UPDATE: Summit for a Cause: Follow Mike Chambers '05 on Mt. Everest

UPDATE MAY 23
Mike Chambers '05 checked in with another audio dispatch from Mt. Everest earlier this week. Listen to Mike as he details the disappointing, yet necessary, decision to turn back at 27,5000 feet near "the Balcony." Mike describes the obstacles his group encountered as they tried to make the final push to the Summit. You can listen here. 


MAY 16, 2013
It is springtime in Central New Hampshire, with chirping birds and lawn mowers punctuating quiet, comfortable mornings on the New Hampton School campus. But halfway around the world one of the School’s most ambitious graduates is anything but comfortable. Mike Chambers ’05 is trying to ascend the summit of Mt. Everest on the border of Tibet and Nepal on May 16, the climax of a grueling three-month journey.

This climb, though, is not simply the tale of an ambitious man with a desire to achieve a daring feat which will buttress his ego for a lifetime. 

“A lot of people are so self-absorbed when they are summiting Everest,” says NHS Director of Studies Jennifer Shackett Berry ’83, Chambers’ advisor when he was at NHS.  "But with Mike it’s about him summiting and helping someone else.” 

The embodiment of  the NHS’s mission of cultivating lifelong learners who will serve as active global citizens — Chambers is climbing for a cause, Flying Kites, a non-profit organization that raises the standards of care available to orphaned and abandoned children. His goal is $100,000. 

Chambers — who grew up with his sister and fellow NHS alum Mariele '12 on the South Coast of Massachusetts — spoke into a satellite phone just 24 hours ago and made it clear what he desired on his next stop on the journey. He was at Camp 4 on the Everest ascent, perched at 26,300 feet.  (Check out other dispatches from Everest)

“Just talking into the phone without my oxygen mask is pretty painful,” Chambers said in his most recent audio dispatch from Mt. Everest. “We’ll see how it goes. It all depends on the weather…Hopefully the next time I check in I will have summited Mt. Everest.” 

A graduate of St. Lawrence University, Mike is engaged to Leila de Bruyne, who founded Flying Kites. He has run the Adventure Challenges Program for the Organization and remains deeply attached to the idea of creating life-changing opportunities for orphans in Kenya. Flying Kites provides and operates a home and school for some of the world’s most desperate children. 

“The mission is profound but simple; to raise these children as you would raise your own,” Chambers writes on ExpeditionX.com, where you can follow his progress as well as on Twitter and Instagram. 

Berry beams with pride when she reflects on what Chambers is doing for children who are less fortunate. Rather than piggyback on an existing cause during his ascent toward the summit of Everest, he is carrying a cause that has been a part of his life, a cause he has lived and worked for as he’s traveled and lived in Africa and beyond.

“He was always been super kind and aware of the people who struggled around him,” Berry says. “He’s been able to take his passion for adventure sports and turn it into something where he can help orphaned children and raise awareness.”