By Keith J. Hamel, WPAOG Staff
This spring, Colonel David Ashley ’97 (Retired) is planning to climb Makalu, the fifth-highest mountain on Earth, with an elevation of 27,838 feet.
Makalu is just 12 miles southeast of Mount Everest, the world’s tallest mountain. Ashley climbed all of Everest’s 29,035 feet in May 2022, as part of his quest to climb the Seven Summits (the highest peak on each of the seven continents), which he accomplished in just 11 months. Impressive, right? Oh, wait—forgot to mention—he accomplished this feat after donating one of his kidneys and a portion of his liver, the latter to an anonymous recipient and the former to Chris Connelly, his “With Pride We Defend” classmate.
Ashley was put on his path to an adventurous lifestyle when he was introduced to orienteering during Cadet Summer Training at West Point and performed well at using a map to find the fastest path to each checkpoint. He cross-commissioned into the Air Force upon graduation and was sent to the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs for his first assignment. “Classes were in the evenings, so I was introduced to mountain biking and trail running by other lieutenants in the master’s program,” he says. “Soon after, I joined some bike and running races for fun and was asked by a racing team to join.” Before long, Ashley was made team captain, his team became sponsored, and the team went on to be crowned the U.S. Adventure Racing National Points Champion four years in a row.
Around this time, Ashley learned from a private Facebook group for the Class of 1997 that Connelly needed a kidney and none of his family members were a match. “I’ve been a blood donor most of my life, starting with West Point, as it was a great way to get a few hours away from upperclassmen as a plebe,” he says. Feeling that he had pretty much achieved all his career goals and with his daughters now in high school, Ashley thought it was time to start giving back to others. He got tested and learned he was a great candidate. “The more details I heard about Chris living with dialysis and his potential years of waiting for a kidney if no living donor stepped forward, it became an easy choice.”
About a year after surgery, Ashley was back to his adventurous ways. According to the Donor Games, an organization that is part of the National Kidney Registry to showcase the accomplishments of living kidney donors, “[Ashley] rode the 2,500-mile Great Divide mountain bike trail from Montana to New Mexico, won the 2019 Master’s Division National Championship 30-hour adventure race, and completed several ultramarathons.” He also began mountaineering after a civilian supervisor, who was trying to complete several lists for high points in the Sierra Nevada and Rocky mountains, invited him to try mountain climbing. Ashley then met the founder and CEO of Purple Heart Summits, a non-profit that paired wounded veterans with retired senior officers for arduous climbs. “I climbed Kilimanjaro in 2020 with a combat-wounded Marine, and I climbed Mount Denali with a combat-wounded Army soldier in 2021,” Ashley says. The soldier was finishing up the Seven Summits challenge, and Ashley thought that if he himself could climb the Seven Summits, it would show other athletes that becoming a living kidney donor is no obstacle to living an adventurous lifestyle. “So far, my only limitation is a restriction on NSAIDs, and I carry extra water to avoid dehydration,” he says. Proofing the point further, Ashley is now in the Guinness World Records for achieving the “Fastest to Climb the Highest Points in All 50 U.S. States,” a feat he accomplished in 41 days, 21 hours, and one minute. He started this challenge on May 19, 2023 with a climb of Mount Denali in Alaska and concluded it on June 30, 2023 when he reached the summit of Gannett Peak in Wyoming.
Ashley says the adventures he partakes in are not about looking for some thrill but rather the challenge of testing his physical and mental skills in an uncontrollable outdoor environment, and he says this attitude stems from lessons learned at West Point. “West Point taught me the skills of small team leadership: managing limited resources, personnel, scheduling, and focusing on mission success,” he says. “Endurance sports require all of these skills, and my West Point experience is a significant reason why I’ve been successful and, frankly, stayed alive through some epic experiences so far.” There may also be a West Point influence on his decision to donate his kidney. “Certainly a classmate coming to the aid of another 20 years past graduation is a fantastic example of the bonds of friendship and trust we make during our four years at the Academy,” he says. Not only that, there’s “Duty, Honor, Country” and a commitment to a lifetime of service to the nation that each graduate swears to upon graduation that played a role in Ashley’s “live life, give life” mentality. “There are over 100,000 people in our country waiting on the National Transplant List,” he says. “To protect and defend, even when the enemy is within and impacting someone’s health, West Point graduates don’t stand by and watch; we march to the sound of the guns.”
Photo 1: A late April 2023 sunrise near Camp Muir, Mount Rainier in the state of Washington, where COL (R) David Ashley ’97 was in his final training for his “Fastest to Climb the Highest Points in All 50 U.S. States” Guinness World Record attempt, which he began a month later. Photo 2: Ashley (left) with his photographer and videographer displaying his National Kidney Registry “50 State Summits” flag on the summit of Wyoming’s Gannett Peak, the last climb of his Guinness World Record, which he completed on June 30, 2023. Photo 3: Ashley performing the crux move while on a class 4 exposed climb section of Ama Dablam in Nepal’s Khumbu Valley in October 2022. Photo 4: A graphic representation of the Seven Summits (the highest peak on each of the seven continents), and, in 2021-22, Ashley climbed all seven in just 11 months.
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