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March 25, 2003

Texas teacher giving up attempt to climb Everest

From: News Journal, TX - Mar 25, 2003

BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

DALLAS — The team of people with disabilities trying to climb Mount Everest, the world’s tallest mountain, is down by one. Mark Gobble, 28, of Austin, is returning home to be closer to his family.

The team is making the 23-day trek to Mount Everest’s base camp in hopes that traveling through the poor, remote and harsh environment would shake common assumptions about what is possible for people with disabilities.

Gobble, a teacher for the Texas State School for the Deaf, left the group Thursday, four days into the journey through the high Himalayan Mountains to the foot of Mount Everest. He said he was uncomfortable being away from his wife and family during wartime and away from other deaf people.

The nine remaining Americans with disabilities and others on the trip said they are saddened and disappointed by Gobble’s departure. He had taught them much about deaf people, they said.

Gobble said in a story in The Dallas Morning News that the trek was the longest he had ever spent without daily interaction with others who are deaf.

He long has had contact at school, work and social settings with people who can hear, he said, but added: “I always got to go back to the deaf world. ... I need that environment.”

Gary Guller, 36, of Austin, leader of the Team Everest 03 Challenge Trek, said he would continue up the mountain with a four-person summit team. If successful, Guller — an experienced climber — would be the first person with one arm to stand atop the 29,035-foot Mount Everest.

Most of the team plans to climb to the 17,500-foot base camp. Then Guller and a few others will attempt to continue to the peak.

Gobble said he thought hard about the impact his decision could have on his students. He and his interpreter and teaching colleague, Christine Kane, spent the last year preparing a teaching curriculum on Everest for their middle school students and tested the program online for use by other schools.

© 2003 Cox Newspapers, Inc.