Two LSU students recently reached a peak with their school pride – literally.
Katherine and Michael Mathews, a brother and sister mountain-climbing duo, hiked to the top of Mt. Rainier in Ashford, Wash., in mid-August.
These two were set apart from the other 22 hikers in their group, however, as they ascended the snow-covered high point. They were the only hikers carrying an LSU flag.
“Everybody who goes to LSU is a big fan,” said Michael, a finance junior. “I thought it would be cool to carry a flag, and it’s not something a lot of
people would do.”
Katherine and Michael carried the flag to show their LSU pride to everyone around them, the way Tiger fans wear purple and gold on game day.
Carrying the purple and gold banner was a Tiger spirit booster for Michael.
“I appreciate [the experience] because there’s not anything like that around here,” he said. “It gives me school pride because we were the only people who thought to bring a flag.”
Climbing with the flag was an out-of-this-world experience for Katherine, a photography senior.
“I felt like I was on the moon,” she said.
The volcanic pinnacle, located in Mt. Rainier National Park and in the Cascade Range, is a towering 14,411 feet above sea level and is the highest point in Washington. Though Louisiana was in the dead heat of summer, Mt. Rainier was a frigid 20 degrees.
“With 49-mile-per-hour winds, the wind chill was minus 5 [degrees],” Michael said.
Dale Mathews, Katherine and Michael’s father, made it to the summit with them.
He described a photograph from the snowy experience.
“In a picture, my daughter and son have on headlamps – frozen on,” Dale said. “There’s ice all over them and the flag, which is on an ice ax.”
Continuously falling snow made vision difficult during the climb.
“We couldn’t see 20 yards in front of us, at times,” Katherine said. “You’re supposed to spend an hour at the top, but we only spent 10 minutes because of the weather.”
These Louisiana flatlanders did not wake up and decide to tackle Mt. Rainier. There was training involved.
Katherine and Michael’s training ground is a familiar place of “mountaintop experiences” for many LSU fans – Tiger Stadium. They practiced “hiking” for two months before they left for Washington.
“We carried our packs in Tiger Stadium, going up and down the stairs in the afternoons,” Michael said. Though it was hot and often boring, the practice was
worth it.
“It was really monotonous,” Katherine said. “If we hadn’t have done it in Tiger Stadium, we wouldn’t have been able to [climb Mt. Rainier].”
There was a bonus to training in Death Valley, though.
“The freshmen team was practicing and getting yelled at,” Katherine said. “Things like, ‘Come on boys – you got rocks in your shoes?'”
The freshmen football coaches might not realize it, but their drilling was pushing Katherine and Michael along, too.
“It was motivating for us,” Katherine said.
Not everyone in the group Katherine, Michael and Dale were with reached the peak. The thin air and strong winds were difficult to handle for Bob Ordeneaux, president of the Louisiana Hiking Club.
“I didn’t make it to the top,” Ordeneaux said.
Though training and the climb were physically exhausting, Michael is glad he finished it.
“Not only is it a personal appreciation, but you know if you can do that, you can do anything if you work hard at it,” he said.
The summit hike was mentally draining for Katherine.
“I looked at my dad once and said, ‘I think I’m going to turn around,'” she said.
But it was worth it in the end for Katherine, too.
She said looking back on the experience, the rush she
got was similar to what she feels on a Saturday night
in Tiger Stadium.
“The blood rushing and the excitement is compared to Tiger Stadium,” she said. “But [Mt. Rainier] is a lot more intimate and personal.”