pure mountains

This year, from July 5 to 12, as in the previous 11 years, we hosted a group of climbers from Arab countries (Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Dubai) and safely climbed Elbrus together.

How it all began: On May 21, 2011, my friend Suzanne Al Houby, a Palestinian by origin, completed the 7 Summits program by climbing Everest. We met Suzanne when she, with me as a guide, climbed Elbrus in August 2005. This was her second summit of the 7 Summits program, and after Kilimanjaro, Elbrus was not an easy mountain for her.

Having become the first Arab woman on the 7 Summits and Everest, she decided that it would be useful to share her mountain experience with friends and the world mountaineering community. That same year (2011), she created the first adventure and active holiday travel company in the Arab countries - »Rahhalah».

Suzanne describes her vision of tourism as follows: "We want to inspire, open the world to people and create a large adventure community of travelers, while respecting other cultures and preserving nature." Another goal of Suzanne is to convince people, especially women, that they can achieve the most difficult goals and bring the most daring ideas to life. Since 2012, she has been accompanying her friends to the mountains as a mentor, more than half of whom are women.

Over the years of acquaintance and work with Suzanne, a large number of climbers from such countries as the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait, Oman, Jordan, Iraq have come to us. And all of them were not only able to realize their dream and climb to the top of Elbrus with our help, but also get acquainted with our philosophy of careful attitude to nature and sustainable development of mountaineering. Going to the mountains with us, the participants of our expeditions gain knowledge about why it is necessary to change their attitude to excessive consumption and to environmental protection. This is a big step towards preserving the ecology of our planet, because many have never heard before about what environmental problems there are and how vulnerable the mountain ecosystem is. We believe that this is especially important for our guests from Arab countries, as many of them occupy the top positions in the rating of the most polluted countries in the world, including the UAE, Iraq, Kuwait, Egypt, Bahrain. We are very pleased that in this way we can help create and strengthen a community of like-minded people who want to preserve our beautiful mountain world not only for themselves, but also for future generations.

Thank you very much Suzanne for being with us for so many years and supporting our common idea! Our planet is our common value!