Name/Title
Print, PhotographicEntry/Object ID
2010.16.3Description
Using ice axes and crampons, Lou Whittaker secures his purchase on a steep, snowy mountain slope. Whittaker is the co-founder and long-time chief guide for Rainier Mountaineering Inc. Whittaker’s long career in the mountains has made his name almost synonymous with Mount Rainier. He climbed the mountain 250 times. He works closely with the American Lung Association of Washington and is the honorary chairman for the group’s annual Climb for Clean Air. The cause is close to him, he says, because he used hiking and mountaineering to cope with asthma as a boy. "I can remember sitting up in bed as a kid trying to get my breath," Whittaker told The News Tribune in 2008. “... but for three or four days after we (his twin brother Jim also had asthma) got back from the mountains, we didn't have asthma. Jim and I became fairly well known climbers because of that handicap.”Lexicon
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Mountaineering, Mountain Climbing, Professional/Semi-ProRelationships
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Person or Organization
Whittaker, Lou