'I just keep climbing': How Utah man turns tragedies into gratitude each week on Pfeifferhorn

SALT LAKE CITY — For 61-year-old Peter Van Horn, scrambling to the summit of Pfeifferhorn is hard — but he does it anyway.

Once a week for the past decade, the Salt Lake City resident has climbed the mountain, also known as Little Matterhorn. This Wasatch Mountain peak has 3,800 feet of elevation gain over a five-mile span, reaching 11,326 feet above sea level. And that doesn't include the run back down.

"I had to find something that could rival the intensity of being a singer in a hard rock band," he said.

Van Horn grew up at a time when hair was long and the guitar riffs were longer. He sang and played lead guitar for many bands throughout the '80s and '90s, and opened for bands like Slaughter, Great White, Gene Loves Jezebel and Bang Tango.

As much as music took over his life, so did the lifestyle, and he found himself deep in drugs and alcohol and in the middle of a divorce and custody battle.

"I was drinking way too much. I was high all the time. And then on top of that, we lost my younger brother, Mark, to a brain tumor," he said.

The year was 1998, and in order to make ends meet, he took a job working for another brother painting houses in Seattle. And on July 20 of that year, something happened that changed everything.

"It was a three-story building, and I was up on scaffolding, and I didn't want to risk falling, so I decided to go up to the roof with my extension pole and roller," he said. "There was a high-voltage power line too close to the building, and I didn't take notice of it, and I made contact with it. It was one of three wires, and it was 28,000 volts of electricity, and it killed me instantly."

According to witnesses, he was out for several minutes before coming to. During that time, Van Horn recalled having a "near-death experience."

"I had this out-of-body experience, and I accepted death immediately," he recalled. "I was able to make a connection with everybody I ever knew in life. It was like I had this thread connecting to everyone. It's a very surreal thing to try to explain."

He said that healing physically from the burn, which was a 42% third-degree classification, was "brutal." He spent 2 ½ months in the ICU and required six skin grafts over his entire chest in front of his neck and under both arms.

Climbing back to health

Van Horn held back tears as he spoke about what he endured following the accident, and described not just the physical pain, but emotional, mental and spiritual. Four years later, he would experience another tragic loss.

"My sister, who is two siblings older, had a really bad opiate addiction, stemming from her battle with lupus, and she overdosed," he said. "We were really close at one point, but the drugs took her away from me."

Fueled by his own need to heal and find his path, he met the "love of his life," and decided to leave the rock star and drug life behind. And when he did, he looked to one of his younger brothers, who, at the time, was racing 100-mile distances in the Wasatch Mountains.

"My brother, Matt, was doing this trail and ultra-running thing, which I thought was just nuts," he said. "I called him up, and he got me into my first mountain, which was Wire," he added. "It was in the middle of winter, and he got me up there, and it was exhilarating. I just discovered a whole new drug. I got up there, and we look down the valley, and Matt says, 'You know what? 99% of those people down there have no idea what this is like.' I was just hooked."

Van Horn kept climbing mountains in the Wasatch Mountain Range, and then his brother took him up Pfeifferhorn. Unfortunately, the first day he went, the clouds rolled in, and the view he had been anticipating was nowhere to be seen.

"We got to the top, and Matt goes, 'Well, this is the greatest view in the Wasatch, but you're going to have to come back because you can't see anything," he said. "So, I had to come back on the first clear day in November. I went up there solo, and I've been going ever since."

Mountaintop conversations

Van Horn still paints houses; finds time to write and play music; spends time with loved ones, including caring for his elderly parents; and makes sure to climb his favorite mountain.

He's lost two more siblings since starting his mountain climbing journey, and he said that he often goes to the top to talk to them.

"Up on the mountain, I have conversations with my siblings," he said. "The oldest, Jackie, died about six years ago from a stroke, and my brother, Tom, died of alcoholism three years ago," he said.

"One of the last things (Tom and I) talked about was alcoholism," he continued. "I had ceased preaching to him years before. I just loved him and wanted to spend time with him. He said that alcoholism is the disease that makes you feel good while it kills you. Those are some of the last words he said to me."

On the rocky ridges of Pfeifferhorn, Van Horn also said he talks to God.

"There are people who seek religion or God or praying or meditation in the mountains. I combine the two," he said. "I have my best conversations with the God of the universe, as I believe he exists, when I'm out there. I'm hopeful that he's listening. I kind of feel like he is."

Van Horn says he tells God how grateful he is for the challenges he's faced, adding that the views from Pfeifferhorn allow him the chance to scan the world around him in a way that helps him realize his place in it.

"As I've gotten older, I've learned to thank God for the hard stuff, too," he said. "It started with being grateful for my burn scar. I would never change it. It was the most painful thing I ever went through. It was horrible. It was torture. But I survived that sucker.

"So, I just keep climbing."

Related topics