Mountaineering is for the young at heart, but not necessarily the young.
And 79-year-old Oscar Fitzhenry plans to prove it Aug. 3 when he turns 80.
Fitzhenry will attempt to climb the 6,050-foot peak of Mount Fitzhenry in honor of World War II veterans who served in the South Pacific.
Mount Fitzhenry has a second peak with a summit at 5,948 feet.
This will be his fifth attempt to scale the Olympic National Park mountain named by his great-uncle Edward Fitzhenry, a Washington state surveyor who worked on construction of Glines Canyon Dam. He died in 1937.
Fitzhenry, a retired Strategic Air Command lieutenant colonel from Charleston, S.C., is in training for the trek. He recently hiked to the top of Hurricane Hill — which is 5,757 feet at the summit — in about 40 minutes.
Details appear in today’s Peninsula Daily News, on sale throughout Clallam and Jefferson counties. Or click onto “Subscribe” to order your copy via U.S. mail.