The Tribune

By DENISE MAYCOCK

Tribune Freeport Reporter

dmaycock@tribunemedia.net

FREEPORT –The Bahamian flag is flying high atop seven of the highest summits in the world, thanks to mountaineer Dave Mellor of Freeport.

At 72, Mellor has completed his quest to climb and “put the Bahamas on top of the highest mountain on every continent”.

His latest climb was in October of this year, when he planted the flag at Mt Kosciuszko, the highest mountain in Australia.

As always, along with the flag, he also left a set of Bahamian coins, and a scoop of local sand on every summit.

Despite being at a disadvantage, Mr Mellor – who did not have skis and snowshoes like the other climbers – was able to trek through knee deep snow and complete the climb at 12.45pm on October 5.

“I planted the Bahamian flag on the top… quite a momentous occasion for me since it was a personal ambition fulfilled,” he said.

But before the climb in Australia, Mr Mellor journeyed far south, sailing on the 106 year-old Dutch ship Europa to Antarctica, where he climbed two mountains in February of this year.

He said the ship set sail from Ushuaia in Argentina, the southern-most city in the world.

“After a wild voyage across the wildest set of oceans in the world, past Cape Horn and across the Drake Passage, I managed to plant the Bahamian flag on two mountains in Antarctica.

“Unfortunately, they were not the highest since the going rate for just getting to Mt Vinsen (the highest) is around $35,000, which is a ridiculous amount for an easy, but very inaccessible mountain… unless somebody feels like sponsoring a geriatric 72-old-year adrenaline junky?”

“I bent the rules a bit on the Antarctica section but from a personal point of view I feel that sailing there in a 106 year old ship across a wild ocean and scrambling up a couple of relatively rarely ascended peaks was good enough for me,” he said.

When asked if he has a ritual before a climb, Mr Mellor said before he leaves and after he returns home to Grand Bahama, he goes by the beach and dips his feet in the sea.

In 1999, Mellor started his quest by successfully climbing Mt Everest, which is the highest peak in the world. The Himalayan mountain is about 8,848 meters (29,035ft ) from sea level.

It is one of the deadliest because of the extreme cold temperature and low level of oxygen. Many mountaineers have lost their lives attempting to reach the summit.

Mr Mellor did it, but suffered several injuries in the process.

“Everest beat me up quite badly,” he recalled. “Busted discs, cracked ribs, torn tendons, extreme weight loss, facial paralysis, snow blindness, frostbite et cetera. So it took a few months to recover and during this time, I decided that the next step would be to put the Bahamas on top of the highest mountain on every continent.

“This would involve leaving a flag, a set of Bahamian coins and a scoop of Bahamian beach sand on every summit.”

Mellor said climbing Everest and seeing the bodies of climbers frozen in snow was a bit of a reality check. However, that did not quench his love of climbing.

In 2000, Mellor was back in action and celebrated the Millennium by climbing Mt McKinley (Denali) the highest peak in North America, as well as the two highest mountains in Mexico.

In January 2001, he climbed Mt Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa, and Mt Kenya, the second highest peak.

In July that year, he climed another Himalayan giant in the Karakoram mountains of Pakistan, Gasherbrum 2, also known as (K4).

Mr Mellor had a close call during that climb, when he got hit by an avalanche and suffered a concussion.

“I did not manage to clip in on the safety rope and so I had my arm wrapped over it, and it knocked me out. I came around after a few seconds later and this Australian guy I was climbing with, I said to him, ‘gosh, you’re covered in blood, and he said, ‘yeah it’s yours.”

In 2002, Mellor celebrated his 60th birthday by climbing Aconcagua, the highest peak in South America.

He also set a world record later that year as the oldest man to climb Lhotse, the much more difficult south peak of Mt Everest. He held that record for the next five years.

In 2003, after suffering a couple of heart attacks, Mr Mellor took time off from climbing.

“To keep life interesting I teamed up with Peter and Monty Higgs of Nassau to kayak the full length of the Exumas,” he said.

In 2005, Mr Mellor resumed his climbing at Mt Elbrus, the highest mountain in Europe. And he climbed a few more Himalayan peaks.

In 2006, he climbed Aconcagua again, but within a week of returning home, he was diagnosed with a serious heart condition and had to have a pacemaker and defibrillator implanted, which slowed him down for the rest of the year.

Mr Mellor, who loves adventure, decided to do something completely different and joined his brother to make a trans-Atlantic flight in a single-engine Cessna plane from Bangor in the USA to Spain.

In 2009, he was back climbing again. This time it was Manaslu, in the Himalayans, the sixth highest mountain in the world.

Mr Mellor achieved another world record as the oldest climber ever to summit.

“To train for this, I climbed the Ecuador Volcanoes, Cayambe, Cotopaxi, and the highest mountain Chimborazo, the summit of which is the closest point to the sun on earth,” he said.

In 2010, Mr Mellor almost attained the summit of Shishapangma, the highest peak in Tibet.

For a complete change, in 2012 he joined another Freeporter, Ralph Eicklebeck, to sail the Atlantic as crew members on the 108 year-old square rigger sailing ship Alexander von Humboldt.

This experience led to him taking another trip on a second square rigger, the Dutch Ship Europa in February of this year.

In October, he flew to Australia to join the Europa in the Tall Ship Race from Sydney to Auckland in New Zealand.

The week before the race started, he decided to climb the last of the so-called Seven Summits, Mt Kosciuszko.

“It was still winter there so I found myself wading through knee deep snow (everybody else had skis and snowshoes),” he said.

After his climb, the Europa, on which Mr Mellor was a watcher, went on to win the Tall ship Race.

He has also walked up to the top of Mt Alvernia, the highest point in the Bahamas.

“If you add it to the other seven it is probably another record,” he said.

Mr Mellor said people should follow their dreams and their heart’s desire.

“There is nothing to stop you, I am 72 now, and during the time I have been climbing I had five or six heart attacks,” he said.

Mr Mellor has taken part in base jumping (jumping off a mountain with a parachute), skydiving, and bungee jumping.

His next challenge is bicycling across America early next year.