The outdoor industry has a long way to go when it comes to embracing and making opportunities for people of color, but the people behind the Full Circle Everest Expedition isn’t waiting around for that to happen. The nine-person group is aiming to be the first all-Black and -brown team of Americans to summit Mount Everest, hoping to inspire other Black people to break down barriers in a space that, like so many others in fitness, has been historically exclusionary to people of color.
The team, led by veteran mountaineer Phil Henderson, announced the expedition in August 2021, and momentum has been growing ever since. The expedition, Henderson said at the time, “is bringing forward a greater conversation about Black and brown people in the outdoors and what that means: past, present, and future.” The all-Black team hopes to serve as “an important display of leadership, commitment, and teamwork” to their community and the climbing world.
Only eight Black people have ever summited Everest, said Eddie Taylor, a mountaineer on the expedition, in an interview with USA Today, and those summits came very recently compared in the history of Everest climbs. Subusiso Vilane became the first Black person to summit in 2003, and in 2006 Sophia Danenburg was the first Black American to summit; for comparison, the peak was first reached back in 1953. “Historically, Black and brown people haven’t been in these areas and environments, especially not on the highest point of the world,” explained Manoah Ainuu, another climber on the expedition, in the team’s announcement video.
The hope for this expedition, Taylor said, is to “give visibility and normalize this experience for Black folks.” And that goes beyond climbing mountains, he said, to simpler things like gardening or bird watching. “The sky is really the limit when it comes to people just getting outside and really understanding the benefits of spending time in nature,” Henderson added.
The expedition is currently in its fundraising phase and just hit its first milestone, raising $50,000 via its GoFundMe page. “In my wildest dreams, I did not think that people would support this project the way they have,” Taylor said in an Instagram video, explaining that the funds would go towards a deposit for the team’s permits and outfitter in Nepal. The expedition is aiming for a spring 2022 summit date, but even with their feet at sea level, it’s clear these athletes are already scaling mountains.