Staff and students at the University of Leicester climbed the height of Mount Everest on Wednesday by ascending over 46,000 steps to raise money for the Nepal earthquake appeal.
They climbed the tallest building on campus over 359 times in honour of those killed in tragedy, including Leicester student Eve Girawong.
Over £4454 has been raised so far.
The Attenborough Tower at the University of Leicester is 52 metres high, Mount Everest is 171 times higher, at 8,848 metres.
President and Vice-Chancellor, Professor Paul Boyle, was among the 130+ volunteers sponsored to take part in the joint climb.
The University of Leicester’s Mountaineering Club and Dr Mary Ann Lund, of the University’s School of English organised the fund-raising event, speaking to Pukaar News she said, “We’ve got loads of enthusiasm from everybody who is involved, obviously lots of people have been deeply moved reading and hearing and seeing the stories about the disaster”.
Nutan Sapkota who is from Nepal climbed the tower over 40 times, she said, “it is important for me because it is directly related to me, my people, my family and my country, I wanted to do something meaningful for them, raising funds to support the earthquake victims”
“I wanted to do this, just to get out of the sadness to be honest, its really helping me”
One of Britain’s leading alpine climbers, Kenton Cool, who has successfully climbed Mount Everest eleven times endorsed the event and wrote on the group’s Facebook page, saying, “Love this idea, wishing you all the best in your quest to scale 8,848 metres up the Tower… interestingly David Attenborough* was a big climber in his day, and once said that any Englishman should at some stage in his life consider climbing Everest, making this even more special. Nepal has really been hit hard by this disaster and needs all the help we can provide, I’d like to say a big thank you from all my friends and colleagues in Nepal…climb hard, climb safe.”
Eve Girawong was on an expedition with Madison Mountaineering when the earthquake struck on Saturday 25 April. She was a student on a postgraduate course in mountain medicine at the University of Leicester, and had completed two of the residential modules.
Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/events/1014688491882232/
Donations can still be made at: https://www.justgiving.com/ClimbEverestinLeicester
