GREENWOOD — Jesse Wall started hiking and skiing laps at Mt. Abram at 8:37 a.m. Monday, planning to do 30 laps over 24 hours to raise money for his nonprofit TruStrength Tomorrow.

Thirty laps will equal 30,000 vertical feet, or roughly the elevation of Mount Everest, the Earth’s highest mountain.

“I’m going to do some suffering for the benefit of others,” Wall said.

His nonprofit was created last summer as an offshoot of his coaching business True Strength Athletics, which aims to bring off-season coaching and training to local middle and high school students by way of scholarship.

Wall, who grew up in Oxford Hills, was a high school athlete from the start.

“I grew up playing a few sports,” he said. “And I grew up in a home that didn’t have a lot of economic extra. I had tons of support. I had great parents but no extra money to go to additional programs.”

As a high school student, he found himself falling behind his peers competing for a varsity spot on a baseball team. “Those guys were hitting and fielding and pitching all winter long; they could pay to go to a place that did that.”

When his private gym and coaching business was established, he looked back to his own early sports experience. He wanted to ensure that economically disadvantaged youths would able to take advantage of his programs.

One of TruStrength Tomorrow’s upcoming programs, Way of the Champion, will focus on off-season conditioning for traditional varsity athletes.

Wall also has plans for a Mountain Athlete Program for youths uninterested in traditional sports. “We want to expose them to indoor bouldering, uphill skiing, and trail running,” Wall said.

At 2:30 p.m. Monday, Wall was a third of the way to his goal. He takes a short break to change his socks, boot liners, and his shirt. His wife, Rebecca Brakeley, in charge of the support staff, changes out the climbing skins on his mountaineering skis. He has several sets of everything, so things can dry out.

Except for his feet. He has only one pair of those, and by the 10th lap, they appear to be his weakest link. He tenderly removes his wet socks and tapes up a hot spot on his left foot.

“I’m looking at some foot pain that is going to be bad,” Wall said. “I’m going to be down for some screaming. There might be some throwing up.”

Wall has settled on a strategy of pretending he is watching a movie of someone else’s adventure. “If these were my feet,” he jokes, “I would have to stop.”

For his 11th lap, he was joined by his wife and three friends. Even though Wall has already hiked 11 runs, his friends help themselves to a significant head start on Wall, who was busy changing his gear and drinking a cashew milk and maple-syrup concoction, a beverage high in protein and easy to keep down.

He caught up to the rest of the group halfway up the mountain and they all keep the pace to the summit before skiing down. As Wall continued to do laps, his friends drifted in to keep him company for a run, offer support and cheer him on.

Wall started the day doing “shout-outs” to his donors on Facebook Live, thanking the people who funded the feat.

One of his donors, Tom Pepin, spent a week in the summer of 2017 with his daughters hiking Kilimanjaro in Tanzania along with Wall. Pepin sponsored an entire run of Wall’s hike Monday.

Wall has hopes of hiking Denali Mountain in Alaska someday, but for now, he is content to raise his two children with his wife in Oxford Hills to rack up vertical feet skiing laps at Mt. Abram.

Jesse Wall completed his challenge on Tuesday morning, logging in 32 laps within a 24-hour period. He raised over $7,500 of his $10,000 goal through a Go Fund Me page.

This story was updated at 9:22 a.m.

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