In May 2001, David Marra and two climbing partners were on the southeast buttress of Mount Barille. It is a heinously difficult 1,000-metre vertical wall topped off with ice, snow and unstable granite in Alaska's Ruth Gorge, and the team had been on it for 11 days, four of them stormbound. At the lead, Marra was just a couple of treacherous rope lengths from the top. His only path for getting there, however, was up a steep, unsupported slope of sugary snow, and his sole option for following it was to burrow a trough with his hands, wedge his elbows and knees against the crumbling sides and inch upward before his tenuous purchase slipped away.

It was the most dangerous climbing Marra had ever done, but it allowed him and the frazzled team to reach the summit. Their harrowing episode pioneered a route they dubbed Feelin' Randy — named for the helicopter pilot who flew in a hot pizza following the climb — but it is not an accomplishment Marra brags about. "Sometimes, the only difference between bravery and stupidity," he says, "is the outcome."

Marra is a complex individual. He is a 32-year-old, tattooed, tobacco-chewing mountain guide based in Revelstoke, B.C., for whom pushing the limits of what's possible is a way of life. His forte is frozen waterfalls, and in recent years, he's made dozens of extreme climbing firsts in Canada's Rockies, earning respect among the elite alpinists as a solid climber, skier and outdoors instructor. No one can question Marra's courage, expertise and professionalism. Yet, paradoxically, his out-there adventure exploits are, in large measure, a means of reaching his inner sense of calm.

Friends describe Marra's climbing as an art form, and as with anyone practising a craft, he is on a personal mission to reach a zone of perfect contentment.

In his early twenties, Marra was a student at the University College of the Cariboo (UCC) in Kamloops and a talented sport climber and caver, who was into theatre, sculpture and writing. His high-octane artistic outlet was as lead singer in an outrageous punk rock band. One day, Marra noticed an advertisement for UCC's two-year, adventure travel guide program, which is the most rigorous of its kind in the world. In Marra's mind, adventure guiding opened the door to a career in the mountains.

"I'd never really committed to adventure the way I had to my artistic pursuits. At the time, I didn't believe it was possible to do both," he recalls. "When I saw the poster, I thought, ‘Am I going to commit to art or adventure?' So I chose adventure while I was young enough to get the most out of it."

Marra embarked on an obsessive quest to qualify for the UCC program. He took courses in Outdoor Pursuits at the University of Calgary, passed a slew of first-aid courses and took cave-rescue training in British Columbia. He also climbed and skied year-round. In 1994, he was accepted into UCC, and a decade later, he's a full assistant guide (a few exams short of the guide certificate issued by the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides) and a popular part-time outdoor-skills instructor at UCC, the University of Calgary and the University College of the Fraser Valley in Chilliwack.

Marra enjoys ushering others into the outdoors, and the risk-taking artist/adventurer finds complete expression in his achievements in the mountains. Friends describe Marra's climbing as an art form, and as with anyone practising a craft, he is on a personal mission to reach a zone of perfect contentment. He can experience stimuli that might overload others — clinging to an exposed wall of ice — and synthesize it into a perfect Zen experience.

In a classic Marra moment during a 2002 bivouac halfway up the northeast face of Mount Edith Cavell, near Jasper National Park, he simultaneously saw a meteor streaking across the sky, the northern lights, a forest fire in the valley, an early-morning, blaze-orange sun peeking over a distant ridge and thousands of glittering stars close enough to touch. "It's the reason I climb," he says. "In a word, it's called satori — sudden enlightenment. When you're there, taxes, fear, God, nothing matters anymore, and you're thinking about nothing. You're just completely in the now, and you feel as if you could live there forever. It's glorious."

Must he push for the physical rush to achieve spiritual peace? "Do I need to risk my life to get there? Or can I just do it sitting down over a cup of coffee with a friend?" he asks. "Figuring that out is going to be my struggle in life."
— Alec Ross
Photographs: Greg Cornell/rockclimbing.com