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Rebuilding amid rubble

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Photo courtesy of Kent Stewart.

For miles the only thing Kent Stewart could see was rubble.

On April 25, he had been in the dining tent at the base camp of Mount Everest, preparing for his second attempt to summit the mountain, when the ground began to buckle around him. 

The tent pelted him with debris, but Kent said he wasn’t scared because there were no buildings that could fall.

“As soon as it was over, we didn’t see what else had happened,” he said. 

Then the guides’ radios started going off. Teammates on the mountain had been hit with an avalanche. 

Tents transformed into hospitals as climbers who were doctors by trade came on duty. Kent assisted with a tent of the most critically injured, those facing head trauma. Five of the eight people he helped care for would survive. Nineteen would die on Everest that day, the deadliest day in the mountain’s history.

“It was amazing how everyone pitched in,” he said. “Everyone came together — doctors, cooks, Sherpas. I wish someone had been there to film it.”

Three days after the quake, Kent got a helicopter ride back to Kathmandu. That’s when he saw the miles and miles of rubble. He had hiked through those villages on his way up to the mountain three times now and knew each by name. Many of the Sherpas he had gotten to know on Everest live in the area. 

Kent returned home to Mountain Brook, where he has lived since 1981, but his connection to those villages never stopped. He and his wife, Julie, had set up a nonprofit organization, Seven Summits Foundation, several years ago to help the communities surrounding the “seven summits” they were seeking to climb. So they already had an avenue to raise funds for Nepal. 

Previously, the Stewarts had focused on paying tuition for children of Sherpas who had died on Everest, but this year they used the organization to provide funds to rebuild two villages where Kent knew Sherpas, Thame and Phortse.

They planned a Hike for Nepal at Oak Mountain State Park, and between that and other donations raised about $84,000.

All the funds raised at the hike were divided among 99 families in the villages to pay for roofing supplies.

There it’s typical to build homes out of local rock and mud and craft woodwork around doors and windows. Generations of residents have also used shale on their roofs. The shale was free but so heavy that it killed people when it fell during the earthquake. Using the funds the Stewarts have raised, the villagers can now purchase a lighter weight steel roofing as they seek to rebuild in a safer way that still maintains their culture. 

 “Rebuilding is slow, but I get pictures from my friends over there,” Kent said. “It’s almost like a barn raising with them all helping their neighbors.”

Kent is also concerned for the villagers since Everest’s climbing and trekking season closed early this year. It usually runs from March to May.

“Their economy is taking a hit,” he said. “They rely on the tourist money. If the country recovers by next year, I think it will be their biggest year ever.” 

He hopes the earthquake and a new movie on Everest coming out this fall will attract new people to the area. Most of his teammates are planning to go back next year if possible.

“Most people know an earthquake is a rare event and it’s unfair to blame a mountain,” he said. “It was just a natural disaster no one could predict.”

Kent has been on a mission to climb the seven summits since he and Julie climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in 2006, just after his 50th birthday.

At the time, he, a longtime golfer, had just worked his way up to running three miles. Today his training is more in line with Julie, a marathon runner. On Aug. 1 he started spending three to five hours a day in endurance training with the coach of a Norwegian cross-country endurance team.

Everest is the only one that remains on his list. Last year his trip was canceled, and the year before he got sick.

When he first started in 2006, the climbs were all about making the summit. These days, he has come to value the relationships he forms on the trips along the way.

When he returns to Nepal, he will see, and hopefully summit, Everest. But he’ll also return to see steel roofs and the Sherpas he knows who live under them. 

Kent will speak at the Mountain Brook Chamber of Commerce luncheon on Sept. 15.

For more information on the Stewarts’ foundation or to make a donation, visit sevensummitsfoundation.com. One hundred percent of proceeds go to the causes they serve, as the title insurance and real estate closing firm Kent founded, Reli, pays all overhead and administrative expenses for the work. The Stewarts plan to hold the hiking fundraiser again next year, possibly with funds going to another cause. 

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