Lou Whittaker - Lou Whittaker: Memoirs of a Mountain Guide

Memoirs of a
Mountain Guide

Lou Whittaker

with

Andrea Gabbard

1994 by Lou Whittaker and Andrea Gabbard

All rights reserved

First printing 1994, second printing 1995, third printing 1997, fourth printing 1999, fifth printing 2005 , sixth printing 2012

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Distributed in the United Kingdom by Cordee, www.cordee.co.uk

Manufactured in the United States of America

Edited by Linda Gunnarson and Kris Fulsaas
Drawings and maps by Dee Molenaar
Cover design by Betty Watson
Book design, typesetting and layout by The Mountaineers Books

Cover photo by Bob and Ira Spring; inset photo by Preston Spencer

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Whittaker, Lou.
Whittaker : memoirs of a mountain guide / Lou Whittaker with Andrea Gabbard.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-89886-459-3
1. Whittaker, Lou. 2. Mountaineering guides (Persons)United States
Biography. I. Gabbard, Andrea. II. Title.
GV199.92.W47A3 1994
796.5'22'092dc20
[B]

94-10546
CIP

Printed on recycled paper

ISBN (paperback): 978-0-89886-459-5
ISBN (ebook): 978-1-59485-387-6

To Mom and Ingrid

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in Nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.

Helen Keller

For more than forty years, Lou Whittaker has been regarded as an outstanding mountaineer and something of a philosopher, too.

Lou started his climbing at a very young ageas a Boy Scout when he was twelve years old. He had climbed all the major peaks of Washington State by the time he was eighteen and began guiding climbs on 14,410-foot Mount Rainier at age nineteen. Today, on Mount Rainier, his name is a legend and he has conducted thousands of people to the summit of that great mountain in every variety of weather and snow conditions.

Lou may be less well known worldwide than his twin brother, Jim, who was the first American to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Yet to climbing initiates, Lou has a resounding reputation in his own right. He has been involved in formidable ascents in Alaska, the Himalaya, and the Karakoram. He led the first American ascent of the North Col of Mount Everest in 1984, and today, at age sixty-five, hes in the midst of planning yet another expedition, this time to an unclimbed peak in the Himalaya.

Lou has a strong personality, yet appears rather humble with a warm sense of humor and a remarkable flair for building up the confidence of his inexperienced climbers. He knows that fear can often be a stimulating factor. It can enable you to extend yourself far beyond what you thought possible. In any case, fear is all part of the motivation. If you dont feel afraid now and then, why go to all the discomfort and effort involved in getting up a high mountain? Better to stay down sunbathing at the beach.

Lou sums up his philosophy very effectively when he says, Theres a certain amount of risk involved in life. When it comes down to dying, I want to know what it is like to have really lived.

I also like his approach when he says, Invariably, a novice climber will say to me, Im afraid of heights. I always reply, I am, too. Thats why Im still around. With that sort of approach, Lou and his climbers should be around for a very long time yet.

Sir Edmund Hillary
Auckland, New Zealand
October 1993

It was a late afternoon in early June 1992. I was huddled with a group of twenty climbers inside the small wooden bunkhouse at Camp Muir, the encampment at 10,000 feet on Mount Rainier that serves as a base of operations for Lou Whittakers guide service, Rainier Mountaineering, Inc. Wed been confined to the bunkhouse since the night before, when our summit attempt had been foiled by a blizzard with winds gusting between fifty and sixty miles per hour. The blizzard had continued to buffet the walls of the bunkhouse all day and made the 100-foot crawl to the privy on the hill outside a major effort.

Suddenly, the bunkhouses heavy door burst open and a tall figure, swathed in spindrift and backlit in snowy glare, stepped inside. It doesnt get much better than this! thundered Lou Whittaker. The mountain is really showing off!

He spent the next several hours regaling the group with war stories, alternately terrifying and entertaining us with his mountaineering exploits. Then, he tucked us in for the night with a profound statement about how the summit may be the goal, but the journey is the adventure. You may not have made the summit this time, but the mountain will be here for you another day. And, with that promise, he opened the door and disappeared into the blowing storm, to sleep alone in his tent on the mountain.

A fellow climber turned to me and said, Somebody should write a book about this guy.

Six months later, Lou and I sat before a tape recorder. Lets start with your childhood, I said. He laughed, and the fun began.

Over the next several months, Lou and I met regularly, on Mount Rainier and at his home in Ashford, Washington. I recorded Lous stories as well as recollections from family, friends, and associates who know him best. When asked to describe Lou, most people smiled and commented about his sense of humor. Several mentioned his compassion. And others talked about his natural sense of leadership.

One friend said that there was a part of Lou that is only known through silence, through time spent alone with him. Theres a sense of greatness about Lou, the friend added, that Lou has nothing to do with, other than just being who he is.

My impression of Lou is that he became his own best friend, took the road less traveled, and found his inner guide long before it became fashionable to do so. Lous internal compass is set on a positive bearing, and he does not veer from that course. His passion for life is infectious. The more you know the real Lou Whittaker, the more you are confronted with the challenge, Are you doing what you love?

In writing the story of Lous life, in Lous words and the words of those close to him, I found that I could answer that question with a resounding Yes!

Andrea Gabbard

I figured out early on that Id probably check out by age fifty, living the life of a mountaineer. But here I am, more than a decade beyond that, still hanging around. Theres an old mountaineering saying that rings true for me: There are old climbers and bold climbers. There are no old, bold climbers. Ive learned a lot about survival from a life in the mountains.

Its said that challenge is the mainspring of all human endeavor. If theres a wrong, we right it. If theres an illness, we cure it. If theres a mountain, we climb it. It is our nature to want to do these things.

After all these years, I can truthfully say that the thrill of challenge is as strong now as it was when I was just getting started in the mountains. Its not necessarily the exhilaration that comes at the moment of reaching the summit that keeps me coming back for more. For me and the other mountaineers I know, I think climbing helps define who we are. Maybe its something as simple as that a mountain represents such a concrete goal that you can work toward. And most other goals we seek in life are not as easy to define.