First project update after summiting Elbrus, Kilimanjaro and Denali

First off, we want to say a huge thank you to everyone who has followed and supported us so far. For the most part we have been incredibly fortunate. We’ve met some incredible people, achieved new heights, and galvanised our resolve towards this ever-evolving goal.

On October 7th, 2022, we were exactly one year into our climbing journey, with three out of seven summits complete. We always knew this project would present an enormous range of challenges; physically, mentally and logistically. Naturally, our minds have tended to focus on the physical - the Hillary step at the summit of Everest, the cold winds in Antarctica and the pack weight on Denali. More often, however, the success of the project has hinged on the challenges of bureaucracy and getting permits for our particular mission.

LOGISTICAL & EMOTIONAL OVERVIEW

In Russia, our local contacts were invaluable in helping us navigate the somewhat haphazard process of acquiring these. In hindsight, we are extremely lucky that we tackled this mountain first. We were able to safely visit the region and meet some wonderful people before the current conflict broke out. We feel heartbroken for the citizens involved on both sides and worry what will become of the kind people who make up that mountain community.

Tanzania, as a developing country on a continent fraught with corruption and poverty, presented its own struggles. ‘Unofficial payments’ seem to be a necessary part of getting anything done, which made it difficult to keep our budget on track and became quite draining on team morale. We found ourselves wrestling with the colonial routes and connotations within mountaineering and the clear socioeconomic divide between ourselves and the communities we visited. It is frustrating and financially challenging to be constantly berated for more money, yet very clear why the system runs the way it does and why local people view western climbers the way they do. From the outset of this project, we have been aware that some mountaineering rhetoric doesn’t have a place in our mission; the notion of ‘conquering’ a mountain, for example. Our time on Kilimanjaro reinforced this opinion and strengthened our resolve to provide an audience for the widest group of people we can.

In Alaska, as you can imagine, everything is expensive but runs like clockwork. The Americans have things perfectly organised, and the process is well laid out to acquire permits. This was the first mountain on which the real crux was the scale of the physical challenge and mental preparation rather than the logistics of getting there. This did, however, leave us pondering the overall position of the United States in the climate question. It’s somewhat understandable that developing countries have difficulty legislating and actioning environmental policy. But here in the States, amongst such organisation and potential, why is it so hard to make significant steps towards a green future?

WHAT WE LEARNT

RUSSIA:

We learned a huge amount in Russia. About ourselves and our performance at high altitude. About the world and the wide range of cultural struggles. We learnt about the climate, the changes that are happening, and the reality that humans are the cause of these changes. Physically we turned up in with very mixed experience within the team, from underprepared to over-confident. It was the best we could hope for at such an early stage in the project, yet it was not enough for smooth sailing. We planned to make a single push from the base camp at 3895m to the summit at 5642m. That’s 1750m of vertical ascent in one day – the longest single day planned for any of the Seven Summits. In a more familiar environment like the Alps, and with favourable conditions, that would be tough but doable. On Elbrus, it was a different story. The altitude, cold and sleep deprivation got the better of Jon on summit day. At 5100m, after 5 hours of ascent through the night, he began to unravel with altitude sickness, and the decision was made for him to return to basecamp alone. Where his lack of climbing experience failed, his skill as a skier stepped in, and he got himself back to base camp safely on skis. Will and Ed pushed on, alternating between failure and leadership – each lifting the other up from newly discovered lows. Neither had ever had to dig so deep to keep going before. This project has and will continue to hinge on mental resilience. Both Ed and Will were able to Summit Mt Elbrus on the 7th of October 2021. They skied from the summit as a team. At 5550m, Will was able to launch a speed wing and fly down to a cloud layer at 4500m. Jon recovered, and Ed and the Russian team made it down to join us for one too many homemade cognacs back at base camp.

We were blessed with plenty of luck on that trip. There we were, blindly stepping into the world of journalism, aiming to navigate the troubled water of climate science. We had presumed that Russia would be a difficult place to find the kind of people we were after. However, our first stroke of luck landed as we touched down in the foothills of the Elbrus region. Quite by chance, we discovered that Prof. Olga Solomina and her team had been working in town and had two hours left before departing. Olga led the IPCC group out of the Russian academy of science in Moscow. She holds a Noble Peace Prize for her work on correlating ice core and tree core data. We were lucky enough to talk to them in the field and set up a visit to their laboratories in Moscow for the end of our trip. This encounter was the perfect setup for the big question of Episode one – “Does the climate crisis exist and is it our fault?”

