to move up and down
Meet Spencer West, the legless Toronto man who climbed Mount Kilimanjaro
Toronto’s Spencer West, whose legs were amputated below the pelvis when he was five years old due to a genetic disorder, did what few people have done earlier this week when he climbed to the peak of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. A public speaker with Free the Children, he began his journey on June 12 with two friends and a team of guides and porters. The 31-year-old, spent over a year with a personal trainer in preparation for the climb, which has raised over $500,000 to create clean water programs in Kenya — still shy of the $750,000 goal. The National Post’s Jake Edmiston spoke with Mr. West on the phone from Moshi, Tanzania, at the base of Kilimanjaro.
Photos of the day, May 24, 2011
In this handout photograph released by Neal Beidleman on May 24, 2011, unidentified mountaineers walk past the Hillary Step while pushing for the summit of Everest on May 20, 2011. A U.S. survivor of the Mount Everest disaster chronicled in the best-selling book, Into Thin Air, Beidleman conquered the peak for a second time to lay the ghosts of the 1996 tragedy to rest. Beidleman, 51, had guided a group to the summit of the world’s highest mountain and was on his way down when a huge storm blew in on May 10, 1996, catching two teams climbing high on the mountain. (Neal Beidleman/AFP/Getty Images)
