When the mountain becomes a mirror
Top photo: Jason Kolaczkowski at an 18,000-foot camp
CU 91Ҹ alum Jason Kolaczkowski’s new memoir reveals lessons found in the mountains and in life
Jason Kolaczkowski (PolSci ’99) didn’t know if the Himalayas would bring him clarity, but he knew he needed to attempt the first ascent of an unclimbed peak. Diagnosed with leukemia just a year earlier, he boarded a flight to Asia in 2019 with a plan.
The goal wasn’t to make history as a mountaineer. For Kolaczkowski, the trip was about defying the notion that his time was already running out.
“There was a moment when I thought to myself, ‘I’m going to die a lot younger than I thought I was, and so I want to go and do this thing.’ There was no going back from there,” he recalls.
Jason Kolaczkowski (PolSci ’99), shown here at basecamp, attempted the first ascent of a previously unclimbed Himalayan peak after being diagnosed with leukemia. (All photos courtesy Jason Kolaczkowski)
In his forthcoming memoir, Notions of Grace: A Memoir of Climbing, Cancer and Family, Kolaczkowski chronicles the lessons learned leading up to and following that expedition.
“It started as internal processing for me. The process of writing the book was really then an act of compulsion,” he explains. “I wanted to archive a snapshot of my life for my kids, who were too young to understand at the time. Maybe when they’re 14 and maybe again when they’re 24—maybe they’ll care.”
The mountain becomes a mirror
Wrestling with risk, fatherhood, identity and a cancer diagnosis layered with unknowns, Kolaczkowski thought of climbing as a reprieve.
The type of slow-progressing leukemia he had been diagnosed with can remain asymptomatic for years. Treatment wasn’t recommended yet, so he entered a “watch-and-wait” phase that included taking precautions to protect his compromised immune system.
But Kolaczkowski’s internal clock was ticking.
A climber since the late Aughts, he had long dreamed of attempting a previously unclimbed route. He started planning the Himalayan expedition before his diagnosis, but after it came, the trip felt more urgent.
“The first big question was: Well, should I even still go?” he says. “I ultimately reached the conclusion that I still felt healthy enough to do it.”
After finding the right group, the pieces fell into place, but the climb itself would soon be a wakeup call. In Notions of Grace, Kolaczkowski describes the peril of fixing lines in a gully littered with rockfall. The terrain, though not inherently difficult to climb, was deadly in its indifference. The mountain didn't care if Kolaczkowski died.
“What I came away with was a new sense of self-awareness. Just being in that amount of danger for that amount of time shifted my mindset into a much more forward-looking place again,” he says.
The expedition didn’t end in a triumphant summit photo, but Kolaczkowski flew home counting it as a success.
“I was really looking forward to going home and doing things with my kids.”
Writing for who matters most
Kolaczkowski describes his emotional state before the trip as grief for a life transformed by factors beyond his control.
“I guess you could say that telling a private story in public is another form of accepting risk,” says Jason Kolaczkowski of writing his memoir.
“Getting a cancer diagnosis really is a grieving process. You’re giving up a life that you had—an understanding of your goals and your family dynamics that you had—and you have to let it go and shift into the acceptance eventually of what is reality now,” he says.
Writing became his way of documenting this shift. His sons remained the intended audience for a while, but after sharing early drafts with friends over time, Kolaczkowski’s outlook on the project changed.
“People started telling me, ‘I think there are some universal themes here that other people would be interested in.’ So, I started thinking of ways to maybe get this published,” he says.
He kept writing, bringing the meticulous habits learned in planning expeditions and climbing rugged peaks to the page.
“Rather than focusing on getting the book done, my goal was to put in effort consistently. Some efforts will be great; others won’t be,” Kolaczkowski says.
“If you think about not making summits, and when to turn around and all that sort of stuff, having enough self-forgiveness to accept that, it translates well. Maybe today was hard to write and it just isn’t coming out; that’s OK as long as I’ve made the attempt,” he adds.
The calculus of risk
The title of Kolaczkowski’s memoir mirrors its tone. Grace isn’t something he claims to possess in abundance. Rather, he jokes that it’s often a goal he stumbles toward, describing several moments in the book as a “series of misadventures rather than adventures.”
The throughline connecting mountains, medical challenges and fatherhood is a series of lessons on living life with just the right amount of risk.
Just a few months after Kolaczkowski returned from Nepal, there were new obstacles to overcome as the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Strict precautions for protecting his health became necessary, leading the Kolaczkowskis to the decision to homeschool their sons.
“We were shrinking down the world in order to keep me safe, but 5-year olds need their world to expand. What are we willing to do from a mitigation perspective when it comes at a cost?” he asks.
At first, the choice felt aligned with his family’s needs. But after watching one of his sons be afraid to touch playground equipment, Kolaczkowski knew it was time to rethink his approach to risk.
“And that’s what the book is about. How little risk is too little risk? How much is too much? Because we had taken too little risk and it was visibly stunting the character development of my kids,” he says.
Fortunately, in his years of climbing, Kolaczkowski had already developed a mental framework for managing uncertainty.
Jason Kolaczkowski approaches a couloir entrance on his Himalayan climb.
“You’re constantly building in these points where you are having the meta-conversation about the thing that you're doing,” he says. “You're talking about how to talk about the climb.”
That same approach became essential to not only navigating the pandemic but rebuilding his family’s relationship with adventure. Because his wife, Kristina, had often accompanied him on climbing trips, she shared some of the same language.
“The ability to sort of coalesce around that sort of meta-conversation—how are we going to talk about how we're going to deal with these new risks—was a big part of our family life,” he says.
Return to adventure
Eventually, Kolaczkowski and his family began venturing out again. Hiking, climbing and reconnecting in the relative safety of the outdoors during the pandemic ultimately led to a 100-mile family hike around Mont Blanc.
“I’ve never seen them quite so happy,” he says, recalling his sons’ experience on the trip.
Today, Kolaczkowski is planning many more adventures, some with his sons and some on his own. He recently joined an expedition in Kyrgyzstan and is looking ahead to more climbs, including a return to Nepal in 2027.
Telling his story publicly, he says, was another kind of healing.
“I guess you could say that telling a private story in public is another form of accepting risk,” he admits.
But as Kolaczkowski sets his eyes on what the future will bring, public opinions aren’t what he worries about.
“That’s one of the nice things about having cancer. It puts other stuff in perspective,” he says with a smile.
Notions of Grace: A Memoir of Climbing, Cancer and Family is available for and will be released March 31.
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