[5] He played football for Ephrata High School and Columbia Basin College in Pasco, Washington, where he was part of an unbeaten team in 1961 that was later invited to the Junior Rose Bowl.
[7] Wickwire made several pioneering ascents of Mount Rainier's 3,600 feet (1,097 m) foot Willis Wall in the 1960s and 1970s, which had remained unclimbed until 1961.
Its dangers include notorious weather conditions, stretches of technical climbing on rock and ice, marked cliff exposures, and enormous, high-altitude serac.
Concerned about being able to move safely in the dark, he decided to spend the night where he was, which was below the summit but above 27,000 ft or 8,200 m.[13] Wickwire had done bivouacs before and knew he just needed to gut it out until daylight, which was risky because of the thin air and severe cold.
His only protection, other than his immediate winter clothing, was a thin nylon bivvy sack, which is uninsulated but windproof and helps to retain body heat.
I also think that having reached the summit was a critical element in my survival, it gave me an adrenaline rush and great sense of satisfaction that saw me through the night.
Wickwire was able to slowly climb out with an ice axe but was unable to rescue Kerrebrock, who was alive but wedged in tightly, still wearing his backpack and upside down.
Wickwire then descended on rope anchored to a snow picket, and attempted moving Kerrebrock's tightly wedged backpack from within the crevasse, but all efforts were futile.
Upon getting down from the mountain, which took several days and was fraught with more crevasse dangers, Wickwire was burdened by his guilt for months for being unable to save Kerrebrock.
[7] While ascending Everest, one day Wickwire and Hoey were taking a brief rest on a slope within a steep and icy couloir at 26,000 ft (7,900 m).
As Wickwire explains: In the midst of lifting my pack I heard a sudden pinging sound and turned my head to see Marty pitching backward, head-down the icy slope.
Though she rolled onto her side and reached out, she missed the fixed rope, sliding past it just as it curved away toward the edge of the Great Coulier.
I watched in shock and disbelief as she slid at an ever increasing speed, disappearing into a tunnel of mist, over a huge ice cliff, and onto the glacier six thousand feet below.
[18]Wickwire looked back at the fixed rope and saw Hoey's open climbing waist harness still attached via a jumar.
[18][17] In 1995, Jim Wickwire, John Roskelley, Tim Macartney-Snape, Stephen Venables, and Charlie Porter attempted a new route on Monte Sarmiento, on the western shores of Tierra del Fuego.