Win Whittaker climbs over hearing loss and mountains
Oct 7, 2016, 5:50 PM | Updated: Oct 11, 2024, 9:56 am
Win climbing Mount Rainier - 12,900ft on the Ingraham Glacier. (Photo courtesy of Win Whittaker)
(Photo courtesy of Win Whittaker)
Mount Rainier mountain guide Win Whittaker first summited Rainier when he was 12 years old.
“My brother did it when he was 12 and my sister when she was 12,” Win Whittaker said. “I’m the youngest so I could not wait to do it that summer when I turned 12 years old.”
Win was raised in a climbing family. His dad is Lou Whittaker, famous for leading the first American ascent of the North Col of Mount Everest in 1984 and for starting Rainier Mountaineering 45 years ago. Lou’s twin brother is Jim Whittaker.
“My Uncle Jim! Jim was the first American to summit Mount Everest in 1963. My father Lou, they’re identical twins. They grew up in West Seattle. They first got into the outdoors when they were super young kids in the Boy Scouts, they both had asthma. The doctor, weird thing, recommended that they go outdoors and get into the mountains. They started doing that through the Boy Scouts and they haven’t had asthma since. They’re 87 years old and they’re still going at it. My dad actually still skis. They’re not climbing anymore.”
Win has continued the family legacy. He lives in his hometown of Ashford, just outside Mt Rainier National park, and he’s climbed around the world including 185 summits to Mt Rainier.
Win Whittaker and his bionic hearing
But a couple of years ago, while guiding his students, Win noticed he was losing his hearing.
“I’m hearing them but I’m not understanding them. I have to keep going, ‘Excuse me? Pardon me? Say again?’ You can only cover it up so much. It wasn’t affecting, I don’t believe, the clients. Definitely not their safety or anything like that. But it was really bugging me.”
So Win Whittaker got a pair of ReSound hearing aids.
“After I had the hearing aids, walking outside in the rain and hearing my tennis shoes on the wet cement… I hadn’t heard that in years! I walked into the house and I’m asking Sarah, my wife, I said, ‘Did my shoes always squeak on the floor like this?’ She’s like, ‘Oh, yeah.’ And I said, ‘Our floor is really creaky! Was it always like that?’ She says, ‘Oh, yeah.’ We gotta fix that! If I would have known.”
There can be a stigma attached to hearing aids. My mom has a pair but she never wears them, partially because of vanity and not wanting to appear old. Win Whittaker knows about this perception, but thinks of it another way.
“I’ve gone the opposite,” he said. “The hearing aids I have are bright red. This particular hearing aid that I have, I can listen to my music, I can get my phone calls into them, I can get my texts read or emails read to me. So it’s more than just this hearing aid. The technology has made these hearing aids actually cool. So I’m like, bring it on! I’ve got hearing aids!”
Win has since gotten his dad to get the hearing aids and Win’s wife, Sarah, says it’s made them a more connected couple.
“When Win’s father was initially hooked up with the hearing aids, I was most happy for his wife because it’s as big game changer in the relationship. I didn’t think it would be, but once he did come home being able to hear more acutely, we were able to have conversations and I wasn’t repeating myself over and over.”
But back to Mt. Rainier, Win did not approve of my favorite local animal: the marmot.
“Marmots! Marmots are bad! They’re bad. Don’t ever look them directly in the eye. They’re bad juju. You look them directly in the eye, it can ruin the whole climb. I tell that to my clients. I know when one of our clients does it because if we don’t make it to the top, I know that one of them must have looked one of those marmots directly in the eye.”
