Charity work behind jeweller’s bid to scale Mount Everest

Jewellery designer and anti-gender-based violence (GBV) activist Angela Yeung is gearing up to become the second South African woman to climb Mount Everest from the Tibetan side after Cathy O’Dowd 26 years ago.

Apart from 40kg of equipment and the physical preparation that included walking up and down the Westcliff stairs with backpacks, the 48-year-old philanthropist has also steeled herself psychologically for the venture, including seeing the bodies of dead mountaineers along the way.

“I chant a lot,” said Yeung, a married mother of one. “I’ll chant for them, respect for their lives.”

Her adventure to scale the world’s tallest mountain at 8,848.9m is priced at close to R800,000 and there are no luxuries at that altitude.

Temperatures can reach -50°C and water boils at nearly half the temperature it does at sea level, but it takes longer because they’re melting ice. With the tiring effects of less oxygen at those altitudes, the weight of a climber’s backpack doubles.

Climbers are also required to put all bodily waste in thick plastic bags and bring them down with them where they are checked by authorities. “You need to bring your poo down,” she said, addressing a press briefing at her offices in Sandton, Johannesburg, on Tuesday.

Climbers left the full bag outside the tent overnight, letting it freeze before bringing it down. “They’re checking on us the whole time and the Chinese side is more strict.”

Yeung, a former ballroom dancer, wasn’t always the outdoors type, rejecting her husband’s suggestions of camping. “I said ‘no ways’, the only star I want to see is a five-star hotel. I don’t want to go camping.”

It’s a tough endeavour and potentially fatal, but Yeung’s inspiration is the charity work she does against GBV through her Impilo Collection Foundation.

“Knowing my ‘why’, climbing for the cause, that keeps me pushing. I’m just an ordinary person making impossible possible. I’m not the fastest, I’m not the strongest, but I’m the person who can go the furthest because I know my ‘why’,” she said, adding she always planned to approach the climb with sufficient caution.

“I’m not there to suicide myself.”

She began her mountaineering career on Kilimanjaro in 2018 and again in 2019 for Caring4Girls, collecting sanitary pads.

During the Covid-19 pandemic she started a food drive, collecting 10 tonnes, which kick-started her foundation to deliver. During that period, one of the girls asked for bras, saying not wearing them was seen as an invitation by abusers.

Yeung’s next adventure involved collecting 6,165 bras in her assault on Island Peak, a 6,165m summit in the Himalayas.

Then came 8,163 bras to match the summit of her next conquest, the formidable Mount Manaslu. She twisted her ankle badly on the way down and had to push through the pain to get to Camp 2 from where she was rescued by helicopter at a cost of $5,000 (R90,426).

Last year she did Ama Dablam, a technical 6,183m peak she believes offered her important experience for Everest — which involves a daunting 8,849m and 8,849 bras.

Yeung plans to fly out on April 15, though she may leave earlier if the permit comes through faster than normal.

She will fly to Nepal to join her sherpa, who has taken a double amputee to the top of Everest, and they will drive to Tibet to begin their two-month epic to summit the world’s tallest mountain.

The odds of success are less than 33%, according to the statistics she presented. Of the 214 women who have attempted the north side, only 32.7% succeeded; of the 1,702 men the rate was only marginally higher at 32.9%.

Chinese climbers are given preference to go up first, said Yeung, whose father was Chinese and mother Japanese.

But she is South African, as reflected by the colours of her suit.

The north side is considered safer than Nepal, with fewer climbers and the authorities demanding expedition companies remove the bodies of dead clients.

Yeung has introduced a mountain range into her jewellery designs.