Why Roger Goodell Deserves Props from Climbing Mt. Rainier
Written by special correspondent White Ghost
Mount Rainier, with Tacoma in the foreground
Recently, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Seahawks coach Jim Mora Jr. climbed Mt. Rainier. As someone who climbed that peak just days before them, I can vouch for the difficulty of that task. Physically it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. Nine miles and 9,000 vertical feet in 24 hours, and then you have to turn around and come back down.
I took a slightly different route than Goodell’s group – going instead up the Kautz glacier. But at the end of the day, you still have to reach the 14,410 foot summit under your own power. Hopefully you’ve been training, but really nothing is going to prepare you for the hours you’ll put in with upwards of 45lbs on your back with no sleep at 10,000ft+ all while looking out for crevasses at 3 a.m.
Towards the top you’ll be taking three breaths in between steps and it’ll still feel like you’re in a full on sprint. It was my first time up the mountain just like theirs and even with all the training I did plus bagging Mt. Baker a couple weeks before, I wasn’t ready for the challenge.
Staring into Rainier's soul at 3 a.m.
A big break for me was that my climbing partner Dave (imagine a mix between William Wallace and a hobbit) had been wanting to do the Kautz route for some time and that this happened to be his 30th summit, a landmark of sorts. I spent the last couple miles leading up to the summit desperately hoping he would want to quit as much as I did so we could turn around. If all it would take was to put up with me trying to take a nap at the end of his rope every 20 minutes, then it wasn’t going to lower his expectations of us making it.
It was pretty inspirational to climb with someone to whom the mountain means so much. I mention that because leading Goodell and Mora’s climb was both Ed Viesturs and Peter Whittiker. Depending on how familiar you are with Mt Rainier, the Pacific Northwest’s place in the world of climbing, the history of Americans on Everest, or a certain Martin Campbell’s masterpiece Vertical Limit, you might know who they are.
If not, then the best way to put it is that we’re talking having Lance Armstrong on your team for the Seattle-to-Portland this weekend, Hotdog on your 4th of July kickball team, or Tiger on your team for a best-ball tourney. Needless to say the team was motivated to perform.
I had actually heard Viesturs was supposed to be on the mountain that day so after signing the summit register I gave it a once-over looking for his or Mora’s name. My climbing partner Dave later asked if I got enough time at the summit crater. My immediate response was, “more than enough”.
I wanted nothing more than to get that nauseous feeling out of my stomach which had, somewhere after 11,000ft, embedded itself in my gut. Sure it would have been nice to spend some more time relaxing at the steam vents or chatting with that friendly old European guy whom I assume is a pretty permanent fixture there, but at the time all I could only think of was getting back toward sea level ASAP.
An exhausted White Ghost at the summit. (Mt. Saint Helens in the background.)
There will be plenty of next times to think about taking it all in and find the best way to spread that addictive, contagious inspiration that seems to follow these feats of accomplishment. Or at least next time I’ll get a decent summit picture.
The bottom line is that it’s a brutal slog the whole way, no matter what route you are doing. Both our routes left from the Paradise lodge and would climb 9,000 ft to the summit. Taking the whole first day to climb to 11’000 ft for a quick nap, waking at midnight and then climbing 8 hours nonstop to get to the summit is not all Paul Silvi high fivin’ fun.
Sure my route didn’t feature any NFL commissioners brought to tears and did have two sections of ice wall protected by screws I placed at 2 in the morning with my own hands. However we didn’t raise $380,000 for the United Way, so I would say it’s about a break-even as to whose climb was more successful.
Rapelling down an ice sheet on the descent
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that was a round about way of saying you are better than Roger Goodell
This mountain climb was the first thing that Roger Goodell has done that didn’t make me hate him.