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Climbing Everest for a Cause: George LaMoureaux & 'America's Missing Children's Telethon'


Submitted by aneel on 2008-08-29

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by aneel


Everest has brought fame and glory to many a climber who has stood on its summit. Conquering the tallest peak in the world is naturally a milestone in a climber's career, but its heartening when the glory that's attached to the conquest is utilized for a worthy cause. George LaMoureaux's mission for climbing Everest is for the purpose of filming "The First National Missing Children's Telethon" going from the "Coldest Mountain on the Planet" (Denali) to the "Tallest Mountain on the Planet" (Everest). George, who is 51, has also survived five cancer surgeries. His climb to Everest, as he told us during the course of the interview, was also to inspire cancer patients "not to give up, to turn their life around and survive". Read on to find out more about his mission and his causes.

His Mission In climbing Everest

I climbed Everest because its part of our plan, which is the Missing Children's Telethon, an epic adventure seven years in the making, that would be aired nationwide, in one of the networks in America. Our theme was to go from the coldest mountain on the planet Denali (20,320ft) in Anchorage, Alaska to the tallest mountain on Earth. We had already climbed Denali before coming to Everest.

How does Broadcasting his Everest adventure help the Missing children's cause?

We are broadcasting a program which has both the climbing of Denali and the climbing of Everest to entertain America. Because typically America does not watch television if its not entertaining enough. If we had a program just telling people about the two to three thousand children that are reported missing in America every day, then they would just turn the channel. So we entertain them with an epic adventure and all the while we are broadcasting a separate message in typed form at the bottom of the screen to save and protect children's lives. Once we get their attention by entertaining them, then we can spoon feed the info about the missing children. Our political supporters include President George Bush, his brother Jake Bush and quite a few people in the Congress. We also hope to get celebrity endorsements and donations through the entire program.

My climb was also endorsed by the Lance Armstrong Foundation, to inspire and empower others not to give up when they have cancer because most of the people do throw in the towel and give up. I tried to do something so extreme that people may know that if I could do it , a 51 years old with 5 cancer surgeries, then they too can go ahead and survive, turn their life around and not give up.

On Climbing Everest

We climbed well .It was a very difficult climb. We started for the summit on the first window of opportunity we had. We started at night on the 20th of May, there was a full moon. At the Hillary Step we had to stop for quite a while, because there was long line of climbers but it did not matter and we made it to the top. We summitted on the 21st. Two of our team mates had to give up early: Saad and Nabs. Saad, who was planning to do a speed ascent fell into a crevasse and hurt himself badly, early in the climb. Nabs just did not feel physically up to the summit attempt. Sultan got dehydrated while returning from the south summit. He did not take extra oxygen and he had run out of gas. Tim tried to help him as well as Larry. Larry, who is a schoolteacher from Nevada, USA gave his oxygen to Sultan, with the result that he became so disoriented while climbing down. I found him lying on the snow. We shared my oxygen and climbed down slowly till we made it to the camp.

Suggestions To Everest Hopefuls

  1. Get a good expedition leader. I would recommend Tim Rippel of Peak Freaks.
  2. Buy extra oxygen and have it laid out all along the way, ready for any possible emergency.
  3. Get extra Sherpas. They know the peak, they know the problems and they know how to avoid them and save your life.

Ama Dablam - The next Peak He wants to Climb

I would love to come back and climb Ama Dablam , one of the most extraordinary and breathtaking mountain. I guess it would be more dangerous then Everest but at least we won't need oxygen.


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