Who is Dan Mazur?

I came across Dan Mazur a number of years ago when two intrepid explorers, Rob Gauntlet and James Gauntlet were hatching their plans to scale the mightiest peak of all - Everest.

At the time, Rob and James were pupils at Christs Hospital School in the leafy depths of West Sussex. They invited Dan Mazur to a fund raising presentation evening and there he was - one of America's foremost Himalayan Mountaineers and as he said, more akin to an accountant than a mountaineer. However, I am are when you planning an expedition accountancy skills are important.

Dan was up on stage, dressed, as far as I can remember in brogues, cords, shirt and tank top - topped off with glasses. When I go to lectures by mountaineers they are usually in something at least 'outdoorsy', but with Dan it was a different image.

However this didn't detract from an wonderful evening of him talking about his exploits in the Himalaya and other greater ranges, the tales of mind over matter, body against nature to achieve his dreams and to help other achieve theirs, through work for a number of charities and taking commercial clients to the mountains.

Dan Mazur runs a commercial climbing company called Summit Climb and even has a fairly good entry in Wikipedia, something that one day, someone will do for me!

I' like to think I'm not obsessed with the man, but he does shine out - I am kept up to date with his and Summit Climb's adventures through his amazing and itchy feet inducing (and sometimes vertigo inducing) pictures on his facebook pages.

One day I'd like to think I'll be out there climbing with Dan or Summit Climb, being in the pictures, rather than just watching them from the comfort of my little office in Horsham.