We are on our way to a big mountain. Our biggest mountain so far… We we’re invited to join the UIAA Global Youth Summit on their expedition to Lenin Peak, a 7134 meter high peak on the border of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Who are we:

Groningen, our hometown is in the north of the Netherlands. When we both started studying biology there, back in 2006, we hardly knew each other, nor knew our shared passion for climbing. Yet, two years later, when Rim had been rock climbing for a while, and Thijmen had just started, we decided to do an alpine course together. It was a great start of intense interest in the mountains and mountaineering, and with an irresistible thirst for adventure we kept going to the alps from our flat little town, to ski, board, climb ice, rock and sometimes trees. And when opportunity knocked on our door, to be able to climb our first proper mountain, it was hard to say no.

About Thijmen:

Thijmen is a sportsman in heart. As a former ice skater he turned to alpine climbing where he could benefit from all the years training those legs. After gaining some rock/alpine climbing skills he recently added ice climbing to his reportoire. Climbing long steep routes in ice is what gets his blood pumping. Thijmen dreams of climbing big mountains in high places, pushing his limits and standing on top of the world. He has a gentle heart, and loves growing plants and sharing them with friends when he’s not running or cycling or…climbing.

About Rim:

Rim is a short (for a Dutchman) guy with huge dreams. If it’s not sailing the worlds oceans (he doesn’t know how to sail), or crossing the antarctic with sled dogs (his parents have a dutch sheepdog so he should be able to handle that), then it definitely would be walking though the Australian outback (which he did, 4 days before he got sick and hitchhiked back to civilisation) or climbing all the mountains in the Alps (which is why he moved to Chamonix for half a year but there was too much snow..) Rim has a passion for photography and film, and has started studying journalism instead of biology, because he likes telling stories, and hopes to document all of his adventures in the form of documentaries and photographs.