Inspired Musings

Everest

I intend to become the oldest American to summit Mt. Everest and have established a special savings account in which I invite donations to my project. 


PayPal is another way to donate – my ‘address’, account number, there is ckb7_2000 [at] yahoo.com

The oldest American to summit Everest so far is a 67 year old lawyer from Costa Mesa, CA. It took him 3 trips in order to reach the summit. Reading about it briefly, it appears he did not train correctly. The oldest person to summit Everest so far is a 75 year old Japanese man. A 76 year old Nepali man has summited but he is unable to verify his age. The oldest American to get above 8,000 meters [26,247 ft] was Clif Maloney who at 71 summited Cho Oyo, the sixth highest mountain in the world at 8201 metres, 26,906 ft. Maloney died the next morning, never waking up after spending the night at a high camp at 23,000’ the climbing party retreated to after reaching the summit.

My strategy is to train for Everest on Cho Oyo. Having established a climbing system I then plan to summit Cho Oyo one final time and then immediately go to climb Everest from the Chinese side of the mountain. This strategy would probably entail 3 trips to Nepal. I might return another time later to attempt the absolute age record on Everest when I become older than the then oldest summiter.

A very rough budget would be $20,000 to summit Cho Oyo the first time and then an additional $30,000 to summit Everest. Most Americans currently going with established climbing and trekking companies are paying about $75,000 or more for a one time attempt on Everest. My budget does not include most of the major equipment necessary such as food, nutritional supplements, tents and sleeping bags which I hope to get donated by manufacturers. If I am unable to get these donations another $50,000 would be needed, again, roughly. As a metric, 3 man mountaineering tents are now about $700 and a large base camp tent is $5000+.

Many thanks in advance for whatever support you can give toward this interesting and exciting project.

Carlos Ballantyne

Update 1/14/11      

I have been training with ardor – the mental and physical attribute, not the person – all through this winter and am climbing and hiking up to 40 miles a week. I am about to upgrade my training to hiking Mt. Baldy, the highest peak in the San Gabriel Mountain range of the LA basin. Baldy is about a 5000’ elevation gain, 12 mile climb. I plan to summit Baldy multiple times beginning about this weekend, depending on the trail conditions.

I have pretty much concluded my extensive nutrition and equipment research and am beginning to purchase gear which I plan to use on Baldy but that is also suitable for the 8000 meter peaks – Everest and Cho Oyo.

So far I have received $200 in contributions and have used it to purchase good used equipment on eBay. I have settled on using Cabela’s new Expedition grade tents and plan to get a 6 man version to test in the high winds in Death Valley this spring. I will need 2 six man tents and at least three 3 man tents. I hope to get Cabela’s to donate some of these.

I have been extremely fortunate to have two world class physicians in my corner for the past three years:

Dr. Andrew Yun performed a flawless hip replacement on me 1/3/08 and I am in better condition now than I was ten years BEFORE my hip dislocated and failed in 1997. This is due to my gait being straightened out as my failed hip was due to a congenital mis-alignment. Incidentally, I was attempting to best my time of 7 hours flat summiting and returning from the highest peak in So. Cal. – Mt. San Gorgonio – when I dislocated my hip. San G is a 6000’ elevation gain, 16 mile round trip climb. Dr. Yun is one of America’s top orthopedic surgeons and works out of St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, CA.

Dr. Herman Falsetti is a legend in sports and performance cardiology. I get at least yearly checkups on the treadmill or bicycle trainer from him resulting in a training schedule. A little background on my overall condition is my total cholesterol is about 127, my resting heart rate has been as low as 50 and I was once tested in the Himalayas by a scientific expedition and consistently had the highest dissolved blood oxygen levels of anyone they ever tested including all the Sherpa they tested. But, as ‘they’ say – that was Zen – this is Tao!