Kenyan James Kagambi has joined nine other team members hoping to become the first all-black team to summit Mount Everest. Kagambi is the only African in the Full Circle Everest Team. His team members are all Americans. He is also the oldest experienced mountaineer, and has summited all the highest peaks in Africa.
The team has already left base camp and aims to reach the summit in two months.
Kagambi told BBC that ‘the main goal of our expedition is to encourage people of colour to go out, to venture into the mountains, so that it’s not just white people out there. It is also to show people that they can do it, because there are people who they feel like this is not for us [black people], it is for them.’
Climbing Mount Everest costs about R1 248 501. Previous attempts to conquer the steep mountain have failed, the result of sponsors pulling out. Kagambi’s luck turned in 2021, however, with people rallying behind him.
To prepare, he has conquered Mount Kenya six times, followed by a two-week long expedition on the Rwenzori Mountains in Uganda.
‘I’m confident of summiting Mount Everest, but the other thing I say is – I will not put my life at risk to do it. I have done enough mountaineering to know my body. I can assess and tell myself [if] it’s time to go back,’ the Kenyan mountaineer said.
Picture: Screenshot from video
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