Golden – Taking a breather from a rigorous series of interviews for director of the American Alpine Club, Phil Powers ducked out of the group’s annual meeting this past winter for a morning of climbing in the Ouray ice park.
“I look over my shoulder, and everybody was watching,” he recalled with a chuckle. “So I was interviewed as a climber, as well.”
Powers, an elite mountaineer with an impressive résumé of bold ascents around the world, passed the test.
“He comes from a background as a real climber, and that’s really important,” said renowned mountaineer Conrad Anker, who serves on the club’s board of directors. “You can fool some of the people some of the time but none of the people all the time, as the saying goes.”
Powers is the real deal: In 1993, he climbed the notorious Abruzzi Spur on Pakistan’s K2, the second-highest peak in the world and one of the deadliest; in fact, the descent claimed the life of his Canadian teammate, Dan Culver.
Additionally, he reached the summit of another challenging 8,000- meter peak, Pakistan’s Gasherbrum II, and made the first ascent of the daunting Washburn Face of Mount McKinley, among other notable climbs.
But he’s also the rare mountaineer with a solid record as an administrator, most recently serving as vice president for institutional advancement at Naropa University in Boulder.
“Climbers are a dime a dozen,” said American Alpine Club president Mark Richey. “Finding a climber that also has an ability to manage a nonprofit and tackle the kinds of things we’re facing is very rare.”
In taking over the 102-year-old organization based in Golden, Powers is charged with leading the AAC away from its reputation as a musty club where old-timers sit around in overstuffed leather chairs, sipping brandy and reminiscing about the days of climbing in hobnailed boots.
From his new office at the American Mountaineering Center – sparsely adorned to date with a framed National Geographic poster of Mount Everest and a white silk Buddhist scarf – the 44-year-old talks about reinvigorating the 7,000-member club by taking a more prominent role in global environmental efforts and international goodwill, getting a long-discussed national-level mountaineering museum off the ground and re-establishing its sense of camaraderie.
“I think where the club maybe has gotten away from its roots a little bit is in the community of the membership itself,” he said.
Powers inherits a club that’s in good shape financially, even if it is little known among many climbers in Colorado, much less the rest of the country, despite offering benefits such as international rescue insurance with each membership.
Under the guidance of popular former director Charley Shimanski for the past 11 years, the club moved from New York, tripled its membership and endowment, and – along with the Colorado Mountain Club and Colorado Outward Bound – established the mountaineering center in the abandoned Golden Junior High School.
With its world-class library of mountaineering books and fine publications – the annual American Alpine Journal and “Accidents in North American Mountaineering” are must reads, even for armchair alpinists – the club already is the nation’s pre-eminent climbing-information clearinghouse.
“I can’t say enough about the organization,” said Shimanski, who left the club leadership amicably to direct the Colorado Association of Non-Profit Organizations. “After 11 years with the AAC, I’d largely accomplished the goals of what we set out to do. …
“And in discussions with the AAC, it seemed like it would be a good time for me to pursue that great opportunity and, at the same, time give the AAC a chance to seek some new leadership, which is always good for an organization. … Phil is a great guy, has a great reputation, and he’ll suit that job well.”
In that last round of interviews in Ouray, Powers also demonstrated his supreme confidence. Jim McCarthy, a past president of the club and lawyer known for his assertiveness, introduced himself and announced that he usually gets his way within the organization.
“Yeah, and that’s about to change, Jim,” Powers responded light-heartedly, bringing down the house.
“We’re a wacky club,” said Richey, who extols Powers at every chance. “We’re made up of some eccentric personalities and are not a real easy club to take over. Trust me when I say this was not an easy decision to make, because if we brought in somebody who was too weak, the old guys would chew him up and spit him out. But if he was too pushy, too much of his personal agenda, he wouldn’t be accepted. We think Phil is just right.”
Staff writer Steve Lipsher can be reached at 970-513-9495 or slipsher@denverpost.com.
