In October 2024 we will embark on our biggest adventure to date with 20 bereaved men including StrongMen staff climbing Africa’s highest mountain, Kilimanjaro.
Each and everyone taking part will have their own special reason for doing so, helping highlight men’s grief and awareness for the charity. As well as raising awareness, we are aiming to raise money to fund 2025’s Weekender events which are already receiving applications.
Our Weekender events provide a unique experience for all those that take part, more details of this can be found within the Weekender section of this website.
We need to help support more and more bereaved men and we need your help, so please donate now.
Our team of dedicated climbers
The training so far:
The Altitude Centre
Saturday 1st June saw our first group of adventurers take part in High Altitude Testing at The Altitude Centre in London.
The Altitude Centre is one of a handful of facilities around the World, and the only one in the UK, that enables you to experience the impact of altitude and is used by professional athletes, mountaineers, and charities preparing for events like StrongMen.
The day started with the usual bromance between the guys, then straight into the monitoring under the expert eye of Nick and his team. The visit to London started with a health screening followed by high altitude testing, taking the guys through a series of tests up to a max height of 5100m to identify their individual level of susceptibility to altitude sickness.
Watching the impact of reduced oxygen on your body was remarkable, seeing how quickly you recovered was also interesting.
Data and results will now be prepared for each and every one of the guys, to make suggestions on avoiding issues due to altitude. This, along with training plans, will now help us prepare as we get closer to our adventure.
Brecon National Park
The Brecon Beacons National Park is the perfect backdrop for our ascent on Kilimanjaro in October. Used extensively by the military, we were able to test ourselves and our kit in similar conditions to what we can expect on parts of our expedition to Tanzania.
Friday was the meet and greet at our accommodation beautifully nestled in Bwlch, part of the National Park. Food and a few beers were enjoyed that evening in advance of Saturday’s 18.4km hike heading up Pen-yr-heol Las then on to Cefn Moel, up Mynydd Llangorse, down and up the steep ascent to Mynydd Troed before heading back via Coed-Perth-y-piod Forest. Sunday everyone was up and out early taking in a hike up Sugar Loaf Mountain before heading home.
As is often the case when we meet up, much laughter and banter followed us around all weekend. We were also able to test our donated kit, thanks again to our partners Osprey, Paramo, Harrier Trail Running, Sealskinz, ThruDark, and Oxygen Advantage. It was also great to finally see the fabulous socks that Mark ‘Chocky’ McDonald has managed to source for us all. All the kit stood up well to everything that we threw at it making us much more confident that we will be ok when we leave for Africa in October.
Whilst it’s difficult to get everyone together as a group, the plan is to do one more group hike together before we depart to Kilimanjaro.
The Snowdon Six!
On the 10th October 2024 a group of 20 StrongMen beneficiaries, volunteers and their friends joined together through StrongMen will be climbing the 6 official routes to the summit of Snowdon.
They will climb collectively in groups across the 6 tracks climbing 1085m to summit Mount Snowdon at the same time. On the same day as our friends and brothers climb to the summit of Kilimanjaro.
Why? Because no matter where you are, where you are coming from or what direction you are going, you are not alone.
Below is a short film we produced, highlighting the journey through men’s grief filmed on location in the Brecon Beacons National Park featuring StrongMen staff, volunteers, and beneficiaries
The film was shot and produced by ZAK and High Stakes Films.
Please support us
Please like, share and support them on this... it never ceases to amaze and inspire us – those who are hurting just want to do something to help others and we should support that in every way we can.
Our supporters
We could not have put this trip together without the help of the following supporters:
