Snowy alpine start on Mt. Hood

The snow blanketing the great Pacific Northwest this week has been G-R-E-A-T news for our summer mountain climbs.  It’s wreaked havoc at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and turned the freeways into ice rinks, but high on the alpine slopes of Climb to Fight Breast Cancer peaks, it’s golden.  A healthy snow pack covers crevasses and decreases mountain hazards.

Yesterday,  I watched cross-country skiers gliding through the middle of town and a couple of snowmobiles cruising up major thoroughfares.  A pretty amazing sight in this Seattle suburb.

I may break out my snowshoes today, not for the usual fear of post-holing, but just for the exercise and fun of taking them for a spin in the city!

Stay warm, climbers.

A river runs through it. iPhone 4s. November 2011.

It’s true, my favorite places on earth (outside my own backyard), are locations with mountains. I love to stand on a heap and survey the landscape. It sure makes me feel a lot less significant in the world. I call it my moment of perspective.

I snapped this photo with my new iPhone, not on a Climb to Fight Breast Cancer rope team, but while traipsing through an early morning fresh snowfall.  I had Ugg boots on my feet and a grande latte in my hand.  It’s a spot I frequent as much as possible and one that always emits solace. While it sits on a mountain near Washington state, there is no precarious approach, no gear required, no tents allowed, and you can have a warm shower at any time.

I hope you experience your peaceful place this New Years Eve.  Cheers to 2012 and the paths we’ll take together.

Chris and Nikki Milonas, left, will be climbing Mount McKinley (Denali) in Alaska next summer to raise money for breast cancer research. They are getting some support from Nikki’s aunt and uncle, Cheryl and Tom Hart, who own Hart's Jewelers in downtown Grants Pass.

(Reprinted with permission from the Daily Courier, Grants Pass, Oregon.)

By Kathleen Alaks
of the Daily Courier

Nikki Milonas is going to great heights to help fight cancer.

A five-year survivor of breast cancer, the 41-year-old former Grants Pass resident and her husband Chris are part of a team of six people planning to climb Denali (Alaska’s Mount McKinley) next summer to raise money for breast cancer research.

At 20,320 feet, Denali is North America’s highest peak and one of the world’s coldest. The climb is scheduled June 12 through July 2.

“We’re climbers and mountaineers,” says Nikki, who lives with Chris in Seattle, Wash. “We’ve climbed peaks in Nepal, the Himalayas in Patagonia, Chile and Argentina and we’ve done a lot of climbs and hikes around Mount Rainier.”

Nikki’s dedication to the cause was fueled years before her own personal cancer battle. In 2002, her grandmother Mary Ann Hart was diagnosed with breast cancer. Hart and her husband Thomas founded Hart Jewelers in downtown Grants Pass.

“I worked at the store all through high school,” recalls Nikki. “I was the first grandchild. She and I were really close, we were good friends.”

Her grandmother went through chemotherapy and radiation treatments. In 2004, the cancer came back in her bones and lungs.

“It was very painful watching her die,” Nikki says. “But my awareness of breast cancer was raised by going through it.”

Hart died in August 2005. In October that same year, Nikki felt a lump in her own breast. She was 35. After a series of mammograms and a needle biopsy, she was told she had breast cancer.

“Chris and I started dating two weeks before I was diagnosed,” Nikki says. “But he stood by me through it all. I went through chemo and radiation I lost all my hair. It was a pretty traumatic experience.”

“She was an animal all the way through it,” Chris says. “And now she wants, we want, to do something to give back.”

The Climb to Fight Breast Cancer is organized by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, where Nikki received her treatment. Chris and Nikki signed an agreement to raise $12,500 each.

“That was our commitment. It’s very intimidating but it’s been very positive,” Nikki says.

Since they started fundraising in January, they’ve raised $26,400, but even though they’ve surpassed their goal, they continue to solicit donations. All the money they raise will go to fund cancer research. The costs of gear and transportation for the expedition they’ll pay for themselves.

“We’re doing this for all the people who have had breast cancer and passed on,” says Chris, “for all the women like Nikki who have gone through it and survived.”

“And for future generations,” Nikki adds.

Though they are avid outdoors people, a climb of this magnitude takes a lot of training, says Nikki, who has started working out on a stair-step climber wearing a 30-pound weight vest.

“We’ll each be carrying a 50-pound pack and pulling a 30-pound sled. It’s going to be a lot of work,” says Nikki. “But I feel fortunate to still be climbing, to still be alive.”

