Major LAM
Activities and
Positions Held:
Jason Halladay
of Los Alamos, New Mexico, has been mountain climbing for over
half his life. His addiction to the outdoors and mountain
climbing began in his teenage years as simple backpacking trips
but has evolved into technical rock, snow and ice climbs of more
difficult and demanding peaks. Halladay honed his alpine
climbing skills while climbing all of Colorado’s 59 14ers not
once but twice in the past 9 years in all seasons of the year.
While most prefer climbing the mountains of Colorado in the
summer months, Halladay enjoys the “off seasons” relishing in
the cold temperatures and long approaches. Many of these
14er climbs have been with his long time friend and climbing
partner, Aron Ralston. Halladay and Ralston share a
similar climbing style and ethic and enjoy pushing themselves in
the outdoors.
Jason Halladay
In the winter
and spring months, Halladay loves climbing the peaks of Northern
New Mexico and Colorado in search of backcountry snowboarding
descents. As a previous competitor for many years of USASA
(United States of America Snowboard Association) freestyle
competitions, backcountry snowboarding is one of Halladay’s
strongest abilities. “I feel the most comfortable when I’m
climbing or descending steep snow,” says Halladay.
Jason about to take the
plunge!
Memorable
climbs:
Halladay has
lead successful expeditions to four of the “Seven Summits”--
Denali (20,320’, Alaska, USA), Kilimanjaro (19,340’, Tanzania,
Africa), Aconcagua (22,841’, Argentina, South America) and Mount
Kosciusko (7,310', Australia).
His comfort on
snow climbs has equated to a number of successful climbs of some
of the United State’s highest summits including the West
Buttress of Denali and Liberty Ridge of Mount Rainier and a
snowboard descent of Mount Hood’s south face.
A few other
details about Jason:
Not one to
concentrate too much on one particular discipline, Halladay is
an accomplished rock climber as well. While he leads 5.11 sport
routes, his greatest rock climbing enjoyment comes from alpine
traditional routes in the 5.7 to 5.10 range. His alpine rock
climbing skills have taken him to the summits of Wyoming’s Grand
Teton and Devils Tower as well as many great climbs in the Wind
River Range of Wyoming, Red Rocks (Nevada), Rocky Mountain
National Park (Colorado) and the Sierra Nevada Mountains of
California. He's also taken to ultrarunning in recent years and
has completed numerous 50 mile and 100 mile trail races.
Visit Jason's
website by clicking
here.
Halladay’s
undergraduate degree is in the field of broadcast journalism so
he’s quite comfortable both behind and in front of the camera.
He is an avid photographer and enjoys documenting his climbs
with his digital cameras. Halladay currently works as a computer
technician at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
