EPreparations have intensified for the four intrepid South African women who are preparing to summit Mt. Everest in April 2020 as the first all-women team from Africa to complete the climb as they increase their training and experience.

The four mountaineers are Lisa Gering, Alda Waddell, Deshun Deysel, and Tumi Mphahlele, all from Johannesburg, with Ronnie Muhl, mountaineer and founder of Cape Town-based Adventures Global, managing the logistics.

Two members of the team, Lisa and Tumi, have just returned from Mont Blanc in France, where they were given rigorous crevasse, ice and snow training on two different glaciers by Neil Ward from Adventures Global Europe. Also on the Mont Blanc training expedition were Ronnie Muhl and his wife, Elizabeth, and three other mountaineers planning to summit Mt. Everest in 2020, including Nicole Capper, 2018 Mrs South Africa. Lisa says, “The expedition was priceless. We have had ice and snow experience in the past, but not crevasses, and every bit of the training was brilliantly executed and will be invaluable to our Mt. Everest climb.”