Climbers accept ultimate challenge
By Karie Atkinson
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The disabled climbers before they began their ascent.
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LONDON, England (CNN) -- An international team of four mountaineers has begun its ascent of northeast Tanzania's Mt. Kilimanjaro, the world's highest freestanding mountain at 19,335 feet.
But the team is not just any team. It has not only chosen a route that less than one percent of groups tackling the snow-capped summit opt for, but has taken on the challenge despite suffering from physical disabilities due to previous climbing expeditions.
"The group decided to take on the expedition to show that being disabled does not mean you have to give up your passions," says Musa Kopwe, managing director of MK Safaris, the company based near the foot of Kilimanjaro that has organized the team's climb.
"These guys are doing what most healthy people have failed to do," he adds.
The team includes Singapore's David Lim, leader of the 1st Singapore Everest Expedition in 1998 who contracted the rare nerve disorder Guillain-Barre Syndrome on his return. The condition left him totally paralysed for months and today he is partially disabled in his right leg and left hand.
Scotland's Jamie Andrew, who suffered from severe frostbite and had to have his hands and feet amputated after a climbing expedition near Chamonix, France, in January 1999, is also part of the team. Andrew is climbing with artificial limbs and prosthetic arms.
Other team members include Australia's Pete Steane and the UK's Paul Pritchard. Steen lives with permanent nerve damage and walks and climbs with the help of two leg braces due to a rock-climbing accident he suffered in 1982.
Pritchard, who lives in Tasmania, has limited control over his right side because of a climbing accident he suffered on the Totem Pole, a sea stack off the Australian coast.
In David Lim's last email of January 11 posted on the team's Web site, he writes: "The last few days have been interesting for all of us. We are getting to know each other's strengths and weaknesses. Each of us has different impairments and this has been a learning experience. Each of us struggles against our own limitations everyday."
The climbers began the expedition, named the Voltaren Kilimanjaro Challenge 2004, on January 9 and expect to reach the summit by January 17.
According to Kopwe, the local organizer of the climb, they have not chosen the normal route -- the eastern side -- that most climbers choose because they want to tackle something more technical with greater challenges.
They have thus chosen to start from the western side of the mountain. He says in the next couple of days they will choose one among three glaciers -- Little Penck Glacier, Great Penck Glacier and Credner Glacier -- to climb over to reach the glacial north face of the summit.
Funds donated to the expedition will benefit the Upendo Leprosy Center in Tanzania.
