Big Climb 2016
Columbia Tower… we made it to the top.. Whew!
My son, Guy, and my wife, Willie, joined me this year.
Well, I don’t usually write on the weekends but a new reader/follower, Richard Swift, sent a comment asking if I was still writing since I hadn’t done so for some time. His ‘Kick-in-the-buns’ got me going again and I was inspired to write a new post today:
This last March 20, 2016 I did the Big Climb in Seattle. I was joined by my son, who did it with me last year, and by my wife who was doing it for her first time.
We climbed the emergency stairwell of the Columbia Center Building. It is the tallest building in Seattle and the second tallest west of the Mississippi. We climbed 69 floors – 1,311 steps – to help raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. That’s 788 feet straight up! The view at the top is amazing.
Over 6,000 people participated earning around $3,ooo,ooo dollars.
As you climb the stairs there are posters on the wall at each flight. Some are showing sponsored survivors, some are remembrances of those who’ve passed on. Some climbers on their way up touch the posters.
Complete strangers give each other high fives as they pass by on the way up. Six thousand participants and hundreds of volunteer coordinators, all strangers united for one cause… well, it is a great experience.
If any of you want to participate in next years 2017 Climb, registration will begin in October of this year. You can check out the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Big Climb page, call (206) 628-0777, or email bigclimbseattle@lls.org. You can watch a video about the climb here.
This was the civilian climb. I say that because there is also a firefighter climb for the same cause two weeks prior. I’ll be writing more in-depth about that one soon.
Hi Jim, I’m thrilled that I gave you a “kick in the pants”. Right now I’m reading a book, Beyond Backpacking by Ray Jardine and a chapter on food: white flour, white rice, excitotoxins, etc. – “Poorly-nourished hikers often find themselves low on energy and endurance…” and blame it the steepness of the mountain. “The poorly-nourished brain is largely incapable of producing positive emotions”. A couple titles he mentions are Beating the Food Giants by Paul A. Stitt – and Excitotoxins, The Taste that Kills by Dr. Russell L. Blaylock. I think it is so important to research what we put in our bodies even though western medicine largely ignores nutrition. No one is going to do it for us.
You’re so right. It’s ironic… my oncologist tells me it really doesn’t matter what I eat and yet there is a nutritionist in the same building who meets with cancer patients to talk about the importance of a good diet with no processed foods. Go figure!