Climbing 5 peaks for Education

On the summit of Mt Baker with my climbing partners and friends : Barry, Richard and Glen (who was taking the picture). I am on the right

Last year, I climbed Mt Baker in Washington state, USA.

It was my first glacier and also my first mountaineering trip. Maybe I will write about that adventure in another story. What is important to understand for what you are reading right now is that this gave me the mountaineering bug. The only thing I could think of while I was on Mt Baker summit was: “What’s next?”.

The logical next step would be to go straight to Mt Rainier. I live in Seattle so it’s close to home and a bigger challenge than Baker. Looking for options to climb it I contacted Miyar Adventures: an awesome guiding company in the area with which I went to Baker last year. While talking to them, I realized that they were very involved in the Asha climbing program. Instead of simply paying a guide to assist you in attempting to summit Rainier, you can do so and help this charity to raise money for Education in India at the same time. I instantly LOVED the idea! I am a strong believer that improving education around the world is a sustainable and strong way of fixing humanity’s future. If I can bring even a small contribution to this huge task while doing what I love, I am down for it!

One little information meeting later: I signed up for - not 1 but - 5 peaks! The concept is very simple: I contribute to the guiding cost, I train, suffer ;) and climb mountains while reporting to all of you how it goes, on a regular basis.

Oh, and if you want, you can help kids in India getting access to better education by making a donation. Read more here.

Here is the climbing plan:

• Mt Saint Helens and Mt Adams are going to happen sometimes between April and mid-June (I don’t have the dates yet)
• Glacier Peak will be mid June
• Mt Shuksan will be mid July
• Mt Rainier will likely be next year (unless something changes in the organization)

And until then : training, training and training with these images in mind:

Mount Saint Helens, Glacier Peak, Mount Adams

Mount Rainier, Mount Shuksan

I’ll keep you posted on a regular basis on what is happening, how I am training and how I am eating to get ready for this!

Cheers,
Etienne