TANZANIA:

Tanzania was a different kettle of fish. Despite acceding the most challenging route possible, up the Western Breach, it is still the easiest mountain to climb of the Seven. We went in far more prepared and confident as a team, accompanied by another good friend from the UK ski scene – 2nd camera operator Tom Coe. As a result, our approach to documentary production was considerably more effective. We were able to cover more scenes better and returned with excellent coverage of the whole adventure. However, despite the well-oiled team, support crew and easier terrain, we still hit trouble. Whether it was the food or water, we do not know, but illness brought us to our knees a few days before the summit. Jon and Tom pretty were hit pretty badly, but Ed was at a different level. Most people would have halted the ascent and considered returning to safety and we certainly discussed sending him back. He spent two full days completely unable to hold any food or water. He was ill on an hourly basis for 48 hours and was too weak to carry a bag. Yet with his trademark strength of mind and the support of the team, he pushed himself up the western breach and onto the summit. He became the second person in history to ski the mountain and the first to ski the north face back into the crater. Will followed him down the north face shortly after, skiing the first section backwards, just for good measure. The following day the whole team climbed the remaining elevation to Uhuru peak and reached the summit sign together at sunrise. It was beautiful.

You certainly get the feeling in Africa that the climate situation is critical. Many Tanzanians already live their life on a knife’s edge. Finding adequate food and water for a family is a challenge with a rising population. As the temperatures rise and the rainy seasons either don’t come or give a lot less, that challenge may quickly become insurmountable. In Chaga (the tribe local to the Kilimanjaro region), the word for Kilimanjaro literally means ‘White Mountain’. If we cannot sustain the glaciers on top of Kilimanjaro, we will not be able to support life to the same extent in the region. Our scientific journey here was one of ecohydrology. The Tanzanians are powerless to do much about the larger effects of the climate crisis. They can, however, do something to preserve the glaciers by restoring the indigenous forests that should populate the area. We met the people trying to enact this solution. The key question for episode 2 seemed to be... “Now we know it is our fault... can we do anything about it?”

ALASKA:

Our third summit was Denali, Alaska - the tallest peak in North America. As mentioned, the hardest climb yet. 12 days up and 12 hours down. Denali is a war of attrition. Expeditions take between 12 and 21 days typically. The body and mind must fight high altitude, prolonged fatigue, and the potential for extreme boredom in unfavourable positions. 24 hours of daylight and altitude make sleep very difficult. As well as a significant vertical accent, it is also a very long distance from base camp to the summit – the longest of all Seven Summits.  Once again, the team performed well on the mountain overall.

Jon was struggling initially with the mental game of such heavy packs and the sheer number of crevasses in our path. After a few days, however, he found his stride and made significant improvement each day. On our final push to the summit, however, he once again hit a wall with altitude sickness at around 5500m. Furtive glances were exchanged as the team began to digest what it would take to get him back down from this point.  Never underestimate the power of coffee, sugar and team spirit. He made a remarkable recovery to push on to 6190m and was the first of our team to stand on the summit of North America. Will and Ed were strong throughout, and together the whole team skied from the summit back to high camp down some particularly icy faces. The following day we repelled down the rescue gully and skied back to the preceding camp, where another team greeted us with pizza. After a few hours of rest, we began the long and heavy ski back down to base camp. This was our first experience skiing downhill as a rope team through crevasse country with sleds and ropes lapping round our ankles. We arrived back at base camp just as the sun popped over the horizon and were on the first snow plane back to civilisation. Thanks to good weather and great logistics from our guide service (Mountain Trip), we completed the expedition in 13 days and gained 8 days in Anchorage to talk to every scientist and activist we could find.

Professor Jeff Welker from the University of Alaska Anchorage (himself a hugely passionate skier) informed us of the realities of Artic amplification and about the amount of carbon trapped in the permafrost of the tundra. To our shock, we learned that it would release as much CO2 annually as the US economy does currently and that because it isn’t ‘man-made’, it isn’t included in most carbon models. We then visited a local rally at which former present Trump reassured his public that “sea levels would only rise 1/8th of an inch in the next 300 years” and “not to worry”. A statement that stood in direct contradiction to all the scientific and indigenous communities we had met. Our understanding is that Sea levels will, in fact, rise a minimum 0.25m by 2100 without accounting for ice caps or glaciers melting or, indeed, for the rate of temperature increase to accelerate. The artic is warming between 2-4 times quicker than the equator, and the rate of ice mass loss towards the poles is hugely more aggressive. There isn’t much ice in Tanzania, so it is obvious that it is disappearing. It’s much harder to see this change in the land of ice, but it is happening. The key questions for episode 3 appear to be “do we understand the scale of our effect? Could it be bigger than we anticipated? What effect will this have on biodiversity?”

WHAT’S NEXT

Our next mountain is set to be Puncak Jaya, the tallest mountain in Oceania. It lies in a region of West Papua that has suffered significant civil unrest since the 1960s. Our intention was to climb this in October 2022, however, it has not been possible to gain permits for the mountain, and it has become progressively more difficult to navigate the process. For now, the island is closed, and we play the waiting game and continue to plan the logistics for Aconcagua and Mt Vinson for December 2023. Tentatively we have replanned to climb Puncak Jaya in April 2023. Currently, we foresee that the key questions of episode four will surround resource scarcity and extractive industries.

It is difficult to know how much of our future we truly have control over; therefore, we must continue as positively as possible with the best information we can find. Stand by to see if that gets us up mountains 4, 5, 6 and 7 before it’s too late.