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Spencer West Climbs Mount Kilimanjaro with No Legs
CTV/Mountain Climbing Adventures
About 35,000 people try to climb Mount Kilimanjaro each and every year, but only half have what it takes to make it to the summit. Of course, if you ask most people exactly what it does "take" to conquer the highest free-standing mountain in the world, "a pair of legs" will probably be at the top of their list. Spencer West would disagree.
Because, you see, West has no legs and he climbed the damned mountain anyway.
CTV/Mountain Climbing Adventures
Oh, so there's a hole there, and he's just standing ... wait, no.
West had his legs removed when he was a kid due to a genetic condition that left his lower spine poorly developed. Where anyone else would have accepted that they were destined to be Fate's punching bag, West decided to dangle over Fate's face in the night and teabag it -- he's made it his mission in life to redefine the meaning of the world "possible," and what could be more impossible than for a legless man to climb a mountain that kills 10 able-bodied people a year and sends back a thousand more on stretchers?
So, in 2012, West and two buddies decided to tackle the 19,341-foot mountain, spending seven days trekking through jungle, snowcaps, and desert, which of course presented a few practical issues: For starters, as you might guess, that's not the type of terrain you would normally associate with the phrase "wheelchair accessible." No problem: For 80 percent of the trip, West just walked with his arms -- and since arms aren't really designed for walking, he had to equip himself with elbow braces and plenty of anti-inflammatory meds to handle the stress. Also, he needed several pairs of sports gloves and shitloads of duct tape to keep the fabric together while he propelled himself forward in short but sustained strides.
SWNS/The Telegraph
He's the one on the right, in front of the archer and Isildur's heir.