By Carol Fisher-Linn
Some skiers may know Dave Montesanti or perhaps his son, Jake who works/volunteers at HoliMont. It was Jake who suggested this story.
Dave Montesanti and family reside in Buffalo with a getaway home in Ellicottville. A busy ophthalmologist/eye surgeon, Montesanti Sr. still finds time to work on his Bucket List. Having run from sixth grade through medical school, he always dreamed of running The Boston Marathon. By running several marathons after age 60 he finally got the qualifying score he needed to apply to and be accepted for the 2026 Boston Marathon!
There was one hitch.
Not expecting to be accepted to run in Boston, plans were already underway for another dream – a marathon of sorts. Could he possibly train for and run the Boston Marathon and at the same time train for and prepare to ascend Mt. Everest, which he had already committed to? It isn’t often that someone is faced with a dilemma on that scale.
Wasn’t one major dream enough? Here are Montesanti’s words: “The dream of climbing Mount Everest started at a specific point in my youth. At junior high, we had a social studies teacher talk to us about all the great things we could be as we grew older. We could be astronauts, sports stars, even president. But then he said ‘well, likely none of you will ever climb Mount Everest,’ but there are many other things you could do. At that time, I thought, can’t climb Mount Everest? Oh yeah – watch me…”
Montesanti’s wife Jackie (Jacqueline) turned him on to mountain climbing, having come from a family of hikers and climbers. She and their oldest daughter, Anna (at age 12) were accomplished 46ers (having climbed all 46 peaks in the Adirondacks above 4000 feet – just as our beloved Edna Northrup had done). He began taking family trips climbing famous peaks all over the globe. Meeting other like-minded people, plans developed that he and some new friends would attempt to summit Everest in the 2026 season. These are plans you don’t cancel so Montesanti, of course, did the only logical thing – he trained for both.
He slept in a hypoxic tent at home for eight weeks prior to Everest. It had an oxygen generator which would gradually decrease oxygen, allowing pre-acclimatization for 22,000 feet. It hampered his running slightly but he kept training and running. And then, of course, come April 20 Montesanti put on his Sabres jersey, ran the Marathon and jubilantly crossed the finish line.
The Everest challenge, began in Kathmandu, then a climb up Mount Mira – 3 days up and down to acclimatize and get rope practice – then to another camp. With May 22 targeted as summit day, they set off on May 17 in the middle of the night crossing with ladders over crevasses. I repeat, at night – over crevasses – on horizontal ladders. Camps two to three were done in daylight (snow blindness could happen), camp four was near the death zone so breathing was labored. Final day! At 10pm they geared up for a 10-hour push to the summit passing a few deep-frozen humans along the way and being challenged by the Hillary step (a legendary near-vertical 40-foot rock outcrop just below the summit). Seven of ten climbers made it to the top.
“ … the flags on the summit where iconic. After reaching the summit, I was exhausted, physically, mentally, and emotionally. Despite this, I was able to take my mask off and get Summit photos. The Josh Allen jersey, beneath my down suit, did not make an appearance, however.”
After a base camp celebration, they flew to Kathmandu for dinner at, wait for it, The Hard Rock Café! And then, on to home. When asked which accomplishment was more meaningful to him, Montesanti had this to say: “From an accomplishment standpoint … Difficult to compare one to the other, one was an individual achievement in which I had trained throughout my life, and the other a team effort in which none of us make it to the top if there aren’t all of us, including the guides and chipper, working together. I suppose the fact that only 7500 people have ever summitted Mount Everest (compared to the 30,000 people who run the Boston Marathon every year) would make that seemingly more rewarding, more fulfilling. But in reality, it was the reaching two lifelong dreams in one short stretch that makes me most proud.” Kudos, Dave Montesanti!
For more information on a Mt. Everest climb, see Furtenbachadventures.com