http://blindsummit2011.blogspot.com
A few months ago I was working down in the Alps photographing the world MTB race series, we drove right through the highest mountain in western Europe Mont Blanc, and looking at it from down on the road I thought I want to get up that.
I come home a few weeks later, and tell my dad who used to, back in his day be an avid hill walker and climber...he said 4 simple words that made me think hard.
Take me with you.
You may think so what ? but when I tell you my dad is registered as blind, and has lost the majority of his sight it becomes a bit more of a task.
He has a genetic disease called RP
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retinitis_pigmentosa
Which in short is killing his retina from the out in, and will, in the not so distant future close up all together. Not having sight from birth must be horrible, but loosing it after 50 years of well lived life, knowing what your missing I can imagine being harder...
So we gave it some thought and said what the hell. Looked in to it all and Mont Blanc was too hard, to much climbing, to busy, to little chance of getting to the top with weather etc, so after some umming and arring, we went for the next best ( and bigger ) thing,Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Africa.
We have now started the Ball rolling, and it is 110% on.
We go over there and make our summit attempt on the 17th – 27th February 2011, on the Lemosho Route...and it will be the experience of a life time.
And some of the best father and son bonding you can do and that very few people manage to do.
He has dreamed of climbing one of the big mountains of the world since he was my age, and some 40 years on, with the blue badge and white stick we are going to make it happen with every ones kind support.
I will be setting up accounts on www.justgiving.com in the next 24 hours and we will start to try and get this Expedition out there to as many eye balls as we can and try and raise a lot of money and exposure for RP
Thanks a lot Jacob and Tim Gibbins
