One to One with Bill Goodman:
Martin Douthitt
aired June 29 and July 1, 2007
In the summer of 2007, Martin Douthitt of Breathitt County set out to climb North America’s highest mountain. He talked with host Bill Goodman about his preparations for the trip and the motivations behind it on an edition of One to One taped a few weeks before the expedition.
Douthitt, 61, runs a hardware and landscaping business in Jackson. He has been interested in mountain climbing since he was a child, but didn’t pursue it seriously until 1999. If he reaches the 20,320-foot summit of Alaska’s Mount McKinley (known locally as Denali), he will have conquered six of the so-called “Seven Summits”—the highest peaks on each of Earth’s seven continents. The one remaining would be the highest of them all: Mount Everest at just over 29,000 feet.
In the past, Douthitt has said that he probably would never attempt to climb Everest because of his age and the costs involved. But he admits that if he gets to the top of Mount McKinley, he might have to reconsider. “I’ve got to get up Denali first, and I might not make that,” he says. “But I might at least go up to the base camp on Everest, get started and see how far I could get. I definitely don’t have a death wish. But I think I’d regret it the rest of my life if I didn’t at least try.”
