First of all, happy New Year! We have the feeling that 2010 is going to be a total different year than 2009, a much better year! We hope you feel it too, cause, the feeling alone is already great!
For us 2010 will be a special year. It's the year of Cho Oyu and the first Climbing for Water expedition and pilot. We hope the project will be a success for ourselves, but even more for the water project in Nepal. It's so important to support these projects as problems grow bigger and bigger.
It's sad, but funny at the same time when you hear the discussions about our changing climate. Some say the Earth is warming up, others say we're heading to a new Ice Age. Who knows... Till now it's been very hard for us humans to predict the future, so we prefer to stick to the facts from this moment. Just look around you. You won't be able to see it everywhere in the world, but go out and explore any bigger mountain area. Here you'll witness the changes and the problems very clearly yourself. Here you'll see the melting of ancient glaciers, here you'll see the growing number and size of glacial lakes. You'll see dry riverbeds, waterpumps without water and dry crop fields... Ice Age or warming up, the problems in mountain areas are real and so is the call for help. The call for water...
Let's climb for water this year. Let's start helping, we hope you feel the need for it too. Join us if you can, communicate with us, here on this blog or perhaps somewhere in a mountain area somewhere in the world. If we could achieve this, then 2010 is automatically a great year. A step forward for us all. Have a great, healthy year!
Armand Dirks
