Brooks looks to scale world’s highest mountain

David Brooks is already well known as Chairman and CEO of the Independent Bank Group and as a McKinney City Council Member, but fewer are aware of another of his titles: mountaineer. One of his passions in life is climbing to some of the world’s highest points, and having already tackled the top peaks in North America and Africa, he now has Everest in his sights.

“I love the mountains,” Brooks said. “I grew up skiing and being outdoors in the mountains. We lived in Alaska awhile while I was growing up, we’ve lived in Germany close to the Bavarian Alps and I skied there when I was growing up. I just grew up in love with the mountains. Some people are beach people, some people are mountain people, and I’m one of those guys that if you give me 10 opportunities to pick between the beach and the mountains, I’ll pick the mountains 10-out-of-10 times.”

Brooks began climbing about 11 years ago when he trekked up Mount Kilimanjaro with a group of McKinney residents. Enjoying the trip, he came back to the United States and worked on his climbing skills in Colorado and the Washington Cascades.

Last year, having earlier tackled one of the Seven s Summits, so named as the highest mountains on each continent, Brooks decided to climb Denali: North America’s highest peak located in Alaska. The climb lasted through parts of May-June 2009 and ended with the successful summit of a mountain Brooks said he’s had his eye on since living in Alaska.

Brooks has given some thought to tackling all Seven Summits, and if he does so his next stop will be the highest of the highest: Everest. Brooks said that most climbers leave that one for last, but that he doesn’t have much interest in taking on the challenge of the whole set if he doesn’t get to the pinnacle. Considering the amount of time expeditions takes, about 8-10 weeks for an Everest climb, Brooks could be too old for the trip after tackling the other s.

“I’m not as young as I was when I started climbing 10-12 years ago,” he said. “I know I’ve got a window of time, where if I’m going to do Everest I really need to do it in the next few years. So I’ve kind of got that in the back of my mind too.”

Recently, Brooks took three days to do some ice climbing in Canada, but taking enough time off to tackle Everest and a necessary preparation climb of nearby Cho Oyu, which stands at 26,906 feet compared to the big one’s 29,029 feet, may not be possible in his current schedule. Currently, he has Cho Oyu slated for September of this year with a climb of Everest to come March-June of next year should the trial go well.

But the current business climate may postpone these plans.

“The challenge that I’ve got is that, as you know, banking is in a pretty interesting time right now,” Brooks said. “Our company is doing particularly well, and as a result it looks like we’re going to have a lot of opportunities this year and next year to acquire banks, banks that are either troubled or banks that are failing.”

Even if he’s unable to go in 2011, Brooks said he’s committed to climbing Everest at some point. Still, he added it was going to be tough to keep the schedule he has right now unless something changes in the banking business.

As for what draws him to venture up the side of mountains, Brooks said he loves their grandeur and beauty, as well as the challenge and adventure of scaling them. While he has never had a close call, four deaths did occur during the three weeks he spent climbing Denali last year, a reminder of the dangers of the sport. One difficulty in particular is adverse reaction to high altitudes, which Brooks personally doesn’t suffer from.

“I’ve climbed with some guys that were great athletes that really struggled with altitude, and then there are other guys who aren’t even in the best shape who do fine at altitude,” he said. “I’ve been fortunate that I can do well at altitude, I’ve always done well at altitude to this point.”

And while he’s never felt in danger, Brooks said that when he was having his picture taken on top of Denali, he was looking out the corner of his eye at the mountain, with all its 12-inch ledges and trails dropping off on either side, and thinking to himself, ‘Now I got to get down off this mountain.’

If his climb of Cho Oyu goes well, Brooks can think the same atop Everest.

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