Posted by Chris Cole on Aug 07, 2018
 
Our Guest Speaker 6th August 2018 -Steve Plain - World Record Breaking Mountain Climb- Project 7in4
Steve Plain broke his neck in a surfing accident at Cottesloe beach in December 2014.
During this difficult period, whilst recovering, he planned his project to climb the 7 major
peaks on 7 continents in under 4 months and break the world record.
This was a major undertaking and had its genesis in a climb he did when he was a 15 yo
boy scout and he went to base camp on Mt Everest.

Naturally, however, as he had not done any “real” mountain climbing prior to this, he
commenced his “proper” training 11 months later by going to New Zealand and
undertaking a mountain climbing course in November 2015, with an experienced
mountaineer on Mt Aspiring (3033m) and then 9 other mountains culminating in Mt Lhotse
which at 8516m is only 300m short of Mt Everest.
Following his successful “practice run” acclimatisations and carefully planning the logistics
for his trip, he then commenced his project of climbing the 7 summits on 7 different
continents in under 4 months with the end objective of breaking the world record which
then stood at 126 days.
In planning his attempt he realised that in the Southern Hemisphere he would be climbing
in the summer season, but in the Northern Hemisphere he would mainly be climbing in the
offseason.
He commenced his climb on Mt Vinson in the Antartica (4892m) summiting on 16th
January 2018 and this was followed by Aconcagua (6962m) in South America on 28th
January 2018.
He then went to Africa and climbed Mt Kilimanjaro (5895m) on 14th February 2018.Whilst
there following the climb they also visited a nearby volcanic site that most people don’t
see.
 

He then flew to Australia and climbed the Carstenz Pyramid (4884m) which is mostly
steep with many vertical rock climbs.
This was followed by Elbrus (5642) on 13th March 2108 in Russia.
He then flew to North America to climb Denali in Alaska and he said this was their most
difficult and dangerous climb. They were there in the offseason and there was nobody on
the mountain, but they and the Rangers made them sign a form which had clauses in it
pointing out the dangers and the fact that probably, if anything happened, they would most
likely not be able to be rescued. The weather was atrocious and they had a weather
forecaster tell them there would be a 24-hour break in the weather and they relied on this
to climb the mountain, which took 20 hours and during the climb they got dehydrated, as
their water froze and their GPS equipment failed.T hey successfully completed this climb
on 3rd April 2018.
They then went to Nepal and summited Mt. Everest on 14h May 2018 and breaking the
world Speed Climbing record having achieved their feat in 117 days. The next day they
also climbed Mt Lhotse (8516M) which is next door to Mt Everest, thus being one of a very
few to summit the two peaks in consecutive days.
Steve completed his talk by saying he was also raising money for Spinal Cure Australia
and also the Surf Lifesaving Clubs of WA who were instrumental in his recovery. To date
, he had raised $45000.
 
 
The website  can found at  https://project7in4.com/