So much has happened in the last few weeks, leaving me in a bit of a tailspin. So allow me to explain it all in hope of getting the show back on the road.

On a positive note, the Climb of Hope expedition to Everest is still happening, just not when it was originally intended to.

Approximately 10 days before we were due to leave, a news report was issued saying that violence had broken out between Tibet protestors and Chinese armed forces. Several monasteries held peaceful protests in an effort to highlight Tibet’s effort to gain their independence. They were met with brutal military force and many monks were detained.

The unrest eventually led to China locking Tibet down to all outsiders including CNN News crew.

Russell Brice, our well respected Expedition Leader had no choice but to cancel the trip for 2008, but has retained all money paid to him and has guaranteed our places on his 2009 trip.

There were a few options available at this stage, but despite our efforts, they proved fruitless. The option to join an expedition from the South side was considered but later aborted. On the day the clients arrived in Kathmandu, China had still not issued permits to any climbing teams, which is obviously far from ideal.

Any teams that did make it onto the mountain, were not allowed to climb higher than Camp 1 until the end of April. China intent taking the Olympic torch to the summit of Everest and do not want any complications near the project. This would prove very problematic for climbers as they would not be able to acclimatise in preparation to summit. And the delay would create further difficulties, as it will be late in the season to summit, once the Chinese had been and gone.

So I have spent a lot of time rethinking and rearranging. I tried to arrange a place on an expedition to Mount McKinley in Alaska but it was too tight in terms of timimg and finalising additional funding.

The way forward
We now have 11 months to dust ourselves off and get back on the horse. Plans to create an even larger media strategy with exciting events and promotions.

One way to view this set back is to consider it as another 11 months to raise even more money for CANSA and get closer to the R1 Million goal…so watch this space!

I would like to thank everyone, including my sponsors for their patience and understanding throughout this rocky journey.

Please forward any advice suggestions and information to make sure these months leading to Everest 2009 are truly effective in reaching the goal of creating something life changing for many people. We are in the fortunate position to help those facing the hardship of cancer.

Robby Kojetin
Climb high for those who can’t.

News sources include:

www.cnn.com

www.mounteverest.net

www.everestnews.com

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 9th, 2008 at 11:12 am and is filed under Updates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.