Early on the morning of 14 December 1991, a large part of the east face of Mount Cook, New Zealand's highest mountain, simply fell away. An estimated 14 million cubic metres of rock gouged a 1.5-kilometre-wide path down the valley as it fell. The height of Cook was reduced by nearly 30 metres to its current altitude of 3724 metres. Already a technically difficult climb, Mount Cook instantly became even more challenging.

That is the nature of the mountains: few environments on earth are as volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous; they are constantly changing. But extremes of temperature and altitude are not the only differentiators of mountainous environments. The mountains that create alpine zones (at least the ones that seem to attract mountaineers) are generally relatively young, meaning they are only recently formed. As such, they have had little time to be reduced in height and jaggedness by the erosive forces of wind, snow and ice. Alpine environments are therefore highly unstable, and it is the combination of these cold temperatures, high altitudes and fierce storms with unstable geology that make them the VUCA environments they are.

Indeed, when you consider the risks that are present in the alpine environment, it might be difficult to even understand why alpinists would choose to go there in the first place. But then again, that is what makes an alpinist an alpinist.

Alpinists seek uncertainty and ambiguity.

They recognise the benefits of venturing into the unknown and learning about themselves, each other and the world around them.

To really get to the core of what the alpine-style approach to mountaineering is all about, we need to know what an alpine-style ascent looks, sounds and feels like. We need to get dirty.

One of the best ways that we can do this is by looking at the accomplishments of a climbing partnership that set a new global benchmark for alpine-style climbing in the 1990s and 2000s.

An enduring partnership

During this period, New Zealander Athol Whimp and Australian Andrew Lindblade redefined what was possible in the mountains with a commitment to climbing light and fast. In addition to being a highly skilled climber, Lindblade is a beautiful writer, and in his somewhat ironically titled book Expeditions (ironic in that Lindblade and Whimp abhorred expedition-style ascents), we gain great insight into the alpine-style approach.

For the best part of a decade, Whimp and Lindblade went on a journey of development and growth that saw them become one of the world's leading pairs of alpinists. They cut their teeth on the beautiful rock of the Arapiles and Grampians in south-eastern Australia, and then the snow and ice of New Zealand's steep, technical and weather-beaten Southern Alps, before taking their skills to the greater mountain ranges of the world. They climbed hard technical routes in Yosemite and Patagonia before eventually moving on to test their alpine-style skills in the home of expedition style, the Himalaya.

After a failed attempt in 1996 on Thalay Sagar, a notoriously difficult and cold 6904-metre mountain in the Indian Himalaya, they returned in 1997 and made a first ascent of a challenging new route on the mountain's north face. For this ascent they were awarded the 1998 Piolet D'or, the Golden Ice Axe, an annual award given by the alpine climbing fraternity to recognise the highest achievement and evolution in alpinism.

In 2000, Whimp and Lindblade set out to climb a new direct route on the unclimbed north face of Jannu, a 7710-metre mountain in the Nepali Himalaya. The north face of Jannu is a 2000-metre-high vertical wall of rock and ice, and was at that time considered by some of the world's leading climbers to be the ‘last great problem in the Himalaya' (referring to the fact that the route had never been directly climbed before, despite repeated attempts, and thus the ‘problem' remained unsolved).

Approximately halfway up the face on their attempt, Whimp and Lindblade were almost killed early one morning by a violent avalanche of rock and ice that tore through their portaledge (a small hanging tent designed to enable sleeping when climbing vertical walls). They were very lucky to be alive. Shaken but only mildly stirred, they composed themselves, descended to base camp, regathered from their near-death experience, and then turned their attention instead to an alternative route to the left of the north face. Known as the Wall of Shadows, this alternative route had only been climbed twice before, the first time by a Japanese party in 1976 (who climbed the route expedition style, fixing the entire route with rope), and then by a combined team of Swiss and Dutch climbers in 1987 (with two of the Dutch climbers dying on the descent).

What is most impressive about their climb is that after coming so close to losing their lives on their direct line attempt only a few days earlier, Whimp and Lindblade were able to quickly compose themselves and refocus their attention on the alternative objective. This speaks volumes about their drive, determination and resilience and their commitment to one another: most people who had survived such a violent ordeal would probably walk away from the mountains, vowing never to return.

