Going Up Down Under

I can’t believe it, less than a week to go till we hit Australia and begin summitting Mount Kosciuszko. There have been some major and exciting developments to the 7 Summit Challenge team and some pretty hair-raising ones as well. Like errr, the worry of visas not being granted in time, small stuff, you know? Like we don’t have enough to worry about! But I know, as with everything, God will come through and that everything will happen in its own good time and in time!

But now for the AWESOME news! Kabelo Mabalane, frontman of TKZEE, co-founder of the SHOUT campaign, musician, songwriter, TV host, actor and sportsman extraordinaire has joined the 7 Summits Challenge team and will be joining Alex Harris, the production team and myself on all of our climbing adventures. There are two reasons I am really stoked about this; firstly, like myself, Kabelo is a recovered addict and another shining example of hope that drug addiction can be overcome and shouldn’t hold you back from being everything you were meant to be. The second reason is that through Kabelo’s , the 7 Summits Challenge campaign will be able to amplify its message of awareness thereby encouraging people to engage with the initiative and raise more funds for Mountain Heights which aims to actively reduce the number of addicts in South Africa.

We tried to scare Kabelo off, but it wasn’t working, he is determined all right! Because he is already an exceedingly accomplished sportsman (climbing mountains and running the Comrades Marathon next month is no challenge for him) he is fit and fighting for our first climb which will see us heading to the land down under next week. NEXT WEEK!? Yikes!

The interesting thing to note about Mount Kosciuszko is not the highest mountain by any means  but it is the highest in Australia and therefore qualifies as one of the world’s 7 summits if climbed. Mount Kosciuszko is the high point of the Great Dividing Range, a long mountain range that runs along the entire eastern part of Australia from Queensland to Victoria and at a climb of 7316 feet, we’ll be easing Kabs into his challenge gently!

Climbing Kosciuszko means that we have bagged an extra peak. Now ‘peak-bagging’ which is an official mountaineering term is used when you want to add a summit to your belt in the event that one of the more difficult climbs is not achieved. This could be due to reasons such as political conflict or unrest which means that it is unsafe for climbers to enter into the territory of a specific mountain, bad weather conditions or one of your team members falling ill, so it’s a ‘bonus mountain, if you like. This by no means makes it less of a challenge in case you were wondering. So essentially we are ‘peak-bagging’ Mount Kosciuszko.

It’s not long now till I leave my wife and boys behind for this next adventure but thankfully it’s not a long one. We leave on the 26^th of April, we summit on the 28 8and we are back on home soil on the ^3rd. This however does not mean that we will take 7 days to climb but as Alex-the Machine-Harris is in charge of training we will also be rock climbing some of the awe inspiring routes in the Blue Mountains and just for fun, a couple 100km sessions on the mountain bike.

Quick work! And as mentioned in the previous blog post, we will be keeping you abreast of all our anecdotes and challenges as we embark on every climb. So stick around because the next post will be coming to you from the land that brought you Vegemite, didgeridoos and Steve Irwin.

So this is Mountain Heights...

Hi

My name is Marco Broccardo and I am a recovered drug addict. I am also a little crazy. Not crazy because I was a drug addict (although yes, that was not my best judgment call) but because my journey of addiction and recovery has led me to the challenge of summiting the world’s 7 highest mountains to achieve the goal of funding a self-sustaining drug rehabilitation centre to give addicts who truly want to recover the gift of hope and the chance of leading a successful, fulfilled and normal life as I have.

I am CEO of Eurocom, a communications and digital strategy company which is being used as a vehicle to fund the lunacy of my summit dream which I have called Mountain Heights and under Mountain Heights falls our 7 Summit Challenge. Now I know this all might sound very rosy and structured but believe you me, the journey to get where I am now, to acknowledge and make this dream a reality has been messy, violent, lawless and deceitful. But this blog is not about the horrors of drug -taking and its effects (well, ok, to a degree it is and a very important part of why I’m writing this) but this is more about bringing a message of hope to users and their families and to take you on the emotional journey as we train for the grueling physical challenges of climbing and to actually take you up the mountains with us.  Our swan song summit will be Everest, which we are hoping to achieve in 2013.

My story began like any other addict’s story. Picture it, Joburg, the early 90’s. An athletic young boy from a loving home starts dabbling in a little weed here, a cheeky line there and so quickly, so very, very quickly my using got out of control, the lights went out and my dark path through the belly of Joburg’s underworld and full blown addiction began. I did my first line of coke when I was 15, scary, huh? The crack cocaine and heroine days were particularly fun, my life was a smorgasbord of drug cocktails and using opportunities. But it’s this resolute tenacity and commitment to my addiction that was the same strength I drew on in my recovery. That and my faith in God.

To give an adequate account of the horrors I witnessed and the hell I put my family and loved ones through, I have written a book which is in its last stages of editing changes, I will keep you posted with developments, it’s a pretty gripping read if I do say so myself but it’s not for the faint-hearted. It’s a scary but accurate depiction of what a drug addict goes through and the horror their families witness as they systematically try and destroy themselves, but it’s not all doom and gloom, there is hope and recovery which is afforded to every addict if they are truly committed to a drug-free life.

So to make sure I keep you fully updated at all stages of this journey, anecdotes and the really bad stuff too, we’ll be using a satellite phone when we summit as we feed all our information to our 7 Summit Challenge Twitter and Facebook pages. We’ve already climbed Kiliminjaro where we blogged for IOL via the same satellite technology, there are some awesome pictures you can check out which I have uploaded to this blog and trust me, although there are smiles and jollies in the photos, it was one of the toughest challenges I have ever taken on as a first climb.

This journey is going to be epic and a thrilling read, THAT I can guarantee you. So please stick with us, the 7 Summit Challenge team which includes Alex Harris one of the first South African to conquer the seven summits as well as walk unassisted to the South Pole (talk about an underachiever), Barry and Michael our production team who will be creating a documentary of the entire process.

There are further exciting developments which I will be filling you in on during the course of the next week and I mean REALLY exciting. So till then, keep the faith and know that there’s hope, otherwise these crazy men would not be climbing 7 mountains.