A combat-wounded Marine veteran made good on his third attempt to scale the world's highest peak, the group behind his climb announced Thursday.
Staff Sgt. Charlie Linville, whose injuries in a 2011 blast in Afghanistan led to the amputation of his right leg below his knee, made the climb as part of "Operation Everest: 2016," a team assembled by The Heroes Project, a nonprofit group that sponsors climbing expeditions for wounded warriors and active-duty soldiers.
Linville was joined at the summit by project founder and president Tim Medvetz, videographer Kazuya Hiraide, producer Ed Wardle and a team of Sherpas. The group was the first to reach Everest's summit via the mountain's north face during this year's climbing season, according to a Heroes Project news release announcing Linville's achievement.
This time around, Medvetz, who climbed Everest in 2007, and Linville had been in training since late 2015, including spending time in chambers designed to simulate high-altitude oxygen levels.
The Heroes Project founder Tim Medvetz and Charlie Linville looking at Mount Everest in 2014. Their climb that year would be cut short after a deadly avalanche.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of The Heroes Project
This year's team reached the Everest base camp April 17 and outlasted weather delays before making beginning the final push to the summit on Wednesday, per the release.
A team including two active-duty soldiers as well as retired Army Staff Sgt. Chad Jukes, who lost his right leg below the knee after injuries suffered in Iraq in 2006, is also on the mountain. A spokeswoman for that team, which is climbing under the banner of the nonprofit U.S. Expeditions and Explorations group in an effort to raise awareness for soldiers' mental health issues, said Thursday that the climbers don't plan to attempt their push to the summit until next week.
Kevin Lilley is the features editor of Military Times.