Not Whimp and Lindblade. With the destruction of the portaledge precluding them from reattempting their original direct route, they simply got back to work and found an alternative way to climb the mountain.

Reflected in their actions was their attitude to the climb and to their surrounding environment: if the circumstances change, and the initial plan doesn't work, come up with a new plan. Don't sit around and mourn what could have been; rather, have an open mindset, keep moving and forge a new path.

This was an alpine-style ethos at its best.

Following the avalanche and their retreat, they rested in base camp for only two days before they launched up the mountain on the Wall of Shadows. Three days of difficult climbing from base camp took them to their highest tent site at 6750 metres, from where they embarked on a 48-hour round-trip to the summit and back. They were travelling in pure alpine style, leaving their tent, sleeping bags, mats and most of their climbing rack at their camp, instead carrying only one backpack between them, with its contents being a day's worth of snack food, a small stove and gas, some soup powder, one rope, and a small number of ice screws and carabiners.

They used their previous decade's worth of learning, of skill development and experience, their 10 000 hours so to speak, to be able to summit in this manner. They travelled light and fast, taking as little equipment as they needed, and nothing more. They used the surrounding environment wherever possible to assist them: the stove enabled them to melt ice for water, and rather than carrying a heavy rack of climbing equipment they chose to take just three ice screws, enabling them to secure themselves to the vertical ice as they pitched upwards.

When the climbing was steep enough to warrant, they used the rope as protection from falling; when it wasn't, the rope went back in their pack, enabling them to move faster.

Unlike expedition style, there was no fixing of rope here.

They spent the night at an altitude of 7500 metres in a small crevasse. They sat on their shared backpack, forgoing the comfort of a tent, sleeping bag and mat for this lightweight approach. With the temperatures well below zero, they were uncomfortable to the extent that they didn't sleep, but that didn't matter. They were intimately engaged with their hostile surroundings, and were able to draw comfort from within themselves and from each other.

Lindblade describes Whimp speaking of a profound sense of detachment from base camp and their lives back at home. They were both simply in the moment, steadfast in their commitment to the mountain and focussed on what they had to do to get through the night, and with hope for what the morning would bring: getting to the summit and back down safely.

They reached the summit the next morning and quickly started their descent, arriving back to their tent 48 hours after they had first left it, exhausted but incredibly satisfied with their accomplishment. After their return to base camp they commenced their trek back home to civilisation and their lives in Australia, but Lindblade described being keenly aware of what they were leaving behind on Jannu:

never before had I felt such a strong sense of communion between the cautious, rational mind, and the deeper, profound ‘life force' as I did during our time on Jannu's summit ridge ... Something inside was always connected to a belief and acceptance of all; something, somewhere, absolute and pure.

This description is a very powerful evocation of someone fully engaged in the work they are doing. The language is of someone so at one with their activity that it feels like their destiny.

Alpine style in a VUCA world

Lindblade, a staunch critic of commercial expeditions, wrote an article for Rock magazine titled ‘Overcoming the Banality of Mountaineering'. Speaking about the trend of commercialised expeditions in the Himalaya, Lindblade points out that many of today's Everest climbers relate to the mountain through a broader cultural lens, and not a mountaineering one. This lens is one of artificially manufactured adventure, where the focus is on ensuring success via the path of most certainty, and avoiding uncertainty and unknowns at any cost.

Most of today's traditional organisations can be viewed through a similar lens. As Lindblade describes of commercial mountaineering teams, ‘within this fixed expedition style and structure, the individual can pass on the physical and emotional responsibility to the overall structure of the expedition'. As with expedition-style mountaineering, the traditional organisational structure is paranoid about uncertainty and attempts to cure its paranoia by building layers of bureaucracy that protect it and its people from uncertainty and ambiguity. It may ensure success in the short term, but it deprives them of the opportunity to truly develop important skills and gain experience — skills and experience that will serve them for the longer term of the new VUCA world.

Alpine-style organisations will on the other hand allow for the development of the appropriate skills and experience for the VUCA world. They will not shelter their people from the realities of the outside world.

As Lindblade notes, while most aspects of our lives today are designed to ensure safety and certainty, the mountains offer uncertainty and an almost ‘infinite potential for confronting and breaking barriers to personal freedom'. While it may be confronting, says Lindblade, it is what we don't know that can be of the most value to us as people. ‘Strip away the elements of certainty', he says, ‘and things get really interesting'.

