Peak Hours: Jay MacArthur

Jay MacArthur tells Jessica Werb what he loves about mountaineering.

I’ve always been into the outdoors and I’ve been climbing mountains for 30 years. When I was 15, I was hiking and saw some people climbing up some steep rocks, and I thought that would be a neat thing to do.

I took a climbing course the next year, and I’ve been into it ever since.

I started leading mountaineering trips with a club at university, and now I lead trips with the Alpine Club of Canada. That experience has been useful in my career. I learned how to relate to people and set goals and make sure they’re accomplished because I’ve had lots of experience doing that as a mountaineer.

In the winter, I like to do ski mountaineering trips, where you climb up the mountain and then ski down, and I try to do one week-long trip somewhere new every summer. I tend to stick close to the mountains nearby – I’ve climbed most of the mountains around Vancouver and in the Rockies – but last summer I climbed the Matterhorn in Switzerland with a friend.

The people are a really important part of climbing. You you have to really trust each other with your life; you’re tied together and you develop a close bond because of that.

I’ve had two friends die in avalanches, and when things like that happen, you wonder why you do it, but most climbers just end up going and doing it again.

It’s like a lot of sports in that it’s very addictive. Runners get hooked on their high, and there’s a different kind of energy you get from climbing.