The first all-Black climbing team has summited Everest

James Shackell

May 24, 2022

Before last week, only 10 Black climbers had ever stood on the highest peak in the world. Now six Americans and one Kenyan have written themselves into the record books, becoming the first all-Black team to summit Chomolungma, aka Mount Everest.

In huge adventure news, the Full Circle Everest team has become the first all-Black climbing group to summit Mount Everest.

The history-making climb occurred on May 12 2022, when seven members of Full Circle (six Americans and one Kenyan) officially stood on the highest peak in the world in the Himalayas on the China-Nepal border. They were aided by eight sherpa, with two team members directing the operation from Base Camp.

It’s hard to verify the exact number of Black climbers who have previously summited Everest, but by most accounts, Full Circle has nearly doubled it. According to the team’s website, despite roughly 10,000 successful summit attempts since 1953, “to our knowledge, only 10 Black climbers have stood on the top of Everest.” The first of these was legendary African explorer, Sibusiso Vilane, who tagged the summit in May 2003 (and who we had the pleasure of chatting to recently).

“There’s so few Black mountaineers at this level that it’s our duty, in a sense, to bring this to our communities, to our young people and talk about the benefits of being outdoors and connecting with nature and having a healthy lifestyle throughout their lives,” Full Circle leader, Colorado alpinist Phil Henderson told NPR.

“We had that shared experience of just standing out and being the only person that was Black, that had dark skin, doing their thing in the outdoors.”

- Manoah Ainuu

Full Circle is made up of nine Black mountaineers (seven men and two women) including Henderson, Manoah Ainuu, Fred Campbell, Abby Dione, James “KG” Kagambi, Thomas Moore, Demond “Dom” Mullins, Rosemary Saal, and Eddie Taylor. Expedition photographer Evan Green and technician Adina Scott fill out the roster, although they didn’t reach the summit on this occasion.

“I am deeply honored to report that seven members of the Full Circle Everest team reached the summit on May 12,” Henderson wrote in a statement. “While a few members, including myself, did not summit, all members of the climb and Sherpa teams have safely returned to Base Camp where we will celebrate this historic moment!”

The summit attempt officially took 36 days, but was also the result of months of patient fundraising and years of high-altitude training. Every member of the group had prior climbing experience at 20,000 feet, including successful attempts of Mount Kilimanjaro, Aconcagua and Mount Denali, the tallest mountain in North America. For reference, Everest’s peak knifes into the jet stream at 29,029 feet, which is roughly the cruising altitude of a passenger plane.

“You do as much as you can. It’s about putting in long days on your feet, in the cold, with weight on your back and at altitude if you can, in any way that you can kind of simulate that,” Henderson told NRP earlier in the year. “But then there’s also mental training. I’m a true believer in cross-training and doing a lot of different things, but there’s just no replacement for getting in the mountains and hiking.”

Full Circle’s successful climb is a huge deal in the context of racial diversity and outdoor adventure. According to recent studies, Black people in America are less likely to have access to quality parks, and nearly 70 percent of visitors to national parks and wildlife reserves are white.

In February, team member Manoah Ainuu—who climbs for North Face these days and has previously tackled Liberty Ridge on Mt. Rainier and Lurking Fear in Yosemite—summed up the spirit of the challenge. This climb wasn’t just about Everest itself, he said, it was about encouraging more people of color to get out there and embrace the mountains.

“We had that shared experience of just standing out and being the only person that was Black, that had dark skin, doing their thing in the outdoors,” Ainuu said. “It’s really powerful to be with other people that have experienced that same thing doing what we love, because we’re stronger together with those experiences.”

James Shackell

James Shackell is a freelance journalist with words in The Huffington Post, Red Bull, Canadian Traveler and Smith Journal. One day, he'll be bumped to business class, and you'll never hear the end of it.