Ohio National Guard soldier climbs new heights with goal to preserve Everest

Serving in the Ohio Army National Guard for nearly 20 years, Quincy Stang has risen to new heights. But it’s what he’s doing out of uniform that he hopes will bring more awareness to an ongoing problem on Mount Everest.

“There's that no quit mentality that you're going to kind of go after something, whether it's big or small, and you're going to kind of give it all you have,” Stang said.

During his recent attempt this year to summit Mount Everest, Stang's perseverance and adaptability — skills harnessed from his military service — were stopped by Mother Nature when the weather window closed early.

“I was stuck at a piece of the climb between Camp 3 and 4. (It) should have only taken six to seven hours, it ended up taking me about 14 hours. So, with that, I had used up quite a bit of my oxygen on the final push to the summit ... was very close. I could see the summit, but unfortunately, the right decision was to turn around,” Stang said.

It’s not the first time Stang has had to ‘adapt and overcome’ as they say in the military. Over his years of service, he’s deployed in support of U.S. military operations in Kosovo, Syria and Iraq. In addition, he deployed to operations tied to hurricane relief and COVID-19 with support to the Freestore Foodbank in Cincinnati.

Much like the military deployments he’s been on, preparation is always key to success and while his most recent attempt didn’t end the way he wanted, it wasn’t without success of a different kind.

“My most recent trip to Everest, my partner and I, Tanner Brinck, we actually kind of made a vow that, 'Hey, we're gonna do our best to leave no trace. We're gonna have a net negative impact on the mountain.' So, in addition to everything we brought up, we actually brought down a kilo extra with us on our way down, just to kind of lessen that impact. You know, we want to leave these beautiful places for others to enjoy many years after we leave.”

Garbage on the mountain has been a major issue for years with trash ranging from oxygen bottles and camping gear to food wrappers and just about anything else you can imagine a climber taking up with them.

This is what he and his climbing partner hope to impact with their ongoing campaign. Their online GoFundMe will continue to help with that cause while they train to go back for a second attempt to summit Everest.

“We've actually partnered with a few agencies in Nepal, so any donations we receive now go directly to them, and what that's going to do is that's going to pay Sherpas in Nepal to actually bring down garbage. It may pay for helicopter transports to bring down additional trash or anything used up there,” Stang said. “So, the main goal, really, of the GoFundMe for the remaining time it is up, is to just get extra funds to those that are going to have the biggest impact.”

In the meantime, he plans to climb Denali in Alaska next year with some of his fellow Mt. Everest climbers. He has a two-year goal to get back to Everest to not only finally summit it, but to help continue cleanup efforts.

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