Cincinnati’s Greatest/Bravest Athlete is from Loveland, Ohio
Mt. Everest – Everest has always been the dream for Loveland resident of 26 years, Matt Brennan. He is currently trying for the 2nd time to complete the 80-day climb that has only been completed by about 4,000 people in history. Brennan would be the first in the Cincinnati area to make the trek.
Brennan would be the first in the Cincinnati area to make the trek.
Brennan has a goal of climbing the “Seven Summits” – the tallest mountains on each of the seven continents. He’s conquered Mt. Aconcagua, Mt. McKinley, Mt. Kilimanjaro, Mt. Elbrus, and Denali. Less than 500 people have completed the challenge, and less than 150 Americans have summited all seven. Last December he climbed to the summit of Mt. Vinson in Antartica.
1. Mount Everest
Known as Sagarmatha in Nepal and Chomolungma in Tibet, the western world knows the tallest mountain as Everest. Named after Edmund Hillary – the first confirmed climber to reach the peak in 1953, the mountain used to be called simply Peak XV. Accompanied by a local Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, it took the two men a total of seven weeks to summit.
“I dreamed of this as a kid. I had posters on my wall of Mt. Everest as a kid. I’ve dreamed about it, so the opportunity to climb it is really quite emotional,” Matt Brennan told Loveland Magazine in March of 2018 during his 1st Everest expedition. Brennan explained that if something unfortunate happens above 21,000 feet, it could very well mean death. Something like 1.5% of Everest climbers die. It’s not uncommon to see corpses along a trek.
The thousands of hours of training and years of work lead up to one potential 5.5 mile-high peak.
On March 30 all of Matt’s team of 11 climbers had arrived in Kathmandu to begin their journey to the Everest summit.
On April 8 Brennan arrived at the Everest base camp at Lobuche and moved into his tent – His home for the next 7 weeks. He wrote on Facebook, “We have our Puja ceremony tomorrow asking the mountain for permission to climb and it looks like we will tentatively head up the mountain for our first rotation on April 19. All good. #unfinishedbusiness.” Lobuche (or Lobuje) is a small settlement near Mount Everest in the Khumbu region of Nepal.
On April 28, Brennan reported, “Good morning from basecamp. Well, the temperature can go from -10 degrees to 80 degrees with a simple sunrise.”
Hello from basecamp. We have been spending the last few days on acclimatization “hikes” up to Pumori Camp 1 at 18,500’ and enjoying the views of Everest and the Khumbu Valley. We are fairly well rested now and it looks like rotation 2 has been pushed back to May 5 or 6. This is in part due to an impending weather issue but also an attempt to avoid other teams on the mountain. It’s a strategy game right now. The lines have not yet been fixed to the summit so nobody has “summited” Everest this year from the south side. That’s likely to change in the next week to 10 days – at least we hope.
Until then we’re hanging in basecamp, eating 3 meals a day, and spending 4 hours a day hiking/climbing in the worlds greatest mountain range. Not bad. #unfinishedbusiness.
Follow Brennan’s pursuit of Everest on his Facebook page: Matt Brennan of Cincinnati and Mount Everest or: MOUNT EVEREST CYBERCASTS
Read about Brennan’s first attempt to conquer Everest:
Nerf football defeats Loveland Everest climber Matt Brennan
“I WAS IN THE GREATEST CLIMBING ARENA IN THE WORLD. I CLIMBED UP THAT MOUNTAIN, I JUST DIDN’T MAKE IT TO THE TOP”
Loveland, OH- For Loveland resident, business owner, and mountaineer Matt Brennan, failure is just another step to greater success. On March 25th, Brennan set out with one goal: to summit the world’s tallest mountain. Through a nearly lifetime of training and months of rigorous preparation, Brennan attempted what no other Cincinnati-area resident had. Although he didn’t reach the top (due to an injury) he plans to utilize his defeat in order to push himself to a new height next year, when he will attempt again. Read on…
They lie frozen in time, thousands of metres above sea level. The grim death toll on Everest is becoming impossible to ignore, says Rachel Nuwer.
“But when I say our sport is a hazardous one, I do not mean that when we climb mountains there is a large chance that we shall be killed, but that we are surrounded by dangers which will kill us if we let them.”
- George Mallory, 1924
No one knows exactly how many bodies remain on Mount Everest today, but there are certainly more than 200. Climbers and Sherpas lie tucked into crevasses, buried under avalanche snow and exposed on catchment basin slopes – their limbs sun-bleached and distorted. Most are concealed from view, but some are familiar fixtures on the route to Everest’s summit. Read the full article at BBC Future…
