Andrew battles all weathers to climb Mont Blanc for Children on the Edge

Last week one of our wonderful supporters Andrew Moir, took on the incredible Mont Blanc Challenge. After months and months of training hard, Andrew set off for a week of intense climbing, battling against very steep snow, ice and winds of up to 80kph.

At a huge 4808 metres high, Mont Blanc is the highest peak in Western Europe by a margin of over 500 feet. It is known as the undisputed heavyweight of the alps and is surrounded on all sides by glaciers, alpine faces and some stunning scenery.

Mont Blanc suffered from one of the worst summers on record with 20 people loosing their lives on the mountain this year. Luckily the week of Andrew’s climb had some brilliant climbing weather only hitting some strong winds as they neared the summit.

After 7 days of the best and most challenging climbing of his life, Andrew unfortunately didn’t quite make it to the summit. He describes the situation as ‘So near yet so far. Having battled in total for ten hours to reach the top of the glacier and face the final summit climb I was hit by 65kph winds that made the final knife edge climb in my view too dangerous to take on. We had a second day option but the winds increased to 80kph the next day.’

Around 80 climbers set off for the summit and of those only 3 made it across the extreme knife edge to the top. Andrew was lucky enough to be supported by a brilliant team, his climbing partner Louise (first met at the beginning of the climb!) and the New Zealand guide Tim Robertson.

Andrew assured us here in the office that it wasn’t all such hard work - He had the opportunity to stay in the extraordinary Gautier Hut overnight at 3600m with the other 80 members of the team which was a very luxurious experience and stood them in good stead for the climb ahead.

A huge congratulations to Andrew for an absolutely fantastic personal achievement and for raising a huge amount of funds which will go towards our projects working with those children around the world who are overlooked, ignored and forgotten, living in barren and dangerous places.

You can still donate to support Andrew’s incredible achievement, by visiting his Just Giving page.

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