When Dora Vanourek leaves Coquitlam for three weeks in June to climb one of the world's tallest mountain peaks, she'll be thinking of her family and many others.
What the mother of one would like to accomplish, besides reaching the summit of Denali in Alaska, is to raise money for B.C.'s sick children through the BC Children's Hospital Foundation.
To be precise, she wants to raise $6,194 a dollar for every metre of Denali's height.
"I thought, 'I must find a meaningful way to give back,'" Vanourek says of her campaign, which is on Facebook (ClimbDenaliForKids) and has a website (www.climbdenaliforkics.com), and is sponsored in part by Twist Fitness and Conditioning Centre in Port Coquitlam, where she trains.
She also trains around the Tri-Cities Vanourek, her husband, Jiri, and daughter, Tereza, who is four, do various walks and runs, including the Coquitlam Crunch Vanourek with a 65 lb. pack on her back.
Family is a key theme and concern of her adventure.
It's not every family that can let mom go for three weeks to climb Denali, formerly Mount McKinley, and if there's one thing the family knows is that when mom heads to Kahiltna Glacier, where the climb will begin, she might as well have dropped off the planet. There will be no regular phone contact, email is out of the question and snowstorms some possibly lasting up to a week could keep Vanourek and six other climbers in a snow cave for days.
But for now, it seems, the family is OK with that.
"I don't have any fear," says Jiri, "I know she is very safe.
"Besides," he adds with a little laugh, "I'm glad to have a wife that's a little bit crazy. I'm a musician and more artistic and I'm really far from the mountain stuff."
A CHALLENGING CLIMB
It's true Vanourek is a practiced mountaineer, and the diminutive (5'6" and 135 lb.) climber knows what to do in an emergency, having rehearsed crevasse rescue with her team.
This is not her first climb. Already, she has summited three of the world's tallest mountains: Kilimanjaro in Africa, in 2011; Aconcagua in Argentina, in 2013; and Mt. Elbrus in Russia, in 2014. And while other moms dream of relaxing trips to Hawaii or Mexico, Vanourek is clearly a little more adventurous.
She doesn't mind endless meals of dried pasta painstakingly cooked with water heated from snow melt, and she's fine with carrying a large pack and pushing a 40 lb. sled while struggling for oxygen with every single step.
"It is physically demanding," she admits, explaining that she is willing to put up with inconveniences, such as trying to sleep during a howling windstorm and being hungry and tired, because of the payoff in the end.
"You feel so good," she says, of getting to the summit, where the air is crisp, adrenaline overcomes exhaustion and climbers forget the hardships they had to experience to get there.
Vanourek can't explain her mental toughness and her drive, except to say she took on the challenge of trying to climb the tallest peak on every continent (Everest may be out of her league because of the cost) after hiking up Squamish Chief as a new mom. As an IT specialist, she's used to working on multiple projects under pressure although usually at sea level.
BREATHING IS DIFFICULT
While she's not the biggest or the strongest on her team of climbers, some of whom she's met on other climbs with Alpine Ascents International, she has nerves of steel that are essential when facing down difficult challenges and an optimistic nature that can be a benefit when others are discouraged.
There will be adversity and times when she will have blot out everything but the need to keep breathing because oxygen levels will be so low it's not unusual, she says, to have to take seven breaths for every step. But on Denali, so far north, the days will be long and the cold nights under glittering stars will provide some downtime. Vanourek expects she'll be thinking about her family back in Coquitlam, and other families she has met through the fundraiser, families that have also made it through difficulties and become stronger.
"It's OK to be at the level where you don't feel comfortable and just believe you can get there," she says. "I believe we have those reserves physically and mentally, and those are the times you tap into them."
Back at home, though, it will be a waiting game for Jiri and Tereza.
Only the team leader will have a satellite phone and just for emergencies, so her family can expect radio silence until the trip is complete.
Still, her husband, while not exactly happy about letting her go, is her biggest supporter, taking photos for the fundraiser and designing the website and poster. He's worried about being left behind because there is no close family to help out in an emergency both sets of grandparents are back in the Czech Republic. It will be tough to get along without mom, he admits, but there are side benefits to having a wife who is an adventurer.
When she returns he'll get to spend time editing her photos and the extensive project sifting through images of barren, rock-strewn camps, pristine snow-capped mountains against an icy blue sky and exhausted climbers at the summit will give him an insight into her journey.
"I will have the feeling I was there as well," he says.
Together, they make a good team, says Jiri, even if the family must separate to accomplish her goal.
And if other B.C. families experiencing their greatest challenges can benefit from the joint endeavour to climb Denali, then so much the better.