Reach reporter Kathleen Alaks at 541-474-3815 or kalaks@thedailycourier.com.

Guide Rodney Sofich "Romancing the Stone" on a personal trip to the Bugaboos, Canada.

We spend an exorbitant amount of time when climbing, staring at rock formations, admiring glacial moraines and checking out rockfall. Climbing a peak is the world’s best geology classroom.  I’ve been known to collect (small) pebbles from my expeditions and store them in a flower-pot on my deck (shhh).  Given that I live in the great Pacific Northwest, they see nearly as much weather as they did before I rescued them off the sides of once active volcanos!

When my boys were young, they would try to guess which mountain produced each stone. I didn’t have the heart to tell them their guess was as good as mine, having never labeled my collection. I would gander a guess right alongside them. The two that still stand out are the rocks from the flanks of Mt. Elbrus (tallest peak in Europe, 18,510 ft) and Everest Base Camp Trek (the Khumbu, 17,300 ft, courtesy of climbing diva Amy Centers).

We use stones for practical reasons in the mountains too – to mark distance or as sturdy tent anchors. They admit the age and geography of the prehistoric world in which we trek. Rock formations hide a summit register, or serve as a grand lunch spot.

The stones in my backyard betray memories of mountains climbed, journeys traveled, and far away places I still visit in my mind.

Enchanted training hike. Photo by Bonnie Timm.

This weekend, Seattle Times columnist Nicole Brodeur wrote about transplant survivor Ryan Kilbury and his unrelated stem cell donor, Joanne Wilkie.  Joanne is a fire fighter who lives in Scotland.  They were matched on the international bone marrow registry. Six years ago on Christmas Eve, Ryan received a stem cell transplant from Joanne’s cells, a procedure that saved his life. They met for the first time in Seattle last week.

As the holidays approach, we event managers are grateful for our affiliation with Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Over the past dozen years, we’ve participated in the Hutch Holiday Gala (you can still make a reservation for December 3!), the Climb to Fight Breast Cancer and the Legacy for Life, 5+ year Transplant Survivor Reunion, and many initiatives highlighting the extraordinary research conducted within the Center’s walls every day.

While the Climb to Fight Breast Cancer captures our passion, witnessing this summer’s 5+ year survivor reunion pumped gratitude through our hearts.  It was an incredible honor to spend two days with over 300 former patients who were directly impacted by the life-saving research pioneered at the Center.

They shared their stories in a special online Celebration Book, for all of us to read and appreciate.

Happy Thanksgiving.

But really, how could I resist? Plus, I was stopped for an instant as our team was crossing a crevasse.  

Here is the crevasse we crossed, one of many during the course of the afternoon.  The next one had an aluminum extension ladder for us to tread on. Notice there are no images of that one.

This is a keyhole glimpse of what it is like on the back of a rope team.  I had the privilege of documenting climbs on Mt. Shasta, Mt. Hood, Mt. Adams, Mt Baker and Mt Rainier. It was an amazing experience that took me across crevasses, through a blizzard, and up thousands of feet in elevation. Most of all, it put me in contact with an incredible group of people.

Survivors Lynn Lippert, Kristin Peterson and Nikki Milonas join KOMO 4's Denise Whitaker on Mt. Hood.

We have many reasons to climb mountains – and even more reasons to climb a mountain for breast cancer research and awareness.  During breast cancer awareness month, we reflect on the people that form our mountain footsteps.

Surviving is serious business, so we have a flair of fun on the peaks. We are awed by the creative ways climbers honor their loved ones and celebrate their summits.

Climber Susan Douglas creates some "backpack bling."

Pictures speak thousands of words. Here are just a few that make us smile.

2011 marked our first official “Survivor Summit.”  We would argue that every mountain is a Survivor Summit. Every mountain celebrates survivors, caregivers, doctors, researchers and the individuals that create new treatments and medications.  Every mountain encourages outdoor enthusiasts to pursue an athletic adventure for a cause.

Survivors scaled Mts. Hood, Baker, Kilimanjaro and Rainier this season, and perhaps many more, as some survivors choose to keep their survivorship to themselves.

Pink sharps! Photo by Colin Stapp.

As the Climb to Fight Breast Cancer enters its 15th year, we are saluting all who have climbed, survived, cared, and donated.

