This will be me March 2012!

I grew up in Seattle. Mountain climbers there are like surfers in California. So plentiful that they sort of fade into the green, white and blue that is Washington State. I hiked as a kid with the Girl Scouts and as a counselor at Camp Waskowitz. In college I began to back pack. I loved the feeling of accomplishment when I hiked up something…anything. 

I also enjoyed reading. Books like INTO THIN AIR, SEVEN SUMMITS and ADDICTED TO DANGER are seared into my memory. People who were at the top of their games were household names. Jim Wickwire was one of my favorites along with Dick Bass. To me they were no less important than Hilary or the many many unnamed Sherpas that have made mountains like Mount Everest seem like they are in everyone’s back yard.

I grew more and more fond of Mount Everest and lived the mountain through every book I could get my hands on as well as every documentary, movie, picture and article that came down the pike. Strangely, I never ever wanted to summit the mother of all mountains myself. But I yearned to see it. It always seemed like a pipe dream to me. In 2010, however, that changed.

In spring of 2010 I was watching a documentary, not about my mountain, but about a 76 year old guy at Machu Picchu climbing to the top of its nearly 8k feet. IT was then I decided now. Now or never. I found Mountain Madness, having learned of them through the years of avid Everest worship. I have given myself until March of 2012 to get to the base of Mount Everest and realize that dream. To drink it in and enjoy the pain it will take to get there and know that within each and every one of us is the power to make a dream reality. Come along the way with me here at WhelanTrek!