Felix Berg Felix is a proficient technical climber and graduated mathematician, who lives in Switzerland and France. Felix started his 8000m-peaks career as co-leader of a 2002 Kangchenjunga expedition, then guided Everest from Tibet in 2004. He climbed Broad Peak In 2014, Cho Oyu and Gasherbrum II in 2018 (a new variation on the west face), Everest from Nepal in 2021, G2 again in 2022 (normal route), and solo-climbed up Manaslu in the spring of 2023. He is a very well-organized person, and a strong climber, with good ideas, always eager to help others. Since living in Nairobi, Kenya, from 2002 to 2003 he has successfully led many Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya ascents and built up our African team. He is a climbing expert too, with many ascents up to grade 5.14 in sport, and has a strong background in alpine mountaineering.
Oscar Cadiach Oscar Cadiach is a legend in high-altitude mountaineering. He has climbed all the 14 peaks above 8000m height without supplementary oxygen. Many of his climbs were along new routes and he has accomplished the first ascent of Broad Peak Central from China. Cadiach was born in 1952 in Barcelona and grew up in Tarragona. In 1985, Oscar climbed Mount Everest, becoming the first climber ever to free climb the second step on the north side. Over the last 30 years, Oscar has undertaken numerous expeditions, including to Africa and South America. Since 2016 he has been working for SummitClimb and led our team to the top of Broad Peak in 2017, his 14th peak above 8000m. Since he has led expeditions to Ama Dablam and Mount Kenya with us. Oscar always has a smile on his face and has a very laid-back personality despite his fame.
More information on Oscar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Òscar_Cadiach
Dani Fuller is a Briton from Hampshire, who also has lived in France and Spain. Since we met Dani in 2009, he has been a leader for SummitClimb. He has climbed Mount Everest, Manaslu, Cho Oyu, Ama Dablam, Baruntse, and Island Peak, and led many Glacier School expeditions. Dani is very friendly, an excellent teacher, and a good friend to all of our members. He is always helpful and kind to others and a very strong climber and well-organized leader. We know you will enjoy meeting Dani Fuller and climbing as well as trekking together.
Max Kausch Maximo Kausch is one of the most accomplished climbers from South America. He has reached the summit of 89 x 6000-meter peaks in South America / the Andes and climbed over 100 more worldwide. As expedition leader, Maximo has led several expeditions for us and although operates all our Aconcagua expeditions. He showed his extraordinary physical resilience during ascents of Ama Dablam, Cho Oyu (8201m), and K2 (8611m) as an expedition leader and private tours on 8000m peaks in the Karakorum. You can also benefit from his South American experience and his skills as a leader on your Aconcagua climb.
Martin Szwed born in 1981, started mountaineering in 2002. In 2009 he graduated as a physicist from the University of Konstanz and decided to live a life full of adventure. We met Martin in 2016 as a helpful participant of our Ama Dablam expedition. After successfully climbing Kilimanjaro (2008, 2012), Aconcagua (2013), Elbrus (2013), Denali (2014), Mount Vinson (2014/15) and Carstensz Pyramid (2015), Martin completed the Seven Summits (the highest mountains on the seven continents) with us on Mount Everest (2018). He traveled to Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan a total of 13 times, where he also climbed Khan Tengri (2006) and Peak Lenin (2012). Many 4000m-peak-ascents in the Alps and mountains in South America such as Ojos del Saladas (2013), Monte Pissis (2014), Alpamayo, Huascaran, and Artesonraju (2015) complete his alpine profile. Martin has been leading expeditions for us since the summer of 2018 - these have already taken him to Pik Lenin, Ama Dablam and Cho Oyu. Our participants are convinced of his helpfulness. Martin is married and when not in the mountains, he works as an industrial climber, often together with his wife, or is on extensive training runs with his dog.
Magdalena Wilczek is a passionate mountaineer and summit enthusiast. Born in Katowice, the famous ancestral home of many Polish alpinists, she started her mountain adventures as a child. Her passion for mountains and wanderlust has taken her to almost all mountain massifs of the world: Pamir, Karakorum, Himalayas, the Andes, Atlas, Alaska, Caucasus, without forgetting the Alps, Pyrenees, or native Tatras. During her travels, she has climbed numerous four-, five- and six-thousand-meter peaks, including "classics", such as Matterhorn, Mont Blanc, Elbrus, Djebel Toubkal, Mount Kenya, Kilimanjaro, Denali, Aconcagua, Ama Dablam, Mount Vinson... Very much at ease on seven-thousanders, she often leads our expeditions to Tian Shan and Pamir where she climbed Pik Korzhenevskaya (7105m), and Pik Lenin (7134m) multiple times. Magdalena has worked as a consultant and manager in the aviation industry and her organizational skills are valuable to our mountain tours and company. Extensive experience in numerous sports disciplines, from swimming, wreck, and ice diving to skydiving, tennis, climbing, skiing and high altitude mountaineering make her an all-rounder in sports. She speaks languages like sports: Polish, German, English, French Spanish (all fluent), good knowledge of Russian and Mandarin. As an active mother, Magdalena supports women's presence in mountains, often together with her three children.
