We had our Climb for Clean Air Kick-Off for our 2010 climbers last night! It was another full house. We had such a great time and it was so great to meet so many of the climbers this year. We began with a slideshow from a past climb year - it has great footage on the mountain and up at Camp Muir. Lou Whittaker, legendary mountaineer and our Honorary Chairman, was there to welcome everyone and get everyone pumped for the next few months!

We had a 2009 Climber's Panel with Don O'Neill (from The Ron and Don Show), Jenna Edlund, Jeff Allen, Jeff Rafuse, Shae Wyatt, Russ Gambil, and Teresa Kuzmer. They gave a highlight from their climb expierence and then a piece of advice to this year's climbers. Biggest take home point for fundraising advice was to open your heart and share your story as to why this climb is important to you and why you and participanting in this event. Making it personal when you ask people to donate to your climb is really important.

We had our first Climber's lotto of the year. Eveyone who is interested buys as many tickets as they want ($1/ticket). Whosever name gets chosen wins the pot and all the money goes towards their fundraising. We got up to $68 last night and the lucky winner was Don Morgan!! We had some other great raffel items too - 2 really nice winter backbacking books from Mountain Hardwear and 3 Nuun waterbottles with a tube of product inside. During this time, one of our 2009 climbers stood up, Shae Wyatt, and offered to make a $100 donation with a matching gift from Microsoft to the next name pulled.  That is a $200 donation and very generous. Thanks Shae!!

Jake Platt from NW Crossfit was there to talk about how crossfit can be an incredible way to cross train for the climb. Obviously, hiking and climbing are the best ways to train for Rainier, but crossfit is such a great workout and can really help you get in the best shape possible for the climb. Check them out at www.nwcrossfit.com.

We also had Mike Gore from Nuun at the event to speak. Nuun is sponsoring the climb this year and is a really great way to stay hydradted throughout this training process. Nuun is a local Seattle company and is growing exponentially as people try and love their product. www.nuun.com

After a short Q&A we celebrated the end of the night with some birthday cake for Lou and Mark. Lou Whittaker's birthday was last week and Mark's is tomorrow. 2 incredible men who have helped make this event so successful over the last 23 years - we couldn't do this without them!

We have our first training hike on March 6 at Rattlesnake Ledge and then our next meeting on March 10. I'll hopefully get some pictures up soon!!