High on K2 — Boulder Ventures Ltd.

The author climbing high above the K2 Glacier, with the North Ridge looming in the background. Photo credit: Billy Coburn

I met Billy Coburn on the flight from SFO to Beijing in April, 1986. We had both signed on to carry loads for the first American expedition to the north side of K2, and we liked each other from the first handshake.

Billy’s family lived in Colorado for generations and settled the valleys near Crested Butte. He grew up in Boulder climbing and skiing 14ers with his Dad, and by the time we met he was an accomplished alpinist.

We spent a month together trekking from western Xinjiang province, over the Aghil Pass and onto the K2 Glacier to put our team of superstars in position to climb the North Face of K2. Our Chinese tour guides were worse than useless on the trek, but Billy and I loved the tribe of Kyrgyz camel-drivers that towed all our stuff to the base of the hill.

While we were skillful climbers, neither of us had been to the Himalayas before. Billy and I were soldiers, not generals on this trip and did what we were told. Mostly that involved humping 70-pound loads of food, gear and oxygen up steep, dangerous terrain in appalling conditions.

Every time we dropped a load at the high camp, we’d take the opportunity to go climbing on the peaks to either side of the K2 glacier, a collection of 7,000 meter bumps on the map with no name and no ascent history. The weather sucked on most of our carries, but after weeks of hard work we dropped the last big load up high, returned to Advanced Base, and spent a comfortable night together in a tent at 6,000 meters.

The next morning dawned clear and crisp with no wind, the only day we’d seen like it after more than two months on K2. It was Billy’s birthday and over breakfast, he opened a card that an old friend had sent with him on the trip. Inside was a goofy message and two hits of purple microdot.

Under these circumstances, Billy and I did what any experienced alpinist would do in those days: we dropped acid and went climbing. In a shared lifetime of peak experiences, it was one of the best days either of us has had.

After the K2 trip, Billy and I returned to Boulder to start our careers – mine in venture capital and his in real estate development. Billy and his wife Ann, a phenomenal alpinist and skier in her own right, raised their four kids in Boulder and Crested Butte to be kind people and exceptional athletes. Their daughter Emma won an Olympic Medal; Willie and Gracie have each produced beautiful Coburn grandchildren; Joe came a little later and appears promising.

Billy changed the face of Boulder in the 1990s and 2000s with his thoughtful developments, which combined new urbanist concepts in mixed use areas with historic design elements taken from Boulder’s Victorian architectural roots. You can’t drive down Pearl Street without seeing the profound impact that Billy’s aesthetic has had on our lives here. He did the same thing in Crested Butte too. Billy and I happily shared some successful projects, including our Boulder Ventures headquarters building on Pearl Street.

We’ve also done a lot of climbing and skiing together over the years, in a friendship formed forever on the slopes of K2.