ON TOP OF THE WORLD: Moe al-Thani with the Qatari Flag on Mount Everest. Right: ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER SUMMIT: Moe at Mount Aconcagua in South America. file photos
By Anand Holla
When Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdullah al-Thani became the first Qatari to summit Mount Everest last May, the plucky young man had reached the pinnacle of his success, and even the pinnacle of mountaineering.
But Mohammed, or Moe as he is fondly known, has a slightly different perspective on scaling new heights.
While his two-month-long trek up Everest raised more than $1 million for education projects in Nepal, the brand ambassador for Reach Out to Asia (Rota) who belongs to Qatar’s royal family is now putting together a team to ascend Mount Kilimanjaro this October for another benevolent cause.
Moe says, “It’s a fundraising trip called Elevate to Educate, comprising eight Qataris who will climb Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa and the highest standalone mountain in the world. The funds will be used for helping children’s education in Palestine.”
The 32-year-old adventurer may have checked almost all the boxes of his mission to scale the seven highest summits across seven continents, but the thought of generating charity is enough to send him to the most treacherous of the snow-clad ridges.
“I have climbed Kilimanjaro twice,” says Moe, “Once in March 2010 and then again in November 2011. At 5,895 metres, it is a challenging climb but it is also a beautiful mountain. So this time around, I will definitely take my time and enjoy the nature. At the same time, I will be guiding the group and making sure everyone is safe and in good health.”
Moe’s mountaineering record looks as dizzying as his experiences must have been. In September 2011, Moe summited Mont Blanc which towers over the French Alps at 4,810m. In August 2012, Moe reached Mount Elbrus, which at 5,642m is the highest point in Europe.
In October 2012, he summited Australia’s Mount Kosciuszko at 2,228m, and in December 2012, he made it to the top of Mount Vinson at 4,892m, the highest peak of Antarctica. In January 2013, Moe scaled the fifth summit of Mount Aconcagua (South America), which at 6,962m is the highest peak in the Western hemisphere.
For the latest nine-day expedition featuring a seven-day-long climb, the Sharjah-based entrepreneur-mountaineer-philanthropist-photographer-sportsman and co-founder of UAE-based travel portal Musafir.com is getting each climber to commit to raise QR50,000 that will go towards the campaign. “Fundraising through sports is new to our region, but it’s very well established in Europe and the US. Basically, it involves family and friends showing their support, and companies pitching in as part of their social responsibility, who hopefully get a picture of their logo on the summit,” says the man who has raised both Qatar and Rota’s flags on the Everest.
Mountaineering has become a way of life for Moe, which is reflected in his commitment towards it. For two years before he literally made it to the top of the world at 29,035 feet whilst battling asthma and a rib injury, Moe trained six days a week for more than two hours a day.
His regimen included everything from swimming, weights, arduous treks on a treadmill inclined at 45 degrees, and exercises done in an altitude chamber (equipment that stimulates the thin oxygen levels one experiences on a mountain). Yet scaling Everest for Moe was, as it turns out for even the well-trained, was psychologically crushing. “The mental challenge is much more intense than the physical one,” he maintains.
Scaling Mount Kilimanjaro, too, is a herculean task, knows Moe. “This trip will compel the climbers to get out of their comfort zones and push their limits. They will have to train extremely hard for the next couple of months leading to the climb. We will also be filming this journey of us Qataris all along. A short film on the climb will be out soon after we scale Kilimanjaro,” says Moe.
A film made on their Everest achievement, too, was well-received. Going by the name of Arabs With Altitude, Moe and his four friends — Raed Zidan, first Palestinian man to summit Everest, Masoud Mohammad, Raha Muharrak, who became the first Saudi Arabian woman and the youngest Arab to summit Everest, and the videographer Elia Saikaly — realised the Everest expedition.
Just as climbing with his friends has been instrumental in keeping his spirits up even when the chips were down, Moe considers himself fortunate to have a family that believes in what he does.
When asked how he manages time to devote to his many talents and pursuits that range from being a businessman to an insatiable traveller, he says, “You forgot to mention about finding time for the most important thing — family.”
As any caring family, Moe’s, too, is concerned for his safety when he disappears into the hills for weeks on end, and yet it stands by him like a rock nevertheless. In fact, few years ago, he was on a mountain when his wife gave birth to a baby girl. As soon as he reached the peak, he called his mother and told her: “Guess where your son is at the moment? On top of the world.”
“I think the answer to managing time is passion,” says Moe, “I am passionate about all the things I do. So when it comes to managing them, I treat them all equally. And yes, where ever there is a will, there is a way.”
So how does the man who doesn’t believe in stopping mountaineering look back at the zenith of his success?
“I look at summiting Everest as having achieved one of my life’s goals,” Moe says, “There are many other mountains to climb and many adventures I would like to jump on to. Now when I look back, I miss the days we spent on Everest. During those days, everything I did was about reaching the summit.”
Somehow for Moe, that seems to ring true for these and the coming days, too — about reaching summits; day in, day out.
