Pinoy attempt on Everest: Go, scale the Himalayan heights, Romy Garduce!

I saw Bataan-born mountaineer Romy Garduce beaming with infectious enthusiasm on boob tube last week. He is not anymore the climber that is captured within the borders of a photograph and tacked on my wall. I saw him smile and move and wave to the camera and shake hands with the representatives of commercial and media entities who committed to fund and cover his climb to Mt. Everest - at 29,028 feet!

I first learned of Garduche (say Gar-dooch, that is his nickname) from Sunday Inquirer Magazine writer Maria Congee Gomez when she penned "His Steady Climb to Glory" last January 9, 2005 after Gar-dooch's successful climb to Mt. Aconcagua in Argentina. At 22,842 feet, Gar-dooch was reportedly the first Pinoy to have climbed the highest peak in South America.

That newspaper clipping of him clinging onto a rock donning a yellow shirt emblazoned with The North Face, with a figure eight and carabiner dangling from his harness, and the backpack that is buddy to every mountaineer, found a space on the wall of my rented room; purposely tacked at a vantage point so that everytime I open the door of my room I would always be reminded that "climbers rule!" - a slogan my peers and I yell in moments we bond on climbs as we worship the great outdoors.

Last week, I watched Gar-dooch on GMA-Channel 7, alive, beaming with that pride that is typical of every climber, enthusiastic, all that mountaineer energy spurting from every veins of him, the smell of his being an adrenaline junkie diffused from out of the boob tube. It was a report on a contract he forged for the blow-by-blow account of his attempt on Mt. Everest, snowcapped and gale-swept, with all of its dangerous crevices and crevasses. Everest is three times as high as Mt. Apo, king of Philippine mountains and every Pinoy mountaineer's penultimate dream, but thirty-folds more difficult and demanding of the technical skills in climbing.

After Reggie Pablo of the Batangas Backpackers and German national Eric Weihenmeyer, first sightless man on Everest, Gar-dooch becomes the apple of my eyes when I learned he does climb mountains to raise funds for charity.

Prior to his ascent on Mt. Aconcagua, Gar-dooch had scaled several peaks in Nepal, East Africa and Pakistan, including Mount Pokhalde (5,806 meters, peak), Mt. Gokyo Ri (5,320 meters, peak), Kala Pahar (5,600 meters, peak), Kongmala (5,600 meters, peak), Cho La (5,300 meters, peak), Uhuru Peak (19,400 feet), K2 Base Camp (5,400 meters), Throng La (5,400 meters) and Annapurna Circuit.

He is already set for his acclimatization climbs before his assault on Everest in December. He would scale the killer peak in an attempt to hoist the Filipino flag on the world's highest peak and for a certain charitable institution in Manila of which was not specified yet.

The documents would chronicle his way to The Khumbu Icefall after Base Camp, the Western Cwm (pronounced "kum") before Camp 2, the Lhotse Face after Camp 3, and The Balcony at about 27,600 feet past Camp 4 before the South Summit. And then The Hillary Step, a steep notch in the summit ridge that lies some 200 vertical feet below the top of the peak, presenting some of the most technically demanding climbing on the standard route up Everest.

And as I watched him smile to the camera giving his assurance he would make this attempt to prove Pinoys can do it, I cheered at his guts.

Go scale the heights and brave the elements, Romy Garduce! Let your conviction "ain't no mountain too high!" bring you there! And make all our mommas proud that we took on the passion of the "mangatkatay".

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For your comments, reactions, suggestions and contributions, crank up my email addy: pinay_mangatkatay@ yahoo.com. Or text me at 0921-5323616. Thanks!

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