Climber Max Polyakov from EOS Team who dreamed of Everest

The story of the climber Max Polyakov from EOS team, who dreamed of climbing the Mountain Everest

climber Max Polyakov with his EOS Team

Climbing requires many skills as is it not a usual hobby for a normal office person. Max Polyakov can now be considered as a truly skilful alpinist. His story is quite fascinating. He was born in India to a family of British alpinists, in which his father, John Polyakov, was a highly experienced climber with a record leading up teams of professional to the highest destinations of the world. And so, as the metaphor says, “The apple doesn’t fall far from the trunk,” describes the life of Max Polyakov’s family in a perfect fashion.

Indeed, from the early earl of Max Polyakov’s adolescence, he started hiking with the EOS team on weekly basis. That was partly due to the fact that one of the team’s members was Max Polyakov’s future wife. Her name is Jessica, who is also a descendant of a British family that settled in India in the 1960s. So, the climbing experience of the two started from reaching the top of Lhotse within 5 days. This experience set the two for a long story together.

Max Polyakov’s team, the EOS, is another interesting group that is worthy of attention. It is an Indian-based climbing team with members from around the world. Its leader, John Sepp, is a US citizen who climbed Everest several times, and he is truly capable of leading the EOS team to reach it one more time. The crew has 15 regular members who do not hold back at any given challenge. As what they do best is climbing on top of mountains, to set records as the most enduring human beings alive.

The days that Max Polyakov realised that he enjoyed climbing was in 1996 when he first went hiking with his father to the mountains of Kilimanjaro. They did not go too high as max was still young, but they wild camped for 5 nights during their hike. The experience was a truly challenging one for Max Polyakov as he did not know much about surviving in the wild. Yet, his father John did a great job at leading both to their full enjoyment.

The only problems that they had to watch out for were the snakes and other wild animals that could easily kill them both. But John taught Max Polyakov well on how to handle such dangers. He gave him clear instruction, “do not provoke any animal that you see,” and “they are also extremely scared of you so, be kind to them.” Those bits of advice set the mind of young Max Polyakov just in the right direction, as he was not scared of venomous animals any more.

New Delhi hiking team EOS

Wishing to take the hiking hobby a step further, Max Polyakov joined a local hiking team in New Delhi called EOS with the leader John Sepp, who has a dear friend of Max Polyakov’s father. And so, during their first months of membership, the team travelled to Europe to hike in Tatras mountains. They stayed there for 10 days, but they were not allowed to wild camp in those mountains as the local authorities preserved the wildlife, including bears and lynx.

This experience was overall a great one, but Max Polyakov did not test his survival skills just yet. The team camped on camping sites and sometimes at hostels, where they found available showers and kitchen utilities at their fullest. Some of the enjoyable parts were watching the nature of the Tatras which included lakes and rivers.

After coming back from the Tatras hiking trip, Max Polyakov invited Jessica to go on another trip together to the Kilimanjaro. This was the time in which they were both teenagers and had a lot of ambitions towards climbing and hiking in the most challenging sites in the world. Therefore, the most ambitious idea of them all—was to climb mountain Everest. But they both knew that it was not an easy task. Many professional climbers died during their reach to the world’s top spot, and others simply lost their limbs and parts of their faces because of frostbites.

Altogether, climber Max Polyakov with his EOS team did a great job at climbing all around the Kilimanjaro. The leader, John Sapp, and 15 other members worked hard to get their team on a secure trip to the mountains. Yet, there are incidents that are worth mentioning as they are both fascinating in terms of how they managed to come out alive and how the team did not lose their ambitions and continued climbing in the future.

One of the incidents took place in 2003, in the Carpathian Mountains in Ukraine. The team got lost and failed to find a source of water for a few days. It was indeed a terrible experience, but they felt like they were all safe from dangerous animals. But the inability to find a source of water for a few days did increase some wariness in the team, and the crew members started to apply their survival savvy to escape that difficult situation.

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Max Polyakov’s experience on Makalu mountain

Another near-death experience that the crew suffered was on Makalu was due to extreme weather conditions. EOS crew were clearly not ready for the storm that was approaching and neither the emergency team that was obligated to save them in case of a natural calamity. Yet, John Sapp applied all his abilities and eventually found a safe place for the team to wait until the storm calmed down. The lessons that the team learned that day included that you have to take into account the conditions that might wait for you in the wild environment.

