Growing up in Port Townsend, Leif Whittaker was entering his teen years when he first noticed that his childhood was not normal.

“I started to realize the size of his legacy and achievements, how powerful that was and how people knew him,” Whittaker told the Leader. “People would come up to us and they’d recognize him, and I started to wonder, ‘Why are these random people coming up and wanting to meet my father?’ He’s done something that’s a little outside the norm, but my dad, to me, was always my father, always supportive, caring.”

His father, Jim Whittaker, is one of the great mountaineers in history and will forever be remembered as the first American to climb Mount Everest.

“I had mountains in my blood,” Whittaker admitted, but he didn’t enjoy his first climbs.

“I thought the hiking was torturous. I had my mom carry my pack. Later, when I was 15, my older brother and I climbed Olympus and that, to me, is when I pinpoint the beginning of my climbing.”

His father’s shadow is immense, but the younger Whittaker was not tempted to follow a different path, no matter how torturous the hike.

“It was certainly there in the background, hearing my father’s stories of climbing, my mother’s stories of climbing — all those stories, I soaked them up,” he said. “I think my parents felt that it would be better not to force me, to not push me into that world and so they were really good about that.”

So much so that Whittaker sometimes wishes they’d pushed him a little more.

“I’d be better,” he said.

The mountains pulled him into working as a Climbing Ranger for the United States Forest Service, a gig he worked for a decade. It was during that time that he met the man who helped him alter his trajectory.

It was on Mount Baker that he met Scott Johnston.

“He is really well known and has coached with amazing success, training for mountain sports ­— coaching for mountaineers who are trying to climb big mountains,” he said.

Whittaker helped Johnston build Evoke Endurance into what is billed as the leaders in global mountain coaching, where Whittaker works with athletes training at all levels.

“Entry-level climbers, across the whole range of skills and abilities, given my background and my history, I also work with skiers and other endurance athletes,” he said.

“Scott had a science-base of knowledge from other endurance sports and brought it to mountain sports. He founded a company when that book launched. He hired me and trained me and continues to train me and about 20 other coaches, and I love the work,” Whittaker said, adding that the job is mostly communicating.

His work day looks normal at first glance, serving his clients on weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., but those clients happen to be elite athletes.

“Discipline and consistency are the key, and when building a week of training at a time, the client can see: ‘I have a hour-long hike.’ So they don’t have to think about it,” he said. “They know they’re doing the right thing. It takes out the guess work, having a regular schedule.”

Stayin’ alive

In climbing, Whittaker told The Leader, there are two types of risks, which he refers to as “hazards.”

There are objective hazards, such as weather, rockfall and avalanches — things that are outside of our control.

“The mountains don’t care who you are or where you are,” he said. “They move and they shift without warning so there are always going to be objective hazards. You can mitigate those hazards by starting early so you’re off the mountain before the sun begins to melt the glacier, creating a higher chance of rockfall. But you have to accept some of those.”

Mount Everest, he said, has very, very high objective hazards, and one of the ways a climber mitigates those hazards is to be fit.

“When you’re in there, it’s a hazardous place, so you limit your time in that place. You move fast and efficiently. If you’re fit, there’s a much higher chance of being safe and successful.”

Whittaker works with elite athletes on readying them so they are at their optimum state of fitness while in those situations.

There are also subjective hazards; those that are within the climber’s control and based on decision making.

“It’s about caring for yourself on the mountain,” he said. “Strategy choices such as where to be at what time and technical elements, all the things we do have control over which can mitigate and manage those risks, to try to bring them down as much as we can.”

The best climbers, Whittaker said, are those who can narrow their focus on their life to single objectives.

“One of the things we do is try to eliminate the noise. A climber will devote a year of training to their goal, so you need to remove that. You need your family to be on board, your wife or husband. If you have kids, you may need to spend less time with them if you want to be successful. You need to train hard, give up some of your weekends,” Whittaker said.

A few years ago, Whittaker published his book, “My Old Man and the Mountain,” which, he stressed, is not a technical guide for climbers.

“You’re just gonna be entertained, that’s the main goal of the book. It’s not instructive or didactic. I drop you into my mind when I’m on Everest. Certainly there are lessons but that’s not what its about. It’s a fun read.”

Daniel James Brown, author of “The Boys in the Boat,” agrees, calling it, “a great, great read.”