Everest in the Alps 2019 – an epic challenge to support children living with a brain tumour

WHAT IS YOUR EVEREST? 

Team Sagarmatha are taking on the epic four day Everest in the Alps challenge to support children living with a brain tumour.  We are raising funds for The Everest Centre which is researching cures and treatments for the 26,000 children who are living with a brain tumour.  www.everestinthealps.com

• 6 fathers who love the mountains, can't turn down a challenge and have friends who are living with or died from brain tumours
• 6 months of training, 4 days per week
• 8,848m vertical metres to climb – on skis.  The height of Everest, but in the Alps 
• 4 days of 10 to 12 hours per day uphill using skis fitted with skins and ski crampons 
• 20 individual ascents have given the reputation of “the hardest four days on skis”
• Equivalent effort of running 3 back-to-back marathons per day
  
• Supported by injured soldiers training for a world record attempt
• £100,000 to raise
  
• ONE CURE TO BE FOUND

We are Team Sagarmatha – James and Richard Blacker, Dom Del Mar, David Flight, Stuart Miners and Brian Reid.   Follow us on Instagram team_sagarmatha and everestalps.

Sagarmatha is the Sanskrit name for Everest.  It means “Peak of Heaven”.  It reminds us of why we have taken on this commitment – it helps us remember and honour our friends for whom a cure has come too late, and critically, it reminds us of the thousands of children who are living with a brain tumour.  Every day they attack their Everest with courage, strength and a smile.

It started with a promise.

Our friend’s son, Alec, died of a brain tumour aged 9.  Before he died, this extraordinary boy made his parents promise to do everything they could to make sure that what happened to him did not happen to any other children. 

For the last 10 years, in his memory, events and challenges have helped fund the critical work of the Brain Tumour Charity.  Brain tumours are dramatically underfunded - it is the biggest cancer killer of people under the age of 40; it is the biggest cause of preventable and treatable blindness in children; just 19% of adults survive for 5 years after diagnosis; and yet it receives less than 2% of cancer funding in the UK.  That maths simply does not add up!

The Funding objective

We are raising funding for The Everest Centre whose objective is simple – to double survival rates and half the harm.  But like climbing Everest, it is not simple and funding is key.

The Centre was launched by our friends Rob and Tanya Ritchie whose son Toby, was just 5 when he was diagnosed with a brain tumour. Living with a brain tumour is Toby’s Everest and he faces the challenge every day.   So far, £4m has been raised and a further £1m is needed to secure the Centre’s operation and research for the next five years. 

We are now aiming to raise £100,000 by completing Everest in the Alps.

Everest in the Alps - the Challenge

The challenge is to climb the 8,848 vertical metres that Mount Everest sits above sea level.  This is done “skinning” uphill on skis over four days in the Swiss Alps.  That’s around 5 miles straight up - a height where you find aircraft flying.

Each day we will climb for 10-12 hours, aiming for a daily vertical gain of 2,000m to 2,500m.  We will be reaching altitudes of 3,500m.  We will sleep in mountain huts and set out before dawn in temperatures that can drop as low as -30c.

This has been described as the hardest four days on skis.  It combines the physical and the mental; the team and the individual.  You can’t complete it without a team around you to give support and drive you through the relentless hours of climbing.  But it is also hugely individual when it comes to the months of intense training and preparation. 

We will be supported by a team of injured service men who are preparing for their world record attempt to be the first disabled team to complete the Adaptive Grand Slam – summiting the seven highest peaks on seven continents and trekking to both North and South poles.  Sharing the challenge with them is a key part of the EIA experience. 

A CURE CANNOT WAIT!  HELP US REACH THE SUMMIT AND SECURE THE FUNDING THAT THE EVEREST CENTRE NEEDS.

Our trip, training, equipment, guides, travel, etc is 100% self-funded so that 100% of the money we raise goes directly to The Everest Centre / The Brain Tumour Charity.