Team Dynamics!

The summit team is set, after losing three great guys to altitude sickness and injury (all Americans by the way,) we are left with 8 climbers. Four of those climbers are women of middle eastern descent. (Saudí, Omán, and Lebanon.) All 4 are pioneers and have amazing stories of overcoming adversity in their culture and society. Summit or no summit they will all be hero’s to all the young ladies in the Middle East. ( from left to right Joyce, Nelly, Chad, Mona, Nadhira)

These 4 ladies have impressed me with their strength, courage, tenacity, and friendship. It has been a pleasure getting to know them let alone climb with them! One cool thing is they are apart of a documentary that is being filmed by Elia Saikaly, ( one of the 8 remaining climbers on the team). Elia is from Canada and is of Lebanese decent as well. He has been on Everest 8 times and summited 3 of them. His documentary is called “The Dream of Everest” and I will be posting clips or small trailers as they become available.

The remaining two members are Sherif from Egypt and Wojciech of Poland. All team members are feeling great, rested, and strong. The Team has come together very well and the diversity of the whole group has made the experience even better.

Earlier today our Sherpa team that summited yesterday and fixed all the ropes, returned to basecamp. We congratulated them all and I was able to get a picture with 5 of them. All of these guys have summited Everest several times and I truly am in awe of them. They are masters of their craft and just plain super humans! (Picture of Sherpa Studs)

As for the summit, our departure date is not fixed, but looking like leaving at 2am on the 17th and summiting the 21-22nd. This can easily change but that’s what we are shooting for.