Angel E Armesto Angel Ezequiel Armesto is a professional high mountaineering guide, graduated in 2001 at EPGAMT Mendoza. Angel was one of the first high mountaineering guides who graduated at EPGAMT Mendoza. Since then he has successfully guided 87 expeditions with 44 summits on Aconcagua and several at the Himalayan Range, including 2 x successful Mount Everest expeditions, Cho Oyu, Ama Dablam, among others. He has also led expeditions with very complex logistics to very remote peaks including Mount Vinson in Antarctica. In the Andean range alone, Angel has climbed over 75 different extreme altitude peaks.
Karl Egloff , born in 1981, is our Swiss mountain professional in Ecuador. Grown up in Quito, he learned early from his father Charly mountaineering, his Ecuadorian mother he owes the understanding of the country and its people. With his agency and selected mountain guides, some of them German-speaking, he organizes ascents of Cotopaxi, Chimborazo and other mountains, trips to the Amazon, the highlands and the Galapagos Islands. Karl personally participates in many of our mountain tours as a leader and mountain guide. Besides his work as a helpful mountain guide, he is one of the most successful speed mountaineers of our time. In addition to holding records on his home mountains Cotopaxi (ascent, up/down hut in 1h 37' in 2012) and Chimborazo (ascent up/down hut in 3h 59' in 2017), he holds world records on four of the seven prestigious Seven Summit mountains. Karl lives with his wife and son in Quito, Ecuador.
Dominik Franz , IVBV mountain guide, likes to describe himself as a full-blooded alpinist. From an early age, he was on skis and his father instilled in him the enthusiasm for alpinism. Living out this enthusiasm for alpinism with like-minded friends was an educational component of his youth. Alpine ventures in the Alps, the Rocky Mountains, the Karakorum, and the Andes followed. Dominik discovers glee in being able to view the world from the vertical and great heights. In 2017 he stood with our guests on the summit of Muztagh Ata (7509m). When he is not climbing or mountaineering privately or with guests in the mountains, Dominik studies and lives in Innsbruck.
Matthias König is a passionate mountaineer and extreme skier. A full-time secondary school teacher, he has repeatedly led alpine tours with students. In recent years, he was often found in the Asian high mountains, where he climbed Peak Communism (7495m) in 2015 and Dhaulagiri (8176m) in 2017 as his first eight-thousander. He climbed peaks such as Ama Dablam, Chapaeva Peak, Khan Tengri, Ararat, Damavand, and Kluchevskaya Sopka as part of extensive travels to all corners of Asia. However, his real focus is steep face skiing. He has skied numerous steep faces like the beautiful Laila Peak in Pakistan and in the Alps the Marinelli Couloir on Monte Rosa, the Lauper Route on the Mönch, or the Matterhorn East Face. In addition to mountaineering, Matthias also paraglides and enjoys launching on high peaks. His language skills include native High German and Bernese German as well as English, French, Italian and Russian.
Daniel Mazur is a legend as expedition leader and mountaineer. Since more than 25 years he has uninterrupted lead expeditions and treks to the mountains of the world and has thereby climbed eight of the fourteen 8000, including highlights as the K2 on the difficult west ridge and the first traverse of the Makalu. He also ascended many other peaks, often several times, as Kilimajaro, Denali, Pumori, Ama Dablam, Mustagha Ata and Cho Oyu. He is most widely known for leading Greg Mortenson's 1993 K2 expedition in "Three Cups of Tea", a bestseller book, and for the rescue of Lincoln Hall, an Australian climber on Mount Everest on May 25, 2006
More details to on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Mazur
David O' Brien David has climbed in the Indian and Nepalese Himalayas as well as in the Alps. He has led expeditions in the high arctic island of Spitsbergen and has a liking for the cold and remote having crossed Greenland by ski. He has organised and led overland trips in Asia and North Africa. David has been climbing and working with Summit Climb since 2006 and is a thoughtful, considerate leader. He was assistant leader on Everest in 2010 and will be back on Everest for the fourth time this year. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and lives in London with his partner and child.
Jürgen Oblinger Born in 1984, is a trained engineer and IVBV mountain guide aspirant. As a Basic participant, he got his first taste of 7000m altitude air with us on Pik Lenin (summit) and Khan Tengri (attempted one-day-ascent, 6700m). That was in 2017, the same year he quit his engineering job to make a full-time living from the mountains. Before that, he had climbed wild north faces, already was a strong rock, ice and ski alpinist. On two private trips to the Peruvian Andes, he climbed lesser-known 5000-meter peaks and a few 6000-meter peaks, sometimes via technically challenging routes. In the meantime, Obi, as Jürgen likes to be called, is about to complete his mountain guide exam. In 2019 Obi took over his first tour guide for us on Mount Kenya and since then it is hard to imagine our team without him. In 2021 he lead our expedition preparations and a Lenin Peak ski expedition. He lives together with his partner in the Allgäu (southern German Alps) on a rustic mountain pasture, enjoying the simplicity and modesty in nature.
