Slidell scientist climbs to top of the world

St. Tammany News

Justin Carreno of Slidell had an interesting summer vacation.

A civilian oceanographer and cartographer with the Naval Oceanographic Office at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, Carreno spent June battling snowstorms, precipitous heights and exhaustion getting to the summit of Mt. McKinley in Alaska.

Why would a 29-year-old man spend his free time risking life and limb to climb 20,320 feet under such harsh and dangerous conditions?

The standard answer for mountaineers is because it's there. And Carreno, who was hooked when he got his first look at the tallest mountain in North America, is no exception.

"I just said, I gotta climb it," said Carreno, whose quest started in 1998 when he was working for the National Park Service as a cartographer at the Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska, where Mt. McKinley is located.

McKinley is not Carreno's first mountain. He got started in the sport of climbing in 1997 when he was working at the Rainier National Park in Washington State. He said working around Mt. Rainier gave him the climbing bug.

"(Mt. Rainier) kept staring me in the face all day, and I knew I had to do it," Carreno said.

He said he really had his doubts during his first climb up 14,410-foot Mt. Rainier.

"At first, I kept asking myself, 'why am I doing this?'" Carreno mused. "Then you come down, rest up and you realize you've become addicted."

Since then, Carreno has scaled mountains in Mexico, Japan and New England.

The McKinley assault was not easy. Carreno said there were problems with his teammates. Even though they worked well as a team, there were personality conflicts and the expedition took 25 days, 23 days to scale the mountain and two days to get down.

Carreno said it took a long time to climb up because of two reasons: For one, they had to climb up to make base camps, and then climb back down to bring up supplies to the camps.

"You are sort of climbing the mountain twice," Carreno said.

Then there was the weather. The climbers were stranded for 12 days at the 14,000-foot camp because a snowstorm blocked further progress up the mountain.

Carreno said the delay lowered the morale of the team, and they wondered if they would ever make it to the top. He said it was dangerous in the bad weather. The area was in a whiteout, limiting visibility and making it risky to walk in and out of camp without the threat of getting lost.

He also said there were times during the climb when he thought he wouldn't make it to the top.

"The thought of continuing became daunting and seemed unrealistic as my morale, physical and emotional strength deteriorated," Carreno said.

But Carreno and his six teammates finally made it to the top at 10:30 p.m. June 12, and he was able to plant the U.S. Navy flag of NAVO at the summit. He believes it is the first time the Navy flag has been planted on Mt. McKinley.

Standing at the peak of Mt. McKinley was very emotional for Carreno.

"I let loose. I was elated, and very emotional. It was incredible," Carreno said. He admitted that after thanking God for helping him, he broke down and cried.

"The tears froze on my face," he said.

The team only stayed at the summit for half an hour and took two days to get back down.

The first thing Carreno did when he got back was take a very long, hot shower. Then he started eating, "everything in sight," to make up for all the weight he had lost on the climb.

"All I did for a week was eat and sleep," Carreno said. "I'm still recovering, and it will take another week before I'm back to normal."

After returning the Navy flag in a ceremony to NAVO, Carreno was off to work again as an oceanographer. As a certified diver, Carreno also explores the deeps of the ocean for the U.S. Navy.

He said he doesn't have immediate plans for another climb. Carreno would like to go to Argentina to scale Mt. Aconcagua. He also has an interest in assaulting Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa. He paused when asked if he would like to try a climb on Mt. Everest in Nepal.

"Possibly. I have a buddy who wants me to go. But that takes a lot of planning, and I don't know if I could get two months off from work to do it," Carreno said.

He said that the climb up McKinley has altered his outlook on life.

"It allowed me to realize what is truly important in life. It magnified the things that were meaningful, and reduced things that were insignificant," Carreno said. "The last time I felt this type of feeling was during Hurricane Katrina, when I lost my home and everything in it."