Max Polyakov also knew that his climbing abilities were not enough to meet certain needs for financial survival. So he went to gamble and prove himself in the poker world. Yet, the slot machines were bringing more winnings to the young Max Polyakov, but the overall casino experience was set to bring some fortune for him.

After claiming some luck in the gambling world, he returned to the climbing path of his life. Max went back to Europe to climb some of the Fjords in Norway. He knew that with the earned cash he would be able to afford the trip as the country was one of the most expensive in the world. And so, bringing Jessica with his, they started another amazing experience to reach high altitudes. The city that they went to was near Oslo. In which they took a bus to reach the national park destination. They could not hike straight from the airport as in Norway you are forbidden to walk on the side of the highways.

The experience brought yet another amazing time to the couple and motivated them to go for another trip, but this time in South America. So they went to Brazil during the hottest time of the year. This was in October as in Brazil the seasons of the year has the opposite to the ones in Europe and Asia. They met a group of climbers that also been to Kilimanjaro many times. So they teamed up and went to reach the mountains of Brazil without any regrets of wasting their lives inside an office.

As soon as they came back from Brazil, Max Polyakov and EOS team decided to set their minds to climb the mighty Everest. They knew how dangerous the trip was as the weather could become a hazard at any given time. So they acquired quality equipment for this climb which was earned from Max’s gambling habits and went on to conquer Everest. But this time not all the crew decided to join them as the amount of danger involved in this adventure exceeded the previous ones by far.

climber Max Polyakov

However, having earned so much experience in their previous trips and in particular from John Sapp and Max Polyakov’s father John, the crew initiated their ambition to reach the top of the world. In total, 5 members joined, Mark from Sweden, James from England, Joe from Canada, Dan from Italy, and the only female member Vanessa from Scotland. John Sapp and Max Polyakov knew exactly what they were going for, but some of the team members, like Mark could not be too sure of how to evaluate a dangerous zone and try to avoid it.

Therefore, in order to prepare for any possible incidents, the crew looked at videos of professionals that already conquered Everest several times. Some of the stories were very unfortunate in terms of the losses that the climbers had to face during their reaching of Everest experience. One of the professional climbers that told his unfortunate story has lost his nose and ears because of a frostbite. Yet, the professional stated that it was not a bad experience as he managed to reach the top of the mountain, which was his dream throughout his life.

Some of the other professionals had more luck saying that the weather conditions did not affect their trip that much, and eventually they were able to reach the top of Everest without losing any of their limbs or face parts. So Max Polyakov understood that you cannot simply rely on good weather conditions if you are set to engage yourself in a possibly historic event of your life. You will also set a professional example to others who would also want to reach the top of Everest, but only if you make the trip a successful experience.

Overall, the EOS team, led by the experienced John Sapp, Max Polyakov and 5 other crew climbers, decided to go and climb Everest at the beginning of spring in 2018. At first, the crew was reluctant due to the risks that they could indulge. In addition, all of the members had families that were financially dependent on them to return. So not only physical factors were considered, but also emotional consequences that could have happened if something went wrong during their hike.

With certain stories in their head about climbers that died trying to reach the top of Everest, the crew made sure that the rescue team were able to save them in case of any incident that could occur during their risky adventure. And the rescue mission was all set up and ready to operate in case of certain unfortunates that could happen during the hike. Yet, they realized that the team would not be able to avoid all the possible risks, especially higher on the mountain.

Climber Max Polyakov got engaged with Jessica

Overall, the adventure was successful, the crew experienced only good weather conditions and the danger was minimised significantly. So by the day they reached the top of Everest, EOS team was pretty exhausted physically and mentally, but they never give up their dream and eventually reached the top of the world. Max Polyakov and Jessica got engaged and married shortly after. Now they plan to increase their family and continue their climbing adventures in the future. The other EOS team did not stop at the Everest adventure, and they plan to involve other people to perceive their dreams. And the most important lesson that could be derived from Max Polyakov’s story is that you should never give up once you have a dream in your mind; it doesn’t matter whether is just to raise children or climb the highest point of our planet.