Jeff Seidnitzer is pictured high up on Mount Baker before reaching the summit.

With Adam Hodges constantly telling Davin Mancini he should join Hodges on a mountain climb, Mancini eventually caved.

Hodges, the director of the Anderson Health and Fitness Center, began Ascent for a Cure last year in hopes of raising awareness and money for local Parkinson’s Disease patients and planned to climb Mount Everest this year. The COVID-19 pandemic forced him to postpone climbing Everest until next year, but Hodges was still determined to scale a mountain or two this fall if travel was permitted.

Finally giving in to Hodges’ request, Mancini won an auction for a guided climb of Mount Baker and Mount Shuksan July 24-30 in Washington state by Hodges’ friend Craig Van Hoy. The three were joined by Mancini’s friend Jeff Seidnitzer, as well as Van Hoy’s son, Josiah, on the climb of Mount Shuksan. 

Having no previous climbing experience, Mancini supplemented his regular fitness routine as a CrossFit trainer with walks at Bonita Lakes Park in preparation for the climb.

“Twice I loaded up the biggest backpack I had with as much weight as I could and walked around the Bonita trails just to get a feel for what it would be like to have a little agony, but that was nothing compared to what we did,” Mancini said.

No stranger to heights, Mancini works as a pilot for PHI Air Medical, but flying and hiking to reach high altitudes are two different things, Mancini admitted. Reaching the summers of Mount Baker and Mount Shuksan made it all worth it, though.

“In a nutshell, it was the most mentally grueling and physically challenging thing I’ve ever done — but it was worth every part of any bit of complaining I did or any bit of doubt I had on the mountain on whether or not I would make it,” Mancini said. “Once you get to the top, the doubt is all gone.”

That’s not to say Mancini never questioned himself during the journey.

“There was a point three quarters of the way up Mount Baker where me and Jeff looked at each other during a scheduled break by Craig and said that we’d never be able to do Shuksan,” Mancini said. “Once we summited, all of that anguish went away. We walked down the mountain, took a day off, and the next day we were ready to go.”

Unlike Mancini, Hodges has been climbing mountains since the 1990s and had previously scaled Baker and Shuksan two decades ago, but that didn’t lessen the thrill of doing it again, and he’s grateful to have gotten to climb again this year after his Everest plans were put on hold.

“These two mountains aren’t as as high, but they’re difficult mountains to climb, so I needed the training mentally and physically,” Hodges said. “It was just good to get back to climbing and seeing that I can still do it and also do training for what Everest will be like.”

Hodges also said he enjoyed watching Mancini and Seidnitzer learn to love mountain climbing right before his eyes.

“It was a really cool aspect just to see the awakening that happened with Davin and Jeff,” Hodges said. “I tried to tell them a little bit about what it would be like, but you can’t really describe it, so they were pretty blown away with the experience I think.”

Now that he’s scaled his first and second summit, Mancini said he and Seidnitzer are already looking forward to their next climb.

“The three of us are going to go back and do Mount Rainier in Washington also,” Mancini said. “It’s going to be a little more challenging — that one’s almost 14,500 feet instead of 10,000.”

Web traffic on Ascent for a Cure’s social media sites increased when pictures started being posted about the group’s journey, and Hodges hopes that continues leading up to next year’s planned climb of Everest.

“It’s mission accomplished,” Hodges said. “We accomplished what we wanted to do, which was using mountain climbing as a vehicle to raise awareness for Parkinson’s.”

While he’s found a new love in mountain climbing, Mancini said Everest probably isn’t in his plans right now.

“I would like to, no doubt about it, but the cost to get out there would probably prohibit me from doing it,” Mancini said. “For me, there are other mountains in the U.S. that need to be climbed first, ones that Adam has already done.”

For more information on Ascent for a Cure, visit its website at ascentforacure.com.