Mount McKinley (Denali) was Johans first mountain and he was now at a crossroad in his life after his biking expedition from Sweden to Africa. Was the biking adventure a “once in a life time” thing or was that a start for a new life style?
Johans life took a sharp turn and he started to look for new challenges. His friends told him that the biking to Africa was just luck. This had nothing to do with motivation or focusing.
Johan decided to climb one of the most challenging mountains he had ever heard of at that time; Mount McKinley in Alaska. The problem was that he didn’t know how to climb and he had never been in the mountains before. He came up with a great idea and called 10 of the best climbers in Sweden with one single question; what mistakes have you done?
Not “what do you recommend” or “what do you suggest”, that can be read about in books. He wanted to know the real answer to how to climb a mountain. What mistakes to avoid and what problems to plan for. He wanted to learn how to minimize the risks and how to prepare himself for obstacles so he studied the mistakes that other climbers had done so he could avoid at least a few of those problems.

Johan got one of the climbers (Nicholas Gafgo) to join him and 11 days later they had climbed the highest peak in North America and the first of the Seven Summits. The average climbing time is 18-21 days so they were happy and Johan started to realize that this might be a new lifestyle after all. This was also an important expedition for Johan since this was the first time he worked in a team and he now understood they value of finding the right team members.

Climbing McKinley in Alaska (7 min, Swedish version)