The 2009 Climb for Clean Air raised over $115,000 to support the great work of the American Lung Association. 12 members of our climbing teams reached the summit of Mt. Rainier on July 25th and 26th.

I want to thank each and every one of you who have been supporting me for the last several months. Together, we have raised over $4,600 to support the ALA in all of its efforts, particularly to eliminate the use of tobacco among youth.

This has been a life changing experience for me. I was unable to reach the summit on Saturday morning. At the top of Disappointment Cleaver (12,300 ft) I made the decision to turn around. It was a tough decision but in the end the right one. I have learned that success (both in mountaineering and in life) is not about reaching the top, but most defiantly about the journey. What follows is my journey over the last 4 days.

Day 1: Orientation
Wednesday, July 22nd

For the last three days, I have been working with my good friend Randy Orwin leading the Moodle Boot Camp with 60 teachers from all over the Northwest. Camp ended today at noon. My son, Frank, has been with me all week helping also. After all the “campers” left, we got all the gear packed up, got some lunch, then Frank and Randy went back to Bremerton, and I headed to Ashford near the base of Mt. Rainier at the headquarters of Rainer Mountaineering Inc (RMI) for our orientation meeting at 3:00pm.

At the meeting, we got to meet our four RMI climbing guides. Leading the team is Win Whittaker (son of Lou Whittaker), Mike Walter, Peter Van Deventer and Erik Endert. These guides, as are all of the guides at RMI, are the most experienced and professional mountaineering guides in the world.

During the meeting, they explained what was in store for us over the next few days. Tomorrow we will hike above Paradise for a snow school, then on Friday we head up to Camp Muir and prepare for our summit attempt early in the morning on Saturday. After a few questions about the the route, we moved into the guide house, sat on some very comfy couches while Win showed us a presentation further describing the route and a bit about the history of climbing Rainier. Then we moved around what is possibly the largest table made of a single piece of wood I've ever seen (Win said it took 15 guides to move it into place) while Mike unpacked a backpack to show us the gear we would need to take up the mountain with us.

After dinner, we came back to RMI to have a fireside chat with Lou Whittaker. (OK... there was no fire, and we just sat around a picnic table, but it was still really cool to spend time with Lou) He told us about some of his climbing experiences and how significant a thing we are about to do. Most importantly, he reminded us that mountaineering is about the experience. Many attempt a summit, but only a few make it...and even then only because the team and the mountain came together to make it happen.

At 80 years of age, Lou is one of the fittest persons I've ever met. I mean the guy is built like a Sequoia. He said that your health is like a savings account for retirement. When you are young, you make deposits in your "health bank" by living a healthy life. He said that he's now making withdrawals and is still able to enjoy a healthy life.

Tomorrow we meet back at RMI to get on the bus to Paradise for snow school. I'm pumped.

Day 2: Snow School
Thursday, July 23rd

My dad parked his 32' Fleetwood at an RV park near the gate of Mt. Rainier National Park while he's up in Bremerton with Frank. It's nice to have a comfortable place to stay while I'm here. Got up pretty early this morning. I'm pretty excited and looking forward to getting on the mountain.

We met at RMI at 8:15am. After a short meeting with the guides and a few quick pictures we all loaded on the bus to head up to Paradise. The bus was full of nervous anticipation. People respond in different ways when they're nervous. Some get very chatty, others stare out the window at the beautiful scenery. I chose to sip on my water bottle, close my eyes and relax. This has been my 7th trip up to Paradise in the last couple of months so I wasn't afraid that I was going to miss any of the sites on the way up. After a 40 minute bus ride, we grabbed our packs, threw on our boots and gaiters then headed up the Alta Vista trail about 2 miles to a large snow field.

Snow school is about learning techniques for glacier travel. Being prepared with the right equipment and aware of the environment around you are a must while walking across a glacier. Falling is the biggest hazard on the mountain, so we learned how to arrest our self if we fell down a slope. In a self arrest, you roll on to your stomach, drive your ice axe into the snow and kick you toes in to the snow as quickly as you can. The idea is to get your body off the snow and use your axe and toes as the anchor points. We had a lot of fun. Win put us into every possible position we could fall from. We would slide feet first, then head first, on our backs, Superman style...any way you could slide down a slope, we did it and got into an arresting position. The guides reminded us that we should always carry our axe in arresting position so that it was at the ready should we need it. To reinforce the technique, the guides imposed a "beer for the guides" penalty if they caught us carrying the axe the wrong way. To the team's credit, no guides earned a beer.

