Training for Denali has been going well, though will be winding down soon as we prepare to depart for the big mountain June 10th. Chris and I feel strong and well prepared for the endurance required for the 3 1/2 week expedition.  Memorial weekend will be our last big training weekend before we allow our bodies to rest-up for the climb.  Hopefully the weekend will bring good weather allowing us to finish with a summit of one of our local Washington volcanic mountains.

Many folks have asked us if we will be able to communicate while on the mountain.  The long and short of it is yes and no.  The only communication will be by radio and the first broadcast will begin at 14,000′.  These broadcast will be every 1-3 days and be about 1-2 min long.  The broadcast can be accessed at http://www.alpineascents.com/cybercasts.asp.  Our team will be TEAM #10 and you will see our names listed.

The route we will be traveling is in the photo below.  However, this photo only shows from 10,200, while the climb itself begins at 7,000′.

I would also like to mention we have now raised just under $35,000 (and are waiting for a few matching donations to come in) for Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center to go towards breast cancer research.  Thank you to all who have donated.  For those that would still like to donate, we continue to accept donations for this worthy cause.  Please consider supporting our efforts!   http://getinvolved.fhcrc.org/goto/Nikki.Chris_Denali

Thank You!

Nikki

This past weekend Chris and I had the good fortune to go back to Mount Rainier for the second week in a row.  The weather was phenomenal again, which is very unusual for this time of year, and even more unusual for two straight weekends!  The first day we headed up to Camp Muir (10,100′) from Paradise (5,400′) with our 50 lb packs.  A slow go with heavy packs, but a good time to reflect on the mountain and life in general.  We went back the next day, giving us two great training days preparing us for the Denali expedition in June.  This is the perfect place to train hard!

The hours of hiking to Camp Muir got me thinking (again) of how fortunate we Seattle-ites and suburbian folk are.  We have this amazing National Park right in our back yard where we are able to drive there and back in one day (2 hrs from Seattle) all while enjoying the amazing scenery and peacefulness Mt Rainier provides.  I am always amazed to talk to friends around the Seattle area to find they have never ventured to Mount Rainier.  It is such a special, amazing place.

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We are approaching month 14 of fundraising for Breast Cancer Research.  It has been an amazing journey, where people have come together with one unified goal – to help find a cure for Breast Cancer. To date we have raised $32,356 for Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center through our Climb to Fight Breast Cancer, Denali!

As time is moving forward, and the climb approaching quickly, our additional focus is on intensive training.  Most days we are doing extensive cardio or weight training, sometimes both.  On the weekends we fill our huge backpacks and head up to the mountains with packs weighing a minimum of 45 lbs, soon to be 50 and beyond.

June 12 we will rope-up and head for 20,320’, the summit of Mt McKinley (Denali).  Regardless if we make the summit, it will be the most special climb of our lives as we make our way up the mountain with four other climbers, all whom have raised a minimum of $12,500 each for Breast Cancer Research.  Combined, we will have raised a minimum of $82,356!

Our fundraising journey has been a good reminder that it is not the effort of one individual, but the collective effort of a group that can get things done and make change happen.  Each one of our supporters has played a special role in this massive fundraising effort.  It is people like you that help break ground in research.  As a Breast Cancer survivor, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I imagine this climb will be an emotional experience as I remember my grandmother, who died of Breast Cancer in 2005, as well as all those I have met and spoken with who have either known somebody with Breast Cancer or had it themselves.  For me personally, I will be thinking of how fortunate I am to be alive and climbing and how blessed I am that others before me helped to bring funds to Breast Cancer Research, so people like myself could be saved from the disease that has killed so many.

For those who still want to donate, we will be accepting donations through the end of our climb July 2^nd.  Every dollar helps, you CAN make a difference!

http://getinvolved.fhcrc.org/goto/Nikki.Chris_Denali

Thank You

Nikki & Chris Milonas

Thank you to all who have supported Chris and I in our efforts to raise money for Breast Cancer research through Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center’s, Climb to Fight Breast Cancer.  To date we have raised nearly $27,000.  We are still actively fundraising until our Climb of Denali June 12, 2012.

If you have not already supported us, please consider donating by clicking on the link on the side of our blog.

Thank you!

What Your Dollars Support

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Scaling a mountain is a good metaphor for cancer research. In both cases the challenges are unknown until you are in the middle of it, and no one wants to turn back. At Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center we face the mountainous challenge of eliminating cancer as a cause of human suffering and death. Achieving such a lofty goal requires the determination and dedication of world-class researchers, the most advanced tools and a collaborative spirit.

By supporting the Climb to Fight Breast Cancer, you’ve become a part of this challenge. Your contributions — on or off the mountain — play a pivotal role in accelerating the Hutchinson Center’s efforts to detect, treat and prevent breast cancer, saving countless lives in the process. In this report, we highlight two recent developments in breast cancer research. One focuses on arming scientists with tools for accelerating the development of biomarkers that can improve cancer early detection, the other on understanding disease risk factors. Each represents a significant stride forward in our quest to overcome breast cancer and advance research into other cancers as well.

