OMG!… Stop the press and take a look at this.

A few days ago I decided to send an email to Ed Viesturs who is arguably the worlds best known mountaineer, for those of you not familiar with Ed’s adventures, in short he was the first guy to climb the worlds 14 highest peaks over 8000 mtrs without the use of supplemental oxygen. He also has been in numerous movies and has written several books, one of which is one of my all time favourites and was part of the reason I wanted to do this trek.

Ed makes Bear Grylls look like a wuss and Jean-Claude Van Damme a Princess, so he has earned my respect… if you want to know more about Ed just Google him.

Well hang onto your hats because he returned my email personally and sent a message to the Rockstars, below is the email I sent to him and then his reply.

Dear Mr Viesturs …may I call you Ed? …well Ed let me introduce myself, my name is Mike Lang living in Queensland Australia. I’m currently training my butt off getting ready for my first big trek which is to Everest Base Camp. My adventure started a few years ago after my wife bought me your book “No Shortcuts To The Top” this combined with Michael Palin’s documentary “Himalaya” I had a great desire to do the trek of a lifetime so I made the time and committed to training then gathered 6 great mates to join me on my quest.

Over the past year of training I have given all the guys your book to read along with John Krakauer’s “Into Thin Air” and as a result we have nominated you our climbing and adventure inspiration for the trip.

As it was my idea for the trip I have taken it  upon myself to try keep the guys motivated and focused on the end prize which will be us standing on top of Kala Patar and a visit to EBC. I was hoping I could convince you to send us a few wise words of motivation and support as I know this would give the guys a real kick and give them that final ounce of inspiration needed to complete our training and something to take on the trek with us.

We have started a small blog so our family and friends can follow our progress and it would be fantastic if you could post a short message from yourself on there, the name of our team is “The Everest Rockstars”  and our blog is www.theeverestrockstars.com  I would like to take the time to thank you in advance for either just reading my email or for making the time to send us that awesome message we would so much appreciate.

I wish you and your family all the best and hope we all get to read about more of your amazing adventures.

Best Regards Mike and the Team

And this is the reply from Mr Ed Viesturs himself…

How cool! Go Everest Rockstars!
Have a great climb of Kala Patar! Enjoy the journey!
Enjoy the friendships! You all will have an amazing experience.
Absorb the Sherpa culture-they are an amazing people.
Ed

Well this has certainly pumped me up as it’s not often you get a personal message from one of your heroes… Bring it on!

Cheers Mike