After sliding around the snow for a while, we walked back to our packs and ate some lunch. The next lesson for snow school was traveling as a rope team. Mike showed us how to put on our harness and crampons and explained that we'd be roped together in teams of three or four for the entire trip from Muir to the summit. The key point to remember... don't step on the rope! Crampon spikes are pretty sharp and can easily damage a rope. Another beer penalty was imposed if anyone stepped on the rope. Again...we are a good team, no beer for the guides.

Once roped up, we began climbing a slope. When traversing a slope, falling is always the biggest hazard. By being roped up you have your team members with you to stop your fall. If someone were to fall, they would yell "FALLING!" and the other members of the rope team drops to an arresting position to anchor the rope. We walked around for about an hour making turns and getting used to being on the rope.

The last lesson of the day was how to use our avalanche beacons. The national park requires anyone climbing on the upper mountain to wear a beacon. It's a box a little larger than a PDA inside a harness we wear on our chest. It's is both a transmitter and receiver. Win hid one and we played a little game of "find the beacon" (beer for the winner). Everyone put there beacons in receiver mode and began tracking the pings of the hidden one. We wandered around for a few mintues looking a little confused until we realized that two people had they're beacons in transmit mode as well. Once we were sure that everyone had the right setting, Shae, Shawn and I zeroed in on Win's backpack pretty quick. Shae got there first, so she won the beer.

After the beacon lesson we packed up our gear and headed back down to the parking lot at Paradise to get on the bus to Ashford. Many of our team met up later at the RMI grill for some pizza and a beer. Then it was time to get some rest. I drove back to the RV and spent the evening packing and repacking my backpack. Checking all my equipment. I'm getting a little nervous now. Tomorrow we head up to our base camp at Camp Muir.

Day 3: Base Camp
Friday, July 24th

We met up at RMI at 8:00am. The Lung Association has provided us rooms at the Paradise Inn for Saturday night, so I decided to drive my truck up to Paradise rather than take the bus. After a quick stop at the RV (OK, after checking and rechecking all my gear I did forget one item... my climbing permit) I made it up to the parking lot at Paradise a few minutes before the bus.

It was a bright and sunny morning and we knew it was going to be a warm day so shorts and t-shirts was the proper attire for the climb up to Muir. The trip up to Camp Muir is about 4.5 miles long and about a 4,000 ft gain in elevation. We took a nice steady pace up the trail. After about an hour of climbing we took the first of a couple of breaks on the way up. At every stop you drop your pack and take care of three orders of business ...drink water, eat some food and put on more sun screen. When walking on the snow field the sun's rays are beating on you from the top and bouncing off the snow below. You need to put sun screen on every bit of exposed skin, including your nostrils. Few things are worse a sunburn inside your nose!

We made it up to Camp Muir at around 3:00pm. Once there we dropped our packs and moved all our soft gear and food into the RMI bunkhouse and picked our bunks. The accommodations are spartan. The bunkhouse is essentially a box about the size of a cargo container with three layers of plywood decks. There were only 10 of us on the team so it was pretty roomy. We were told that up to 24 of your closest friends can fit in it. Regardless, we were happy with our "hotel room" for the night.

The guides instructed us that we should eat our dinner and be "horizontal" on our bunks by 6:00pm. Win explained that depending on the conditions we'll be getting up before midnight and begin making the summit push around 1:00am. Although actually sleeping would be nice, the main idea here is just to turn off the engine and rest. It was pretty hard to get any sleep because we were also instructed to stay hydrated so every few minutes someone would get up and walk out the to outhouse to relieve themselves.

I did doze off for a little bit but mostly just thought about the climb. I felt pretty good coming up to Camp Muir. I've made that trip 4 times now and my confidence was pretty strong, but stepping on to the Cowlitz Glacier on the other side of Muir would be a new experience for me... a new test.

Day 4: Summit Push
Saturday, July 25th

12:40am: Win came into the bunkhouse about at about 11:30pm and woke us up. He really didn't have to wake us up. I think we were all already awake just waiting for him to come in and turn on the lights. He said that conditions were very good and a light base layer would all we would need to wear as we headed out of camp.

