From equities to Everest

At first glance, nothing about Wharton MBA student Neal Mueller seems out of the ordinary.

He was never an athlete - he's never even played a varsity sport - but when he finished his undergraduate degree from Penn in 2000, Mueller decided that he wanted to do something extraordinary.

And, in four years, he did just that, scaling the tallest mountain on each continent, including Mt. Everest last year.

Mueller started out climbing smaller mountains in New Hampshire with his friend Chris Grubb, but his first inspiration to go higher came from traveling to and from Zurich for a job he had after graduating from Penn.

"I would fly over the Swiss Alps, and I kind of fell in love with looking at them from my airplane window," Mueller said.

Mueller and Grubb began climbing taller mountains around the Swiss Alps until they felt they were ready to take on the tallest mountain in Europe, Mount Elbrus in Russia.

Elbrus is relatively easy to scale, but much like the face of the mountain, the learning curve was steep.

The Penn grad and his partner made the mistake of wearing regular sunglasses that did not provide enough protection. As a result, both suffered burnt corneas that made their eyes bleed and that took two weeks to heal.

"We learned a lot of lessons on Elbrus that we never repeated," Mueller said.

After completing their first feat, Mueller and Grubb took on the tallest mountain in Africa, Mount Kilimanjaro, followed by the tallest in North America, Mount McKinley.

It was after he climbed McKinley that Mueller set a new goal for himself - to summit the tallest mountain on all seven continents.

And after scaling the highest mountains in South America and Antarctica, the team was ready for the tallest in Asia, Mount Everest.

In preparation for the world's highest peak, Mueller stepped up his cardiovascular exercise regimen to three hours a day, six days a week.

After garnering the necessary funds from sponsors - about $57,000 - Mueller and Grubb purchased equipment and organized a crew for Everest.

For the expedition, the duo was joined by a team of sherpas (Nepalese mountain natives), a Canadian climber and a mountain guide who had experience navigating the trail.

One in five people die trying to climb Everest, so adequate preparation is crucial.

Towering at 29,035 feet, Everest is a huge undertaking in and of itself, but the task became even more complicated when Mueller's team's guide, Jim, quit after just three days of climbing.

"Emotionally, we felt abandoned and disappointed," Mueller said. "We decided that our combined skills could come together to replace the skills lost when Jim left."

Once they reached a higher altitude, a different complication arose - a man in need of medical assistance came stumbling down the mountain.

He was suffering from a build-up of fluid in his lungs, and the crew decided to help him. They stayed up all night with him to make sure he would live, delaying reaching the summit for another day.

"If the weather had gotten worse, we wouldn't have summitted, because we didn't have enough oxygen to stay another day longer," Mueller said. "So we were putting a lot of things at risk, and it was completely worth it."

The man descended safely and survived, thanks to the team's care.

But as the crew approached the summit, trouble struck closer to home.

Mueller looked back to find that his long-time climbing partner Grubb was not behind him.

"I couldn't reach him on the radio, and I couldn't see his headlamp," Mueller said. "He was with a sherpa, so I knew he was safe. But after a while, I saw the sherpa coming up, and at this point I knew that Chris was alone."

After finally successfully radioing back to camp, Mueller found out that a small piece of ice had lodged itself in Grubb's oxygen tank regulator, causing it to malfunction.

Grubb never realized his dream of summitting Everest, despite coming so close.

"I can picture every minute of that night," Grubb said. "The first step when I turned around and headed downhill was the greatest failure of my life. . It was genuinely the most disappointing moment of my life."

This left Mueller with a decision of whether to delay summitting for another trip or to continue the climb to the top without his long-time climbing partner and friend.

"I sat down, and I thought about my family and how much they were relying on me to fulfill my own dream and how supportive they had been of me," Mueller said. "It was the thought of fulfilling all of those dreams that helped me make to decision to continue."

As Mueller made his final ascent, he paused on a formation near the top of Everest called "The Balcony" and enjoyed the sight of a thunderstorm in Tibet from above the clouds.

But although the peak was near, the final stages of the climb were no less grueling.

"Every step, you're reminding yourself that it's very easy to turn back," Mueller said. "And with every step it gets easier, and you just get in to a rhythm."

Then, weeks after the start of his journey, Mueller finally reached the top of Everest.

He spent 50 minutes on the summit while gazing down upon India, Tibet and Nepal.

"Accomplishing a feat like Everest put other hardships in my life in perspective," Mueller said.

When it was time to descend the mountain, the team had one of the most difficult parts of the journey before them - 80 percent of mountaineering accidents occur on the way down.

Finally, the crew reached the bottom of Everest safely, 72 days after starting the expedition.

But Mueller still had one more mountain to climb to reach his goal of summitting the tallest on every continent.

The last peak, Mount Kosciuszko in Australia, was a considerably easier climb than the previous six, at 7,310 feet.

Mueller completed his ultimate dream with his family, successfully climbing Kosciuszko alongside his two sisters and his mother.

Upon reaching the seventh summit, Mueller joined only 125 other mountaineers who have ever accomplished the feat.

Even more impressive is that the current Wharton student climbed all seven mountains on the first attempt.

"It's always stressful to finish a goal, because then everybody's wondering what your next goal is," Mueller said. "But my next challenge is to climb the second tallest mountains in the world, maybe starting with K2 [in Asia] next summer."

And while the goal certainly seems attainable for Mueller, it won't be easy. The second tallest mountains are even more difficult than the tallest; the terrain is not thoroughly charted, since fewer people have climbed those peaks.

But Mueller is used to daunting challenges, and if Everest is any indication, he is living proof that even seemingly ordinary people are capable of extraordinary accomplishments.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.