Summiting Denali without a guide became his proudest accomplishment—and remains so even after he finished his Everest climb this year. “We carried all our own food, we packed all our own stuff, we did all our own navigation,” Dr. Mattingly said. “We decided when to go, when not to go, all our own self-rescue stuff. When you’re a team of four, you really have to work together.”

Once he crossed Denali off his list, only Everest remained.

Highs and Lows

True to his “adventurous but not reckless” approach, he promised Jenni that he wouldn’t travel to Nepal until their daughter graduated high school.

They ended up planning a group CME trip to Everest’s base camp for April 2023, and their daughter was able to come along. Jenni and her fellow instructors trekked with Dr. Mattingly to base camp and led the team back to Kathmandu while Dr. Mattingly, his dad Bruce, and a sherpa set off at 1 a.m. for a preliminary climb to Loboche to warm up for his main trek by practicing on Loboche’s ice, rock, and snow formations.

Their trip was fraught from the start. Bruce started with congestion that quickly turned into severe cough and fatigue, so he was unable to reach the summit. While he descended, Dr. Mattingly and the sherpa, Pemba, topped out and returned to meet Bruce at High Camp. They managed to eventually get back to Everest Base Camp, but his dad’s condition was worsening quickly. Dr. Mattingly was really worried.

“At night, his oxygen saturation dropped to 49 percent, and he was blue with severe cough and congestion,” Dr. Mattingly said. “We started antibiotics, steroids, and acetazolamide, and we had back-up oxygen available if things worsened. We contacted Global Rescue, who was amazing at coordinating a helicopter evacuation. However, due to bad weather, we had to spend one more night at base camp.”

With his dad headed back to Kathmandu to recover from his illness, Dr. Mattingly was alone with his thoughts at the base camp. “Is it really worth it?” he asked himself. While he was fueled by his strong desire to climb the highest peak in the world, he was worried about the risks and questioning if he made a selfish decision by placing himself in harm’s way. Normally surrounded by friends and family who were on the adventure with him, the solitary nature of his Everest climb gave him almost too much time to think.