Straight to the top
Posted: May 8, 2012
SHM student pushes himself to the peak of Mount Everest
Daniel “Dusty” Boyd, MS, is always on the move. He believes that one should never leave idle time for the mind to wander.
“If you fill every hour of your day in some way, whether it’s helping another human being or progressing yourself, then you’re not going to get in trouble,” he says of his life philosophy.
Between spending time with his wife and four children, running a non-profit practice that helps Hawaiians fight obesity, and pursuing his doctorate in health education, Boyd spends many hours mountaineering.
“I guide on Everest and work with obese people because everyone has ‘their Everest,’ metaphoric, or real,” he says.
Before he discovered his love of climbing, he was an avid participant in Iron Man triathlons. He says he learned so much about himself on a mountain, that he shifted from triathlons to mountain climbing, but not before pairing the two sports to see the effects on his body and mind.
Days after completing Iron Man Austria, Boyd left for Russia to climb Mount Elbrus, the highest peak in Europe. He has done this with four of the world’s seven highest peaks in Australia, Russia, Peru, and Nepal. He has climbed Mount Everest multiple times without oxygen in as few as nine days. His latest climb was to study the effects of altitude on a fast-moving body for his dissertation.
“It’s all in your mind,” he says. “If you hydrate, eat right, and keep your will, you can do more than what experts say you can.”
Boyd learned about mountaineering from the Sherpas of Nepal, people living in the Nepalese Himalayas who often serve as porters on mountain-climbing expeditions. He has survived dangerous situations like staying three days in a tent during a storm with near 100-mile-per-hour winds and while running out of water.
Although he has climbed mountains during wintertime, which is more difficult, he says the art of mountaineering is something in which he is skilled and comfortable. Life is all about balance, he says, something his father taught him at an early age. “Try to live your life for purposes higher than oneself; strive to be the best you are capable of being. I find this is the best way to satisfaction as a human being.”