The summit of Hidden Peak lit by the midday sun.

     As for the pure sports aspect, the challenge may seem too ambitious. To summit the 14 highest peaks on earth and to do it in less than 12 months, climbing up without oxygen, with a very reduced, nearly minimum, human and technical gear.

     In the history of alpinism only two people had climbed (they are six now) these 14 summits. And they had done it in the course of several years. But, despite all, it was a very approachable project. Its difficulty seemed to be more apparent than real. Without any doubt, there are dozens of world-class alpinists who could fulfill this exploit. But in alpine climbing, a very qualitative sport, -where neither direct competition nor anxiety to beat records exist-, probably nobody had ever planned it.

	Flags of Buddhist prayers, which Sherpas use to seek the mountain's compassion.

     There were two situations which favor the viability of the sport project. The first one was the geographical proximity: the fourteen 8000m peaks were all located in the Himalayas, assembled in a relative small area covering Nepal and the North of Pakistan.

     This would reduce the time for shifts and let us attempt two summits in the same summit push. And the most important thing, it helped us develop a climbing strategy which reduced to the utmost the alpinists problems of acclimatization to high altitude.