person with sight can get a bloody nose, too. He became a very good wrestler.
"There were things we knew he would never be able to do, and he knew it as well. He knew he would never play baseball. He knew he would never drive in the Indy 500. But there were a lot of things he could do."
When Erik was 16 he was away at a wrestling camp when tragedy struck again. His mother, Ellen, was killed in an automobile crash. The dustpan was gone. Ed was left to play role of both father and mother.
"Our parental roles were stereotypical," Ed says. "Ellen provided a lot of tenderness and love, and I was probably a little tougher.
"I had to go to camp and tell him--he thought I came up early for his tournament. It was the worst moment of our lives."
Ellen's death drew Ed and Erik even closer. From that point Ed became an even more integral part of Erik's life.
"He was going to be off at school [Boston College] and his brothers were living in Orlando and Miami. We decided to make annual family trips together," Ed says.
Those trips were not a couple of weeks of sun at the Jersey Shore.
Instead the father and sons traveled to Irian Jaya, to the Pamir Mountains of Tajikistan, across the Boltoro Glacier in the Karakoram Mountains of Northern Pakistan and across Vietnam on a tandem bike from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City, a 16-day, 1,200-mile trip.
"Erik likes to tell people, `How would you like to spend 16 days five feet apart from your father?'" Ed says. "I think he's joking."
They were together at the Grand Canyon on that crazy night in 1996 when the Princeton basketball team upset defending national champion UCLA in the opening round of the NCAA tournament.
"I thought I was going to miss the game," Ed, who keeps constant tabs on Princeton football, basketball and lacrosse, says. "But the place we were staying had the game on television so I got to see it."
The climax came when Ed climbed the 200-foot-high Wind Ridge in the foothills of the Colorado Rockies with his son last summer.
"I left some blood and some skin on that mountain," Ed says. "But it was worth it."
It has all been worth it for a father to watch his son climb to new heights, and not just literally.
"Of course I'm very proud," Ed says. "And I'm very thankful. If I had one choice for all of my children, it would be for them to have a meaningful, satisfying life. I'm thrilled that Erik has had a satisfying life. Even more so than a so-called normal person."
by Mark Eckel