Upon arriving in the Pacific Northwest, Sarah Olson, 33, said one of her first adventures was a climb up Mt. Rainier with her father.

Since then, the Bothell resident followed in the paths of many area hikers and climbers and taken on such mountain tops as Glacier Peak, St. Helen’s and Hood, along with several others in the Cascade range. But her biggest challenge still lies ahead.

In June, along with a team of five climbers and two guides, only one of whom she ever has met face to face, Olson plans on traveling to Alaska to take on North America’s highest peak, Mt. McKinley.

Along the way, she and her teammates are trying to raise money through the Climb for the Cure program benefitting Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

Olson actually already has passed her fund-raising goal of $12,500. The team has also met its mark of $76,000. But Olson said more donations always are welcome.

A Michigan native, Olson said she got the bug for hiking and climbing early in life. While she was growing up, she said her whole family would go for Sunday hikes. Later while in college, she and a friend decided to take on the Appalachian Trail.

“We shed a lot of tears and realized we really didn’t know what we were doing,” Olson said.

Still by the end of the trip, the pair both ended up enjoying themselves.

Olson moved to this area about six years ago and hit Rainier her first summer here. But that wasn’t her only trip up the mountain. On one journey, her team hit the base camp about the same time as what Olson called “crazy flurries.”

“It was warm and sunny going up, but it didn’t stay that way,” she said.

The group ended up taking shelter in tents for about 15 hours before turning around and making its way back down the hillside in a whiteout guided only by compasses. She called it “scary training” for the ascent of McKinley.

Actually, the Rainier whiteout isn’t the first Olson ever had encountered. During a hike around the base of Mt. Adam, she and her partners also lost themselves in a whiteout. Literally. They had a GPS (Global Positioning System) unit with them, but for whatever reason didn’t consult it when the storm first assaulted them. When they did stop to figure out their location, they found they had been walking back up the hill instead of down.

In addition to her fund-raising activities, Olson is putting herself through a strict training regimen to get ready for the McKinley climb. The trek is a three-week journey, much of it with a 100-pound pack strapped to one’s back.

“That’s the thing that scares me the most, that and the weather,” Olson said regarding that pack.

Designed by the company providing the McKinley team’s guides, Olson said her workout program consists of aerobics five days a week, along with strength training. She also has been taking long hikes, regularly adding distance to those walks and weight to the pack on her back.

Not a climber himself, husband Mike Olson said the weather is definitely what bothers him the most about his wife trekking up a mountain for three weeks. McKinley is known for often being extremely cold.

“I just hope they have good weather and are able to summit,” Mike Olson said. Sarah Olson agreed, saying not reaching the top of McKinley would be very frustrating.

Olson will be one of two women making the upcoming trip, but the two only have had contact by e-mail. Regardless, they’ll still be sharing a tent during the climb.

“That will be interesting, spending three weeks with people I don’t really know,” Olson said.

This is Olson’s second time raising money for Climb for the Cure, her previous trip having taken her up Mt. Hood in 2008.

“We had a great experience with it,” she said, even though her group wasn’t able to summit. (Olson did conquer Hood later with some friends.)

A great-grandmother had breast cancer, but Olson said neither she nor her family have been otherwise directly affected by cancer. Like many, she does know plenty of people who have been touched by the disease.

To donate online to the charity climb, visit www.fhcrc.org/climb. Click “donate to a climber” and then “Sarah Olson.”