Pinoy race on to reach Everest

Will a team of Filipino mountaineers or a lone Pinoy ranger who set out earlier this month to conquer the highest mountain become the first to plant the Philippine flag atop Mt. Everest?

The 1st Philippine Mt. Everest Expedition Team or Team Everest will make a major announcement today of its plans following the flight of information technology expert Romeo Garduce to Nepal last March 3, making his bid to carry the country’s colors to the mountain’s snow-covered peak.

It will be recalled that the expedition team, led by former transportation undersecretary Arturo Valdez, had been in "crisis" the past week ever since Garduce, who is in his 30s, left for Nepal.

Garduce’s planned climb was seen as a direct challenge to the 15-member Team Everest which had announced its bid to be the first to do so last year with their timetable involving several tune-up climbs of different alpine mountains in India, Nepal and Europe for the 2007 actual climb of Everest.

Valdez, in an interview with The STAR last week, admitted that the team was seriously discussing their options in the face of Garduce’s departure for Mt. Everest.

While wishing Garduce luck and safety, Valdez revealed the team was unconcerned with his solo attempt to beat them to the mountain top.

However, he revealed that there were seven members of the team who were already in Nepal for the team’s scheduled tune-up climb of another mountain in the Himalayan mountain range near Mt. Everest.

He said that the seven members of the team could be spurred by Garduce’s presence in Nepal to climb Mt. Everest ahead of them.

Dr. Ted Esguerra, a rescue doctor of the Philippine Coast Guard and a member of Team Everest, said that today’s announcement was about "changes" in their scheduled climbing Everest.

"We will announce it tomorrow," Esguerra said in an interview yesterday.

Esguerra admitted that the "changes" in their schedule were prompted by Garduce’s coming into the picture.

It was learned that Garduce’s climb of Mt. Everest was regarded as a "commercial" climb of the world’s tallest peak, which means that the climber would have to pay to be included in a three- to five-member climbing team escorted by "sherpas" and porters and veteran Everest climbers.

Commercial climbs of Mt. Everest have recently been offered to people eager to conquer the 29,800-foot (or 5.6-mile) mountain, and are regarded as a feature of the "high altitude tourism" being promoted by India and Nepal groups.

Esguerra said he and Valdez were due to follow the other members of the team later this week.

He said that the whole team was supposed to go together as one but several of them had pressing matters to attend to; he himself was kept busy helping out in the recovery and search and rescue efforts conducted for the victims of the St. Bernard mudslides last February.

"I just came from St. Bernard, Southern Leyte from the recovery and rescue efforts where the Philippine Coast Guard helped out," Esguerra said.

Esguerra said that way before Garduce, the team had long been prepared for the Mt. Everest climb but had chosen to stick to schedule and undergo tune-up climbs first.