Shawn Dawson summits Everest!

Deana Zabal­do photo

We are pleased to announce that Moun­tain Mad­ness client Shawn Daw­son has reached the sum­mit! Shawn is on a whirl­wind tour of the Sev­en Sum­mits in slight­ly more than a year. All he has left is Carsten­sz Pyra­mind, which is pos­si­ble this fall with a Moun­tain Mad­ness team, and Elbrus. Below is a dis­patch from his climb, which was com­plet­ed with Moun­tain Mad­ness guide Willie Bene­gas and his team of climbers from Argenti­na- con­grats to both (Willie’s 10^th ascent!).

“At 9:07 a.m., May 23 (Nepal time), Shawn reached the high­est point on earth, the sum­mit of Mount Ever­est – 29,029 feet or 8,848 metres above sea level!

The final leg of the climb up took exact­ly 12 hours, the hard­est 12 hours Shawn has ever expe­ri­enced. It took anoth­er six hours to climb down out of the ​“Death Zone” to camp 4, which sits at 7,900 metres. Dur­ing that 18 hours, Shawn was only able to drink less than half a water bot­tle and ate one choco­late bar. 

He called us from the tent in Camp 4, where he was try­ing to rehy­drate with Ramen noo­dles and get some sleep before the two very tough days ahead of him descend­ing back to Base Camp. Here’s how he described what is uni­ver­sal­ly thought to be the hard­est part of the tech­ni­cal climb up the high­est moun­tain in the world, the Hillary Step, a sheer cliff face at 8,760 m (28,740 ft):

“The Hillary step is real­ly tough – imag­ine putting on a pair of skates and then climb­ing up a cliff face in them. That’s what it feels like going up a straight rock face in crampons.”

On the way to Camp 4, a snow­storm blew in, and sev­er­al res­cues need­ed to be per­formed, which slowed Shawn’s descent out of the Death Zone. But the weath­er has cleared up and he is look­ing for­ward to get­ting back to the ​“com­forts” of Base Camp in two days.

He sends his love to his fam­i­ly and friends, and thanks every­one for the good wish­es, prayers, and encouragement.

Karen on behalf of Shawn…”