Pasang Rinzee Sherpa is a seasoned mountaineer with a passion for conquering challenging peaks, who has achieved remarkable success in ascending some of the world's most iconic mountains including multiple ascents of Mount Everest, other 8000m peaks in Nepal, numerous 7000m-peaks (Himlung Himal, Muztagh Ata, Pik Lenin) and 6000m-peaks. He started guiding in 2009 and is well-educated in rock climbing and high-altitude rescue with NMIA (Nepal Mountaineering Instructors Association, 2017-18), helicopter rescue and mountaineering with NMA (Nepal Mountaineering Association 2016-2018) and is currently joining courses to become an international mountain guide (IVBV/UIAGM). His dedication to mountaineering is matched by his commitment to guiding and capturing the beauty of these experiences through filming. In 2021 he worked on the winter ascent attempt with Simone Moro and Alex Txikon, in 2023 worked as a camera operator on Mount Everest and for Kirstin Harila on Dhaulagiri. Pasang led his first SummitClimb group in 2022 to successfully scale Lobuche East and Ama Dablam.
Int. Summit Team At SummitClimb, we are a dedicated team of professional mountain guides and tour leaders focused on excellent logistical preparation and, above all, a passion for the mountains in which we work. Our expeditions and treks are led by one or more comradely world-class mountain guides, depending on the size and complexity of the undertaking. Our team includes top athletes such as Karl Egloff, Felix Berg, and top-notch Sherpa guides and international mountain guides - the allocation is still being made to this expedition/trekking/climb according to demand.
Kilimanjaro Team We are here for your climb. Our Kilimanjaro team has been built since 2003 by Felix Berg with Yitzhack Maasi from Tanzania. These extremely experienced and reliable men organize and personally accompany many of our trekking trips to Kilimanjaro. We work with certified guides from KiNepa (Kilimanjaro National Park) and are committed to good working conditions for the porters. Together with UIAGM-mountain-guides we constantly train our local guides. Thus we guarantee the realization of the Kilimanjaro trips already with small groups under local leadership and with 8 to 14 participants one of our European experts takes over the leadership. For our mountain tours on Kilimanjaro we have our own material store in Moshi with kitchen tents, accommodation tents, sleeping tents and rental material. Experienced drivers, porters and a super kitchen crew make sure that your safari (translated: "journey") will be well remembered.
Africa Team Since Felix studied in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, from 2002 to 2003, he got to know not only the country and its people but also those who are capable of reliably organizing trips and safaris. He combines the experience and know-how of professional mountaineering on 8000m mountains with a love for the mountains of Africa. Over 15 years we have found, trained, and developed a number of experts for your mountain tour. Duncan Nderitu is our logistics manager and main mountain guide for Mount Kenya, where he has been to the highest points (Nelion/Batian) over a hundred times. On Kilimanjaro, we have our own team, but Duncan accompanies many of our combination trips to the highest point in Africa. For Rwenzori and Uganda, Boniface, himself a former ranger on the mountain, now director of the Tourism Union of Uganda, takes responsibility. Elvira Wolfer, a Swiss who discovered her love for Africa, emigrated to Nairobi and took over a travel agency there, keeps track of everything, and organizes our safaris. In North Africa, we work together with a classical travel agency and are still expanding our structures. For all group dates, we guarantee from two participants the execution with one of our local mountain guides. For 8 to 12-14 participants, one of our European experts (additional!) takes over the leadership.
Central Asia Team The countries of the former Soviet Union and Xinjiang Province in China include a number of interesting mountains, most notably the Pamirs and the Tien Shan. We work with one agency in each of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and China, and our senior staff on the mountain are mostly from Kazakhstan. Felix Berg, our managing director (pictured on Peak Lenin), has brought these different intersections together to help us make your expedition in Central Asia a success. Many of our guides on site like Boris Dedeschko (winner Piolet d'Or 2010) are among the most experienced high altitude mountaineers in the world. A good organization and an extensive stock of material both in Bishkek and in Kashgar complete a perfect setup for this region of the world. Smaller expeditions or groups can make their expedition dream come true with our local connections and groups of 6 or more full-service participants are additionally supervised by one of our international expedition leaders.
Markus Weber is a trained mechanical engineer and IVBV mountain guide. As early as 1999, he got his first taste of high altitude in Alaska on Denali. After two successful ascents, he pursued goals in the Swiss Alps for family reasons. Whether on steep walls or long ridges, on rock and ice, on skis, or with a paraglider, the mountains always fascinated him anew. In 2017 and 2018, Markus made his first trips to Nepal. Thereby it led him to the Ama Dablam, 6812m, and to the Tilicho, 7134m, followed by ascents of Kilimanjaro in Tanzania (2020) and Peak Lenin in Kyrgyzstan (2021).