Eric Willhite's Background

I started my own travel service at the age of 10. It wasn't much; I just wanted to own every brochure to every hotel, sight and city on earth. It wasn't long before the mailman came to the door and asked my parents to purchase a larger mailbox. It was a fun hobby and I loved dreaming of going to all those places but I always had reservations and doubts. It wasn't until a trip to Argentina to climb the highest mountain in South America that I realized that traveling wherever I wanted was really possible. If my friend and I could land in Santiago, Chile and find our way into the high mountians of Argentina, without knowing the language or having any real skills than I could go anywhere. After the climb, we toured around Buenos Ares for a week with some friends from New Zealand we had made on the mountain.
Several years later I was married planning on a trip where we would sell our first house and use the profit we make for a 3 month Europe trip. This plan worked and in 2001 we traveled around 24 countries sightseeing from morning to the late hours of night over 3 months.
We returned broke but eventually bought another home....a real piece of garbage. We fixed it up and sold it using the profits to travel to the Middle East for a month visiting the sites in Egypt, Israel and Jordan. Other trips came along and the travel tradition was in place with the family. When our first child came along we didn't let that stop us; we planned a month vacation in Southeast Asia. Traveling in China with a one year old boy....that's an experience.

My outdoor experiences started before I can remember. I know I was camping often from age five and about every month since then. When I hit boy scout age, I was introduced to backpacking and wilderness areas. I was immediately drawn to the peaks that I was hiking around, always wanting to go up, not around them. By age 15, I was hiking and backpacking solo in the Cascade and Olympic mountains of Washington. I also moved onto peak bagging around age 16, climbing Rainier when I was 17. After a 2 year service where I had no access to peaks, I quickly returned to the mountains climbing Mt. McKinley at the age of 22. Currently, I've climbed over 400 peaks in Washington, 250 in Utah and another 100 throughout the United States. I've traveled in every state, hiking thousands of miles of trail.

I worked at REI for 7 years giving advice and knowledge about how to get out there, where to go.....as well as product info. I have a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Washington in Forest Resources. I spent several years as a Forester designing and setting up Timber Sales in Washington. I now live in Utah as a central point for traveling across the Western U.S. to travel and climb. As a stay at home dad (who hates to stay at home) I frequently travel throughout the west with my kids sightseeing, peakbagging and looking to see what's around the next corner. My 3 year old son Maverick has been up over 150 mountains and my one year old daughter Mckinley had summited 100 mountains before her first birthday.

My Background