Think Pink!  Join us in 2012!

http://getinvolved.fhcrc.org/site/PageServer?pagename=2011climb_greeting

Climb to Fight Breast Cancer committee member Karen Kilian, with her mother, Mary Jo Kilian. Mary Jo was an extraordinary ovarian cancer fighter.

How does one measure success?  First it needs to be defined.

According to Webster’s Dictionary: Success is:  a favorable outcome.   Success is:  a degree of measure of succeeding.  Success is:  an outcome, or result.

So, how do we measure it?

1. By making your goal in fundraising.
2. By training and preparing so well for a climb that it’s really not as hard as you thought it would be.
3. By stepping onto the summit of a mountain in the early morning sunlight and being amazed that you are in fact, on the summit!
4. By making a difference in someone’s life.
5. By making it through chemotherapy to live, as in really live, another day.  Another week.  Another month.  Another year.

That is success.  This year with the Climb to Fight Breast Cancer, there have been a lot of successful summits.  Some teams had to fight their way through the wind and hold onto the team banner quite tightly.  Some teams were able to see the “summit triangle” shadow in the early morning hours.  The Mt. Shasta team gave it their all, but the mountain had the final say and while they didn’t top out, they did their best, which is in itself success.

People living with cancer know success.  Perspective changes when your life is threatened.  Success to a cancer patient may be making it through the next chemotherapy session without suffering nasty side effects.  Success to a cancer patient is hearing “you are in remission.” Their summit is your summit.  Only you just deal with hardship for a few days, they deal with it for a few months, or years.  As hard as you may think climbing a mountain is…..it’s easier than chemo.  Try climbing a mountain every week for 3 weeks, then have one week off; only to go for 3 more summits the following 3 weeks and repeat for a total of 6 cycles.  Not my idea of fun, I watched my Mom do it with grace.

This is why your success of making your fundraising goal, of training so well for your climb you are mentally and physically prepared; and of making a summit attempt at o-dark-thirty is so important.  Your success is making a difference in a cancer patient’s life.  You are enabling others to continue to enjoy the miracle of life.  Life without cancer.  It is possible.  You are their success.

Point of Reference, Mt. Rainier National Park. Photo by Colin Stapp.

Reference Markers were originally placed in strategic locations as a part of triangulation surveys for map making across the country.  Thanks to very simple markers like these, we have topographical maps. With a compass, these maps help guide us when we are in the back country.

Climber and NaLa Seattle owner Nancy Cirillo, ascends 14,411 ft. Mt. Rainier toward the summit's point of reference. Photo by Colin Stapp.

When out alone, sometimes it is easy to lose our way, and sometimes we don’t even know it at first.  The surroundings stop looking familiar and you realize you are off-course.  Having a reference marker as a means to guide you is usually helpful but often overlooked. So think about what you use as your markers, and make a point to use one as a guide for your journey.

When ascending a peak with the Climb to Fight Breast Cancer, our leaders take care of selecting our markers. Mountain guides, such as those with Alpine Ascents International, have already planned your footsteps, memorized every mountain crevasse and reviewed all possible safety considerations with their guiding teams.

When on your training hikes, walking in a new neighborhood, or running on an unfamiliar trail, use this beautiful week (80+ degrees ~ W-O-W) to take stock of your own markers and perhaps review your own personal points of reference.

ENJOY!

Our summit attempt on Rainier was a sunset climb and our group of 12 reached the true summit at 6:30 pm.  It took us five hours to reach the highest point in Washington state and with winds gusting at 35 mph, we lingered only about 10 minutes at Columbia Crest.

On our way down, as the sun began its own descent for the day, the mountain cast its  shadow, pointing into the east.  I had seen instances like this on other mountains at sunrise, but not at sunset.  At that moment it was the most beautiful sunset I had ever seen.

Mt. Rainier is a big mountain; it dominates the landscape at 14, 411 feet, and it is steep. We were moving fast to get through a difficult section before dark and so we were in a spot where I couldn’t pull out my camera to capture the image before me.

The shadow was there for much of our descent though. It seemed to get more brilliant as time passed and reached farther across the horizon. For most of the time I had my head down, watching my crampons dig into the crusty snow with each step I took.  We crossed a ladder over a crevasse at 13,900 feet and dodged snow bridges on the steep slopes. However, each time I looked up the shadow was still there.

Soon, the pinkish, golden, light started to fade as darkness began to creep in.  At the last moment that I looked up, the shadow seemed to stretch forever and rays of light shot high into the sky.  And then it was gone.

I had peace and contentment in my heart and had the picture in my mind.