Imagine what we could achieve if our organisations were inspired with this kind of attitude and mindset.

The traditional expedition-style approach to climbing a mountain is as outdated as the traditional, linear, hierarchical structure of the organisation. To understand why this is the case, we need to understand a bit more about this newer approach to climbing mountains.

The alpine-style ethos

As we have seen through the example of Whimp and Lindblade, alpine-style climbing is about moving light and fast to deftly climb the mountain and get back to base camp before the weather moves in. In direct contrast to expedition style, it involves fewer people, takes much less time, uses less energy and resources, and is generally structurally flat (there is no team hierarchy or designated leader).

At its core, alpine style is all about people letting go of their innate need to control an environment that is naturally chaotic, uncertain and complex, and instead responding according to the natural ebb and flow of changing conditions.

While the last thing you would do when climbing expedition style is to give in to the elements, it's actually the first thing you do when climbing alpine style. If expedition style is about meeting and climbing the mountain on the climbers' terms, then alpine style is about meeting and climbing the mountain on its own terms.

In its most extreme form, alpine style is an incredibly committed way to climb. We saw that in the introduction with Ueli Steck climbing the Eiger unroped and without a partner. And the way in which Whimp and Lindblade climbed together was likewise incredibly committed.

But regardless of the limits to which you take alpine-style climbing, its key differentiator is that it sacrifices dependence on others (Sherpas and guides) and infrastructure (fixed ropes, tents, food) for the benefits of interdependence (working intimately with just a few other members) and lightness (taking only what is necessary).

Alpine-style climbing means the climber leaves the ground with nothing more than what they can carry on their back, enabling them to travel light and fast. In the dangerous alpine environment, speed is akin to safety. And so alpine style favours lightness and speed above all else.

Alpine style is an approach where the climbing of the mountain is simplified to its purest and most graceful form, where the climber, either climbing by themselves or with a very small team, is equal to the challenge of the natural state of the mountain; in other words, both climber and mountain are on an equal footing. Mark Twight, another leading proponent of pushing alpine style to its limits in the 1990s, notes that alpinists ‘share a passion for climbing combined with the ability to exert their will and pay attention to both internal and external conditions'.

The alpinist is heavily reliant upon their own and their partner's skills and experience, which have been developed over a lifetime's commitment to the mountains. When you watch an alpinist in action, you are really only seeing the tip of the iceberg — many years (and, more often than not, decades) of skill development and apprenticeship lie beneath the surface. The alpinist has practised for 10 000 hours.

Why alpine style trumps expedition style

In his book Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse describes two ways in which we can look at our actions in life. Carse describes finite games as those that have a definite beginning and ending, and are bound by specific rules. Three- and four-year political terms are an example of finite games, as is the 9-to-5 desk job with only four weeks' annual leave.

Carse then goes on to describe another type of game, one that he calls infinite. Compared to finite games, infinite games do not have specific beginning or end points and, rather than having boundaries that constrain their players, they have horizons that move with the players.

Alpine style is the epitome of an infinite game.

Carse says the rules of a finite game cannot change, whereas the rules of an infinite game must change. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, whereas the infinite game is played purely for the purpose of continuing the play. Finite players are those who win titles, whereas infinite players don't care about titles; finite players are those who play to become powerful, whereas infinite players just play with their existing natural strengths.

Most people today approach everything, whether climbing a mountain or running an organisation, as a finite game. Expedition style is all about identifying an outcome, and then doing whatever it takes to ensure it is won. It has a ‘summit at all costs' mentality. Once the goal has been attained, once the climbers have returned to base camp, they can go home — the game has been won. Expedition style is extrinsically motivated, focussing only on the goal, leading to problems with goalodicy and increased exposure to the fallibilities of poor leadership.

Alpine style, on the other hand, is intrinsically motivated, focussing on the task at hand. The reward is learning from the journey as a whole, rather than just the moment of attaining the goal.

In the new world order we will need to move light and fast. So where do we start? To begin with, we'll need to know exactly what our current approach to the VUCA world is — is it expedition style or is it alpine? The next chapter will show us how to identify it.