This past Christmas, while Dr. David Coats’ family was at home celebrating the holiday, he was on his way up Mount Aconcagua in South America.
Coats, the chief of ophthalmology at Texas Children’s Hospital and a 10 year West U resident, has made a goal to climb the seven highest summits in the world. He has currently climbed two of the seven summits: Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Aconcagua.
Coats and his team of 10 climbers and three guides reached the top of the mountain on Jan. 2 after 12 days of climbing. The weather was expected to get worse and other climbers had to be lifted off the mountain by helicopter.
“It’s like a relief,” he said about reaching the top. “That summit day was so hard; just putting one foot in front of the other.”
Coats said they didn’t get to spend that much time at the top of the mountain, but once they reached the top it was “absolutely beautiful.”
Coats said he second guesses himself as he’s climbing, but his motivation perseveres and helps him get to the top.
“On almost every climb I think to myself ‘I will never do this again,’” he said. “It’s something to look forward to and go out and accomplish.”
Coats carries a backpack filled with a -20 degree sleeping bag and pad, food, heavy duty winter clothing, ice box, helmet, games and an iPad. He also carries a picture of his wife and kids because he misses them, he said.
“You have to have a really supportive family to do this,” he said.
Coats and his friends got the idea to climb all seven summits because they “were looking for fun diversions from routine life.”
After he got the idea to climb the summits a lot of thought, effort and training went into preparing for the climb.
Coats said he gets up at 4:15 a.m. every day and goes for a run. He swims and does strength training and climbs the stairwells of Texas Children’s Hospital after work with a 60 lb. pack on his back.
“It’s a pretty big commitment,” he said. “If I didn’t have the goal ahead of me I wouldn’t have the energy to get up early every day.”
Coats said climbing puts things in perspective and when things get hard he thinks about how hard it is to climb a mountain.
Coats has already started training for his next climb. His next climb will be either Mount Denali in North America, Mount Elbrus in Europe or Mount Vinson in Antarctica.
He plans on climbing five more summits in the next two years.
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