On top of the world

Andrew Glazer

COSTA MESA -- Underneath a yellow “Welcome Home” banner Thursday, a

triumphant group was flipping through photos of their five-day adventure.

The Trailblazers, a team of five developmentally disabled men, along with

nine volunteers, climbed the highest mountain in the continental United

States, Mount Whitney, in California’s High Sierras.

Two of the men reached the summit, which is more than 14,000 feet above

sea level.

“It was really fun, hiking in the snow,” said Tim Jones, 27, who has Down

Syndrome. He showed a photo of himself crossing a stream with a backpack

nearly his size mounted on his back. The picture was shot too far away to

capture his expression.

“I think I was both laughing and crying,” he said, letting out an

unambiguous chuckle inside the warm Rockreation Sport Climbing Center in

Costa Mesa.

Volunteers, parents, Trailblazers and Tracy Young, who organized the

trek, drank Poweraid and ate chips and salsa at the reception. They told

tales -- some apocryphal -- of bear sightings, sliding on snow, bursting

lungs and bloody feet.

“It was a goal and I made it,” said Paul Hollingsworth, 42, one of two

Trailblazers who made the summit. “I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

And he will. Young recruited Hollingsworth, whose forearms are as wide as

cricket bats and calves like Roman columns-- to help lead next year’s

expedition.

“This experience really gave them a new reference point,” Young said.

“They know their physical limits. They have a better idea of what they

can and can’t do.”

Trailblazer Ron Holland, 32, said he learned a valuable life lesson from

the adventure:

“You just keep telling yourself, ‘you can take it to the top.’ ”