Patient Spotlight: Lionel Etrillard

Meet my friend, training partner, and patient Lionel Etrillard. Over the years, our friendship has taken us on hundreds of rides throughout LA and Malibu, through training and racing the LA and Boston marathons, and—most precious to both of us—backpacking in the high Sierras. Lionel has brought his most endearing quality to every one of those adventures: his enthusiasm. Lionel is always—literally always—positive. Take the mornings we meet at the esplanade for a quick ride around Palos Verdes. He cannot help but point out what a beautiful day it is, what a beautiful setting, how fortunate we are to live where we do. Every time.

Lionel brought that enthusiasm to our most recent and most challenging adventure yet. Just last month, he and I and three other dads traveled up to Seattle to climb Mt. Rainier. The other dads brought their collective five young and very fit sons. Lionel brought his young and very fit daughter.

Mt. Rainier is not an easy hike. The mountain requires professional guides and mountaineering experience, and admittedly, all of our hikes and backpacking in the Sierra had not prepared us for it. So we hired RMI Guide Services. RMI spent a day training us on the basics of rope travel, crampons, and ice ax skills, along with the overall skills and ethics of climbing this steep, glaciated, 14,400-foot peak. The next day we hiked up to high camp at 10,000 feet to prepare for summit day.

Summit day started at 10:30 the night before, as we all scrambled to pack our bags, attempt a bathroom visit, secure our headlamps, and struggle into our crampons. We were organized into five separate rope teams and crossed the first glacier heading toward the appropriately named crux of the climb: the Disappointment Cleaver. The cleaver is a huge vertical rock band that we crawled up in the dark, guided the whole way by our very capable guides.

The setting was sublime. It was one or two in the morning with a gorgeous half moon in the sky. Looking up into the dark, I could see a curved string of soft, silent light—the headlamps of the climbers ascending ahead of us. I remember noticing how high those lights sat in the night sky, at an angle that told me exactly how steep the terrain ahead of us was. It scared me a bit. I was already feeling challenged and uncomfortable.

During our ten-minute rest above the cleaver, three of the dads were told they had to descend; this was the point of no return. Our lead guide, Jackson, asked me how I felt, and my response was tentative. “Actually—I’m pretty beat.”

I’ll never forget what Jackson said back to me: “Listen, if you are not, like, fuck yeah, let’s go get this mountain, then you should turn back.”

I wasn’t feeling fuck yeah, let’s go get this mountain. So I turned back with three of the other dads.

Guess who was still ascending?

I must admit that every step back down that mountain increased my regret. Returning to high camp, we all dove back into our sleeping bags to rest and wait for the summit team. Some four hours later we spotted the tiny figures of the teams at the top of the glacier; we could expect them back to camp in about 45 minutes.

I was still suffering my regret when the teams walked into camp. But when Lionel appeared, roped to his daughter and their guide, the smile he pushed through his fatigue—and the tears of joy and exhaustion in his daughter’s eyes—snapped me out of my own little pity party. That moment was the highlight of the entire adventure. It was punctuated by Lionel’s enthusiastic announcement as he dropped his backpack off his shoulders: “That was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life!”

On a recent ride I asked Lionel about the trip. He had had time to reflect on it all. He told me about the moments high above the cleaver, as they approached the summit with the early light of dawn hitting the east, Jackson guiding him and his daughter literally step by step. “Listen,” Jackson told them, “step exactly where I step, breathe exactly when I breathe, rest exactly when I rest, and I will get you both to the summit.” That, Lionel said, was when he finally let go. He relaxed, stopped thinking, and did exactly what he was told. In true Lionel fashion, he credits Jackson’s instruction for getting them to the top.

Remember, as I said, Lionel is also a patient—although I try my hardest not to treat him, because he may be the tightest known human. (No amount of enthusiasm seems to have released his hips or his spine.) Several years ago Lionel suffered a severe and disabling episode of low back pain, and as we worked through the pain and the disability, he arrived at a decision point. He could follow the medical route of heavy pain medication and potential surgery, or he could move. Lionel chose to move better. To sit less and stress less at work. To release his hips. To stretch and stabilize and exercise appropriately. It took months, but with patience, persistence, and yes, enthusiasm—albeit reserved enthusiasm—Lionel recovered. He lives an active life full of adventures, culminating for now in standing on the summit of one of the great mountains in America with his daughter.