A roadmap for biomarker development

Dr. Amanda Paulovich, an investigator in the Clinical Research Division, and her colleagues have generated a roadmap that should help researchers more efficiently develop useful cancer biomarkers — molecules that can signal the presence of disease.

Despite significant investment in recent years to discover proteins that could be used as the basis for simple blood tests to detect cancer and monitor treatment, the Food and Drug Administration has approved very few such biomarkers. This is due in part to the fact that clinical tests for the proteins have to be developed from scratch, a process that is too expensive to be done for every potential biomarker that scientists identify in the lab.

To overcome this research bottleneck, Dr. Paulovich’s team took an existing, highly sensitive and targeted technology called selected reaction monitoring mass spectrometry, applied it in a new way, and combined it with other state-of-the-art techniques for analyzing proteins. They tested their approach using laboratory models of breast cancer and found their technology platform allowed them to reliably measure many proteins from a small drop of blood — far more than would have been possible using conventional approaches.

Dr. Paulovich hopes the findings will streamline the process of prioritizing and testing candidate biomarkers so that discoveries in the lab can be more quickly and successfully translated into clinical tools for the early detection and treatment of breast and other cancers. Ultimately, such tools bring the reality of a blood test for the early detection and diagnosis of various cancers a step closer.

Births raise risk of rare form of breast cancer

Recently, in one of the largest studies of its kind ever conducted, Dr. Amanda Phipps, a postdoctoral research associate in the Public Health Sciences Division, and colleagues studied the detailed health histories of 150,000 postmenopausal women. They found the more times a woman gives birth, the higher her risk of triple-negative breast cancer, a rare but aggressive subtype of the disease. The findings surprised Dr. Phipps’s team since researchers have long known that women who have children, especially those who have them at an early age and have full-term pregnancies, have a reduced risk of breast cancer overall. Although never giving birth appears to have a protective effect against triple-negative breast cancer, it increases the risk of the more common estrogen-receptor-positive breast cancer. Dr. Phipps’ results underscore the fact that breast cancer is really a complex collection of many different diseases, all of which must be better understood to improve care.

Scientists don’t yet know how full-term pregnancy may contribute to an increased risk of triple-negative breast cancer and a decreased risk of other forms of the disease, but several possible mechanisms are being investigated, including the effects that pregnancy-related hormones may have on breast cells. By shedding light on the risk factors for specific subtypes of breast cancer, Dr. Phipps’ studies promise to help scientists develop better tools to identify those women at greatest risk as well as improved early detection and treatment strategies.

Thank you

We are grateful for your support of the Climb to Fight Breast Cancer. Your generous contributions through the Climb help sustain our scientists in their unwavering commitment to improve the lives of women with, and at risk, for the disease.

There are many opportunities for joining studies at the Center. For details, visit: www.fhcrc.org/other/study.

Please join us February 25, 2012 for our last fundraising event at Ward Johnson Winery in Seattle (1445 Elliott Ave W, http://mapq.st/zHiOHG) 

$20 per person gets you 5 tastes and hors d’oeuvres.  Please  join us for a fun afternoon and support breast cancer research at the same time!  All profits from event go straight to Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. 

We will be showing a video of  Denali as well as bringing some of our climbing equipment we will  use on the trip.  In addition you will have a rare opportunity to bid on an amazing framed photo from professional photographer Dave Schiefelbein as well as a genuine Rolex donated by Hart Jewelers of Grants Pass, OR.

Ward Johnson Winery http://www.wardjohnsonwinery.com/

2012 is upon us and it is going to be a very exciting year!  Chris and I have been fundraising for the Climb to Fight Breast Cancer since January 2011.  To date we have raised $26,800 for Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, specifically for breast cancer research.  As we continue to fundraise, please consider supporting breast cancer research with a tax deductible donation by clicking on the link at the right hand side of the page.  That said, THANK YOU to all of our supporters over the past year. We could not have been so successful without you!

January 1 is the beginning to an intensive training program as we prepare ourselves for climbing Denali during a 3 + week expedition June 12.  To kick off our training, yesterday we summited Hex Mountain on our annual New Year’s Hex Mountain snow shoe.  We hope you enjoy the photos.

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Have you ever wondered what the weather is like on Mt McKinley at various elevations?  I was looking at this very topic this morning and came across an amazing website.  It shows weather at various elevations, including the summit, giving wind speed, wind chill and extended forecast.  Check it out!

http://www.mountain-forecast.com/peaks/Mount-McKinley/forecasts/6194

Sunday we did a training hike up the snowy and icy slopes of Mt Rainier’s base camp at 10,100 ft.  A spectacular day in the sun though temperatures were in the 20′s and much colder with the wind chill.  It was gusting around 25 which got me excited all over again for what is to come on Denali.  The light was magnificent as the shadows are much different this time as the sun is so low.

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