Climbing for the cure

For many travelers, going to Disneyland or a Hawaiian beach is their dream vacation.

Not Leonard Green. The Kent man is heading to a remote area of Russia next month to climb 18,510-foot Mount Elbrus. And instead of splurging on his vacation, he's raising about $30,000 for cancer research through his mountain climb.

"I've never done anything like this," said 56-year-old Green. But after seeing an ad in an outdoors magazine for the guided climb, which benefits breast-cancer research at Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, he signed up and started e-mailing everyone in his address book for donations.

"It feels righter and righter the closer it gets," said Green of the July climb. "By my age, we've all been touched by breast cancer."

While some participants on the Hutchinson fundraising climbs go in honor of a relative or friend who's suffered breast cancer, Green signed up for the climb simply to help fund the search for a cure.

But he'll ascend Elbrus, the highest mountain in Europe, with some cancer sufferers in mind, including a friend who was diagnosed with breast cancer the day she received his e-mail asking for donations.

Climbing against cancer

Information

Fred Hutchinson climbs: For information on its "Climb to Fight Breast Cancer" program, go to www.fhcrc.org/ and click on "events."

This is the ninth year of the Hutchinson's Climb to Fight Breast Cancer which has raised more than $1.75 million for research. This summer, 76 climbers will fan out to peaks worldwide, including Mount Rainier, Oregon's Mount Hood and Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.

For the Elbrus climb, each climber must raise a minimum of $10,000, an amount Green quickly surpassed. And while Green is new to fundraising climbs, he's an old hand at summiting mountains. A member of The Mountaineers, a Seattle outdoors club, he's climbed many Northwest peaks including Mount Rainier and Mount Shuksan in the North Cascades. Last year, he climbed 19,340-foot Kilimanjaro.

For the Elbrus climb, Green will leave behind his work as owner of Service Paper, a Renton company that distributes food-service supplies. Instead he'll labor up the snowy, icy slopes of Elbrus, a massive double-coned volcano in the Caucasus region of southern Russia. While not a technically difficult climb, its high altitude and unpredictable weather make it physically taxing.

Yet Green's visit to Russia, his first, won't be just an extreme physical workout. Climbers on the trip, organized by Alpine Ascents International of Seattle, will visit the Russian cities of St. Petersburg and Moscow. And in the villages around the base of Elbrus they'll find a rich crossroads of cultures — Russian, Georgian, Turkish and Azerbaijani.

For Green, his trip will be a success even if he doesn't make it to the summit of Elbrus, thanks to the money he's raised for breast-cancer research.

"It's such a good feeling ... just to try to help eradicate this horrid disease," said Green.

Kristin Jackson: 206-464-2271 or kjackson@seattletimes.com