Climbing Till the Beginning of the End

Thursday, Aug 24

This is a picture of Mike on his last climb.  It was taken on July 8th while we were in Squamish, BC with our nephew Ryan and his girlfriend Charlotte.  Later that night Mike woke up in such pain we left BC at 2am and drove straight to the Bellingham Emergency Room.

Mike often tried to pinpoint exactly when was the “beginning of the end”.  After the first biopsy indicating aggressive prostate cancer?  After realizing the hormone therapy wasn’t working?  After hearing Dr. Beer had no more treatments?  After flying back from the second opinion in Boston with no options?  I would say it was a few hours after this climb.

Then I realized yesterday he passed on August 8th at 9:15pm, one month after his last day of climbing and exactly one month from the beginning of the end.