I got up, drank some water and had some breakfast. Then I stepped outside to take a look around a the night sky. Most people that live in Seattle probably have never seen a night sky not polluted with city lights. At 10,000 ft there are not city lights. To look up and see more stars than you've ever imagined and the Milky Way stretching from horizon to horizon is an awesome sight.

We all began to gather our gear together and strapped on our crampons. At 12:30 we stepped onto the Cowlitz and roped up in our teams. Among about a dozen emotions flowing through me included excitement, nervousness, fired-up and scared. I was trying not to think about the summit... just the stops. We would be making 3 stops on the way up. The first would be at the Ingraham Flats (11,100 ft). Then the crux of the climb up Disappointment Cleaver (12,300ft). The last stop would be at about 13,500 ft before approaching the Columbia Crest and the crater rim. My plan was to take the climb one stop at a time.

The first rope team moved out at 12:40am. My rope team of our guide Pete, fellow climber Theresa and I headed out right behind. It was pitch black out side. Our head lamps lighted the way about 2 meters ahead. We walked a gentle slope up the Cowlitz and then made our way on to the rock and scree of Cathedral Rock. We made a steady pace up through the gap and back down to the Ingraham Flats. I felt pretty good at that point. It was starting to get cold and the wind was picking up so we quickly dropped our packs and put on our down parkas to stay warm. We drank some water and ate some food. I'd made to the first stop.

After about a 15 minute break, we started moving again. We were now crossing the Ingraham Glacier below the ice fall. Our guides stepped up the pace here because we were a little exposed. We stepped across a couple of narrow canvases. Pretty amazing to step across a hole that's 300 ft deep. Once we got across the glacier we moved on the the rock and debris of Disappointment Cleaver. Although we were moving up hill, things started going down hill for me.

Shortly after we got onto the cleaver, my left leg began cramping up pretty bad. This is a pretty difficult part of the climb; steep, with lots of large rocks to step over. My nose was also getting pretty congested. I hacked one up (sorry for the details) and spit and saw a lot of blood. I grabbed my bandana and blew my nose and it was all blood. That got me a little scared, but I cleared out my nose and kept moving. About 300 feet from the top of the cleaver I was having a real hard time controlling my breathing. I was pressure breathing with every step but my lungs were getting congested and it was harder to get a full breath of air. Then I noticed my heart was not just racing, it felt like it was jumping out of my chest. I knew I was hitting the wall.

We made it to the top of the cleaver (12,300 ft) at around 3:45am put on our parkas and started hydrating and eating. The temperature had dropped considerably and the wind was blowing pretty hard. I was chewing on a granola bar contemplating my next decision. I wanted to try to make it to the next stop, but I knew that if my condition deteriorated further I wouldn't get much further beyond the cleaver, putting the rest of the team in danger. Pete came over to check on me and asked me how I was doing. I told him about the bloody nose and my difficulty breathing. I knew that he saw my condition and thought I was done. He asked me, "Well...what do you think?" I said, "Pete, humor me...tell me I can do this." He looked at me with a smile on his face and said, "You can do this Jeff" I looked back at him, "Pete, I know I can, but not today."

Win cam over and we talked for another minute. I asked if we could hang here for a while to watch the sunrise, but Win said I needed to get down and I'd still see a great sunrise coming off the cleaver. After a big hug from Theresa, and high-fives from the rest of the group, Theresa roped up with another team and started the final push to the summit. There were only 5 of our original 10 members of the team heading up. One never left Muir and three others turned at the flats. I was dejected. I couldn't believe that I wasn't going to make it to the summit. It was a hard pill to swallow. Win reminded me that few ever make it this far and at 12,300 ft, I'm higher than Mt. Adams, so I'm still above anything else around. After I watched the other climbers make there way up, Pete and I roped up and started to head back down. I took it slow and easy. The rocky trail coming down the cleaver was tough to navigate. I caught a tip of my crampon on a rock and took a short fall. Pete helped me get back up and we made it down to the flats in pretty good time. We had to stop several times coming down the cleaver to let a couple of groups pass us going up.

