Thousands of New Zealanders pay good money and trek over one hundred kilometers (in wintertime, in sub-freezing temperatures) seemingly to visit a collection of rocks and prayer flags at ‘base camp’. Granted, in the climbing season EBC is the staging point for summit attempts of the tallest mountain on earth, however interesting fact, trekkers to EBC never actually step foot ‘on’ Mt Everest. Why bother then?
Adventure Magazine talks with Robert Bruce, founder of Got to Get Out who just completed his fourth group trek to the region, this time leading thirty (mostly) Kiwis to EBC return while also navigating some drama at 5,000m above sea level. He explains the draw card and why he believes EBC is an educational and cultural rite of passage for Kiwis, if you are prepared.
Where did your interest in Nepal first come about?
Got To Get Out (GTGO) is a social enterprise adventure group I founded in 2015. The group is designed to get Kiwis (or people living in New Zealand) active, outdoors, getting healthy and making friends. The whole premise of the group was to get people outdoors on safe and well-organised events, that ‘got people off the couch’. I never set out to become a particularly extreme outdoors operator, I just wanted to make it easy for people to get moving.
As I recall, back in 2015 no-one was really arranging free organized trips, so I guess GTGO was unique when I started writing on Facebook “who’s #gottogetout with me this weekend?”
It was while trekking through Nepal to Mt Everest Base Camp, my first trip to the region, that the idea of arranging group trips came about; I had recently left the corporate/ marketing world, not exactly by choice, but looking back it was exactly the change I needed.
This story is from the February - March 2020 edition of Adventure Magazine.
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This story is from the February - March 2020 edition of Adventure Magazine.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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