While traditionally frowned upon to ask a lady her age, that doesn’t stop some people from asking Louise Wholey. “The answer usually causes jaws to drop,” she says. When inquirers regain control of their jaw, a “What?” or “Really?” typically follows.
Louise is at the age where she can ski for free at just about every other ski resort, taking advantage of free passes for those 80 and over. She doesn’t hesitate to put them to use. The Truckee resident does just about every type of skiing there is, from backcountry, and downhill, to cross country. Skiing was actually what led her and her husband to buy a home in the Truckee-Tahoe region. “We needed a place to wax the skis,” she explains.
But her adventures don’t stop there. Add to the list, scuba diving, flying planes, and arctic ski touring.
By no means a comprehensive list, her adventures have brought her to the Silfra fissure near Iceland where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates meet. They’ve taken her to the equator, exploring the diverse Galápagos Islands and far into the arctic on a three week ski tour from Ellesmere Island to Greenland. That’s where her and her tour members’ mouths turned bright red from eating raw seal ribs, an offering from the Inuit people their path crossed. Although, it was their cooked seal intestine that she preferred more.
When asked what she doesn’t do, Louise laughed, “Oh, I don’t play golf.”
She finds people are often inspired to see someone of her age doing things they hope to be able to do as they age, especially as a woman.
“It serves as proof for the possibilities,” she says.
Yet her reasons for maintaining the action-packed lifestyle are more unassuming. “I am able to and have the time for the activities.”
Louise fervently pursues these passions, knowing full well what happens if she doesn’t. “I thrive on activity and get pretty grumpy if I am laid up and cannot do things.”
Wholey has found that the activities that afford her fun and lift her mood have also provided a way to contribute to a valuable cause.
A steward above Lake Tahoe and below
Wholey was sitting at her dining room table and looking out the window when she let out a sigh of disgust, “People dump all sorts of crap down there.” She regularly walks the forest out her back door and fills a decent sized bag with trash on her roughly two-mile walk.
This Tahoe steward has paired her active lifestyle in more than one way for the Tahoe basin.
What started as a YMCA scuba certification in 1962 and diving for lobster off the coast of Massachusetts has turned into pulling out sunglasses, clothing, tires, bait jars, bottles, even stand-up paddleboards from lake depths around the Tahoe basin and beyond.
Louise is a key member with the Tahoe based organization, Clean Up The Lake, whose mission is to protect the environment through both action and education, including cleanup dives at lakes worldwide.
“Louise is just literally one of our go-to divers,” Founder, Colin West expressed, stating there are very few divers in the Tahoe basin that have the same qualifications, experience and comfort level as her.
But if you ask Louise, she’ll tell you, “I’m just a recreational diver with a little more skills than the average person.”
Diving alpine lakes for objects that don’t belong there is both equipment and skill intensive as lake bottoms hold a delicate layer of silt that threatens a quagmire upon disturbance. It’s important for divers to control body position in water to avoid agitating the silt. It takes training beyond the standard scuba certification to develop these skills of control that allow divers like Louise the ability to masterfully negotiate these temperamental bottoms.
Another one of her underwater capabilities is dry suit diving, which is an important asset when most of the organization’s diving occurs in the winter due to dangerous boat activity outside of this season. In Lake Tahoe, water temperatures can dip into the low forties. The dry suit keeps water out and layers of fleece beneath keep heat in.
Her skill using a diver propulsion vehicle, or “scooter” to some, also makes her an asset for the team. These scooters resemble a torpedo and provide a quick way to travel underwater. The device is especially handy for pockets of trash located at distances from each other.
The clean up dives wouldn’t be possible without a comprehensive team consisting of a boat crew, scuba divers, free divers, kayakers, and sometimes a jet ski or paddleboarders.
“Participating as a critical part of the team is important to me,” she says. “We all hope to make a difference in keeping our mountain lakes clean for people to safely enjoy.”
Age is not a limiter
Louise has been active her whole life, something she attributes her longevity within these hobbies to. Well, it’s that, the two knee replacements, and her cataract surgery, which she regularly tests by scouting for the antenna on top of Relay Peak from her hot tub in Truckee.
“It is sad that few people maintain sufficient health to be able to do things like scuba, diving, backcountry skiing, mountain biking, airplane flying, paddle boarding…”
She believes health and fitness have countered the decline associated with age.
For her that looks like a low carb-high protein diet, high intensity interval training along with significant amounts of weight and agility training.
She doesn’t believe people have to be idle and afflicted by debilitating disease as they age. And for those who may be afflicted, she encourages it is still possible to overcome.
“Age does not have to limit one’s activities,” she says. “It does not determine what one can do.”
