February 2007

Andrew is gearing up for his next foray to the Himalaya on his journey to achieve Summit 8000. With his remaining summits being Makalu, Annapurna and Shishapangma Main, he hopes to attempt two of these mighty peaks in the same season. Stay tuned for more information shortly.

June 2007

On 24 May 2007, Andrew completed one of his most outstanding climbs with the first Australian ascent of Annapurna 1, the world’s 10th highest mountain at 8091 metres.   Despite being the first 8000 metre peak to be climbed (by the French in 1950) it has since received the least number of attempts and ascents of all the ‘8000ers’, and, due its extreme avalanche and objective hazard, has the worst death rate (1 in 2 climbers!) of all of the high peaks.

Andrew joined with an international team of veteran high altitude mountaineers for the attempt, and despite the majority of the climbers withdrawing from the climb due to extremely difficult and dangerous conditions, reached the summit at 3.20pm with Ivan Vallejo (Ecuador) and Fernando Gonzalez (Columbia).

Ecstatic about the ascent and greatly relieved to finish the expedition, Andrew has now returned to Australia.  In the near future he will tour the country to present a series of public audio visual presentations about the expedition. See Upcoming Public Presentations.  

He also continues to be highly sought after as a Keynote Speaker and is now taking bookings for speaking engagements.