The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
A former northern Manitoban is is in the final stages of preparation for a dream he has had for more than a decade: climbing Mount Everest. Steve Whittington, formerly of Thompson, hopes to scale the most coveted summit for any mountain climber next month. Whittington, who now lives in Saskatoon, along with team members Daniel Branham of Florida and Wally Berg of Canmore, Alberta, headed to Nepal in March and hope to make their bid for the summit in mid to late May, though weather conditions may force them to wait for their attempt until June. Whittington was introduced to mountain climbing more than a decade ago while living in Alberta and says climbing Everest has been a dream of his since that first experience hooked him on the sport. 'Climbing Everest was a longing that I didn't quite understand,' Whittington says, 'but I knew I had to be patient enough to build the skills that I needed to climb it over the past decade. I know now that I deserve to be on the mountain.' Whittington has reached the summit of more than 40 mountains in his climbing career, including Aconcagua in Argentina, Mount McKinley in Alaska and Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Last year, he was a member of Prairie Vertical, a group of Saskatchewan climbers who tried, unsuccessfully, to reach the peak of Mount Saskatchewan in the Yukon's Centennial Range, an 11-483-foot peak that is the only one named in 1967 for Canada's 12 provinces and territories that has yet to be climbed. Whittington says it was 2009 when he made up his mind to tackle Everest, asking Branham to attempt it with him while they were preparing for their ascent of Mount McKinley. 'He had picked me up at an airport at 3 a.m. in Tennessee and we stopped for some food,' says Whittington. 'I had flown to Tennessee prepping for Mount McKinley, and I turned to him and said, 'Once we climb this one, you know which one is next?' Daniel knew and agreed: after McKinley the next of the seven summits was the Big E.' Branham will be attempting the summit alongside Whittington, their third of the seven summits together along with McKinley and Aconcagua, which they climbed in 2009. Berg, whom Whittington calls a friend and a mentor, has summated Everest four times but on this expedition he will provide logistical support as the expedition operator, going no farther than the base camp but coordinating by radio with the climbers as they ascend. Whittigton's training has been different for Everest than for many of his previous climbs, which required him to be in top physical shape for very technical climbing. 'Everest is different, it is a war of attrition,' he says. 'The mountain is going to break me down. I needed to add strength and some weight to meet this challenge. I may be on this mountain for over two months and lose upwards of 20 pounds.' The most difficult moments of the climb won't necessarily be physical, though. 'There are going to be a lot of hard moments on the mountain,' Whittington says. 'I know that, but one of the hardest will be when I say goodbye to my wife as she leaves base camp to go down, and I turn back towards the mountain looking at what I have to climb up and down without her.' _ Ian Graham, Thompson Citizen