We got down to the flats at around 5:00am and sat to watch a beautiful sunrise (I'm taking that as my reward for getting as far as I did). I felt much better, but was still pretty bummed about turning around. When we were approaching Muir at about 6:00am, Pete got a call on the radio. The rest of the team had made it to the summit. That lifted my spirits. They were my friends and climbing partners for several weeks and I was so proud that they had made it. A lenticular cloud had formed over the summit and the wind was blowing very hard. They were going to only spend a few minutes on top and then start working their way back down.

Once back at Muir, I got back into the bunkhouse and met up with the other members of the team. Gave them a full report and then climbed in my bunk and tried to take short nap. I didn't really sleep, I just stared at the bottom of the bunk above me and reflected on the last 6 hours of my life. I know I made the right choice by turning around, but I was upset with my self for having to make that choice. What could I have done differently? I should have been better prepared. Did I eat the right foods? I shouldn't have had that beer the other night. I scheduled the Moodle Boot Camp to close to the climb. I didn't get enough sleep. For about an hour and a half I just stared at the ceiling.

Around 7:30 I got up, put on my flip-flops, grabbed something to eat and sat on a rock looking back up the peak trying to catch a glimpse of the team coming off the cleaver. The others had taken off for a walk along the Cowlitz Glacier. I stayed behind and watched a beautiful morning form below.

Around 10:15 we could see the members of the team crossing the Cathedral Gap and working their way down to the glacier and Camp Muir. I was very happy for them. They were pretty spent by the time they got to Muir but were in great spirits. We hung around Muir for another hour or so and then began to make our way down to Paradise. On the way down I was thinking about having to tell the people waiting for me that I didn't reach the summit. I was pretty down on myself. I kept telling myself that this was not a failure. I raised $4600 for the ALA and reached the highest point I had ever made on Rainier. Despite those successes, the back of my mind was still focusing on the fact that I didn't make it to the summit.

Once I got down to the parking lot at Paradise, Frank, Dad and Heidi were there waiting for me. It was so great to see them all. Frank ran up and gave me the biggest hug I'd ever gotten. He's 16 now and actually a few inches taller than me. He hugged me so hard that he almost knocked me and my pack over. I explained to them the events of the last few hours and that I hadn't made it to the summit. The all looked me straight in the eye and said how proud they were of me. A few more hugs and smiles, then we walked back to my truck and unloaded my gear and checked in to the Paradise Inn.

Epilogue

That evening the ALA put on a celebration for all of us and our families in the lobby of the Paradise Inn. Lou Whittaker and the guides showed up and we all had dinner together. Lou got up and congratulated all of us for a great job. He reminded us that as much as mountaineering is a individual sport, it is even more a team sport. In 1984 he was a member of a team of 24 climbers that worked together to eventually get one man on the summit of Everest. Mountaineering is not about reaching the top as much as it is the journey getting there.

After dinner, we all returned to the lobby to view a short slide show of the team during our training hikes over the last several months. Then one by one the 10 of us were asked to step up and walk the "Gauntlet"(actually 11, one of our team members, Barb, took a fall on a hike a few weeks ago and tore her ACL and didn't make the climb with us...but she's still a member of our team). The Gauntlet is an RMI tradition. After coming down the mountain, each member of the team comes up, shakes the hand of each of the guides and receives a certificate. When I stepped up to receive my certificate, Win grabbed my arm and spun me around to the crowd. "I want to share something with you about Jeff. He made it to the top of Disappointment Cleaver at 12,300 ft, farther up the mountain than most people will ever get. Then he made a decision that true mountaineers make. He knew that he had reached his high point and decided to make the turn. Jeff is a true mountain climber and understands what the best climbers know... that it's not about reaching the summit every time." I was pretty much speechless, gave Win a nod and a smile ...I think I managed a thank you.

I felt much better but the back of my mind still had an image of the summit imprinted on it. After the festivities were over, I walked up to Lou and asked if he could autograph a copy of this book Memoirs of a Mountain Guide . It is now one of the most cherished books on my shelf. In it he wrote, "To Jeff - A fellow climber, Lou"

This year's Climb for Clean Air was a huge success. Over $115,000 was raised to fight against lung disease and for clean healthily air. Your support for the American Lung Association and my summit attempt of Rainier is appreciated more than you will ever know. This isn't an end for me. I will continue to rediscover my joy of climbing. I have been asked to serve as a volunteer trainer for next year's Climb for Clean Air and I will return to Rainier again next summer for another attempt.

Thank you for all of your well wishes and support over the last few months.