Next Stop: Everest

Over the next few weeks, I’m hoping to share articles with you about my endeavor to summit Mount Everest, the highest point on Earth at 29,032 feet. A couple years ago, I wrote a retrospective in these pages (swat.ink/sidiqi-9-24-21) about becoming the first Afghan to summit Denali, the role that Swarthmore played in getting me there, and how the fall of the Afghan government changed the context of that climb. I will try not to retread that story, except to repeat that getting my 1,000 lap t-shirt at the Swarthmore Swim Club as a five year old was formative.

On April 23, I flew out of Philadelphia Airport towards Kathmandu, Nepal. The goal for the next three weeks will be first to finish my acclimatization by summiting Mera Peak (at about 21,200 feet) and then go to Everest Base Camp on the southern route to wait for a weather window to attempt a summit. If I have good connectivity, I will share some of the stories with The Swarthmorean along the way.

The reason I am climbing Mount Everest is to raise awareness and funding for the foundation I started, Afghan Peaks Charitable Trust (afghanpeaks.org), whose mission is to drive a strategy that can benefit the people of Afghanistan by developing their mountain skills and preserving the natural environment for generations to come. In past years, the foundation has run an

annual ski race, built skis locally to distribute to children, run avalanche safety classes, and helped sponsor Afghans competing in European ski races to try to qualify for the Olympics. In addition to supporting the foundation, I also inherently enjoy the mountains and will take pleasure from being high in the Himalaya pursuing a difficult goal.

I started Afghan Peaks with lofty goals when the situation in Afghanistan was quite different. While conditions on the ground have changed, the development of Afghanistan’s mountains remains important. If Afghans can build a local ski culture, they can build winter tourism as a long term economic pillar. Further, skiing is pleasurable in its own right, and developing a passion for skiing can create enjoyment for Afghans. If Afghan Peaks is successful in its mission, we will be investing in the building blocks that will support a healthier tourism economy for Afghanistan.

During the last few years, Afghan Peaks has been flexible in its activities. With the influx of Afghans under the U.S. “Humanitarian Parole” program, there were a lot of Afghans in need here in the U.S. who didn’t get the government support delivered to refugees. Afghan Peaks became the home for Afghan’s Rising (afghanpeaks. org/AfghansRising), an initiative of Strath Haven alumna Dr. Maria Aini. Afghans Rising raised more than $150,000 that went directly to supporting Afghan families who relocated to the U.S. and needed transition support. At the same time, the economic situation in Afghanistan was bleak, so rather than just focus on skiing, Afghan Peaks also raised more than $20,000 to distribute food in Bamiyan, the city which is the base of our ski activities in Afghanistan. We plan to continue on all these fronts in 2023.

Preparing to climb Mount Everest is multi-faceted. There is physical training, executing an acclimatization plan, gear selection, and the mental and physical preparation that comes from years in the mountains.

With the help of a book called Training for the New Alpinism and a six month training plan from Uphill Athlete, I would receive a workout each day that was uploaded to my Garmin watch to track progress vs. the plan. The plan has three main sections 1) base building, 2) strength building, and 3) muscular endurance.

Base building is the most important aspect of the training, and consists of putting in miles at a low heart rate. For novice climbers, it’s the most important area of focus. The concept is to train at a low heart rate so that we activate the fat burning metabolic cycle lipolysis efficiently. Higher intensity training engages the glycolytic pathway which can’t be sustained for more than a couple hours without extreme lactic acid buildup and ultimately a crash. In the beginning, it meant jogging for one or two hours. The difficulty was that to keep my heart rate in the target range, I would slow to a walk on longer hills, and then cut the course to catch up with my Swarthmore running group. It’s a bit demoralizing to slow to a walk, but if my heart rate got too high, it would be counter-productive to the training response I was aiming for. As my base training went on, I stopped being able to train with my running group because my base workouts became more specific; ending with four hour hikes with a 35 pound pack and a minimum 2,000 foot elevation gain. All these base workouts started and ended at my house on Park Ave. with the hikes going into the Swarthmore College woods and then Smedley Park.

The middle section, strength building, comes after some strength work (typically two calisthenics workouts a week in the beginning). The calisthenics build up was also fun as I was able to do it with a different group of runners, typically meeting at 5:30 a.m. in Swarthmore. The calisthenics culminates in the 12 plyos of Christmas — it was great to have a local crew to work out with for this phase. The body is then ready for mountaineering strength building. A typical strength building program focuses on pushing failure to break down our muscles, which then have a training response to repair themselves to grow back bigger and stronger. While this does add strength, it also adds mass, and that mass has to be carried up the mountain. In mountaineering, we focus on the mind-muscle connection — being able to effectively activate more of our existing muscle to provide more force for the same mass. To do this, we focus on heavier weights for very low repetitions, and never get close to failure. All of these strength workouts were done in my backyard using a tree stump donated by my neighbors, a backpack with weights, a duffel bag filled with mulch, and some rings hung from a pine tree.

The final section, muscular endurance, focuses on building the muscles specifically for purpose. The reason for strength building is to build up a strength reserve (the idea being that if I can step up with 150 pounds without failure, that I can step up with 80 pounds without stressing my body). Here I was a bit handicapped by the fact that we don’t have any mountains close by. For part of the preparation for this phase I broke down and got a gym membership at Planet Fitness for two months so that I could use their Stairmaster to do an hour and 40 minute uphill climb without interruption. However, my true muscular endurance training started with a drive to a parking spot under the Blue Route and then walking on the Leaper Smedley trail with a 90-pound pack and trekking poles to the old ruins in the forest and then to do laps with the pack up and down to Crumb Creek. This was the loneliest phase, as the workouts were so specific that they couldn’t easily be mixed with what my local running groups were doing.

In future installments I will weave in an explanation of my acclimatization plan, gear selection, and previous experience and link it to how it is affecting me on this trip.

I also want to highlight how supported I feel. Many residents of Swarthmore have been effusive in showing support for my climb and encouraging me in my efforts. I’m not just talking about my two running crews, but residents throughout town. It’s really great to come from such a supportive town. I think that has always been true and that it doesn’t just apply to mountaineering.