 Hey, good morning everybody This is Alan with Max and I got all my bags packed and you know, really wish I could take everything All my family with me and a good old Maxter here But I really don't think you get along too well with the yak So we're gonna go ahead and let him go. All right Max off he goes So let me tell you a little bit about this climb Obviously, this is climb number three in the seven sevens climb for Alzheimer's memories everything Summited Vincent back in December and Iconcagua in January had a couple of months here about really about six weeks since since Iconcagua Continue the training preparation and it's time to climb So let me tell you a little bit about the Everest climb I'll be climbing with international mountain guides as most people know by now Be climbing on their classic team, which means that I'll be climbing with a Sherpa And so what we're gonna do is first off I'm leaving this afternoon gonna go to Bangkok and then on to Kathmandu It's been a day or two there meeting up with the rest of the team And then we're going to Leucla the little airstrip about 9400 feet And then we're gonna take about ten days to track up to base camp at 17,500 feet and the reason we're gonna take so long is that it's not that far It's only about 30 miles But we need to get our bodies climatized to the altitude and so by taking our time We're gonna gently let our bodies create more red blood cells which carry oxygen to our muscles and That'll help us as we start to climb higher also the kumbu trek is just a fantastic part of the climb is everybody That's read anything. I've ever written about the kumbu nose. It's one of my favorite parts of any Himalayan so once we get to base camp, then we're gonna actually backtrack just a little bit back down near Gork Shep and climb nearby Lobache now, this is a 20,000 foot so-called trekking peak and I love that term trekking peak for a 20,000 foot mountain, but in reality, it's not very technical But the altitude is certainly challenging and that'll be an opportunity again to further Climatize and also to kind of get our mountain feet because we're gonna be climbing. There'll be some fixed ropes There'll be crampons. It obviously can be extremely cold at 20,000 feet. This is full of snow And so I've never chased so it's gonna be an interesting climb for me back to base camp and then Then we're beginning a climatic climatization process going through the the kumbu ice fall Up through the Western Coon up the Loatsey face and then back down to base camp now We're gonna go up and down as everybody is familiar by now with the whole Climatization process and that's gonna take around around three weeks or so to go up and down Several times and that again is to get our bodies to be a climatized back down to base camp and at this point It's really just kind of waiting for the weather window right now The schedule with everything being perfect, which it never is in climbing would be that we would summit around May 17th so we'll see how that goes but coming back to climb is going to be to go back up all the way to Camp 2 up to the South Coal and then that infamous 12 to 18 hour climb to try to get to the top of the world So I'll be dispatching writing post the entire way Sometimes it'll just be a voice dispatch other times will be a written dispatch I hope to be able to upload some videos to bring everybody along in the process and again as everybody knows This is all about helping to raise awareness for Alzheimer's and also to raise money to find a cure through research You know, I've got some very startling facts here on this page that I hope you read but Bears repeating over and over again that every 70 seconds another family begins that tragic journey And I'd say tragic because you know, there is no cure for this disease and the treatments treat the symptoms But you know, we need we need a lot more and that's what the research is all about So I'm really hoping that the people will sign up to pledge a penny a foot for every foot that I climbed So that's about a hundred ninety six dollars for ever and I calculate that by starting it at Leucla at ninety four hundred feet All the way to the summit twenty nine thousand and thirty five feet So that's where the roughly nineteen thousand feet come from that. I'll be climbing a penny a foot It's hundred ninety six dollars and it's over two months So, you know, if you think about how much you spend on coffee, it may be it's a better better investment over the next the next couple of months Please please follow along. I hope you enjoy the coverage I I'm gonna do my best to kind of cover what's happening on the mountain But you know, it's kind of difficult to cover both sides and climb at the same time So I think you'll understand and I hope you'll enjoy the overall coverage that I do I Think that's about it. So Next climb after this one is to Denali. It's very very quick Get back around the end of May 1st of June Then leave at the end of June for Denali and so lots more about the highest mountain in North America Once once we get Everest under our belt It is a difficult climb. I am well prepared It's gonna be an exciting climb I'm gonna absolutely do my best and I hope you come along but more importantly I hope you do a little bit of research and through the links on the sites Climb4AD.com go to our Facebook page Which is just Climb4AD in Facebook and of course on the blog here on AlanRnet.com But most importantly, I hope that you make a donation to the Cure Alzheimer's Fund or to the National Family Caregivers Alliance in support of family caregivers and they are the silent victims of Alzheimer's Okay, everybody. I gotta go gotta get to the airport gotta catch my flight. All right Climb on. This is Alan and remember, memories are everything