Sibusiso VilaneOIB (born 5 December 1970, Shongwe Mission in Mpumalanga) is a South African adventurer, motivational speaker, and author of the book To the Top from Nowhere. An adventurer, marathon runner, mountaineer, and expedition leader, he has also served as the Chief Scout of Scouts South Africa.
Sibusiso has been married to Nomsa since 1995 and is the father of four – three girls and a boy.
Early life
His Swazi mother and South African father moved the family to Swaziland where Vilane was schooled (from the age of 11). Sibusiso completed his O levels at the Mater Dolorosa school in Swaziland. After a time as a labourer and drawing on his experienced as a goatherder, Vilane began his working career as a game ranger at Malolotja Nature Reserve in Swaziland in 1993. In 1996, he met John Doble who became a friend and benefactor and who was instrumental in finding the necessary sponsorship for Vilane's Mount Everest summit expedition.
Climbing career
Vilane started climbing in 1996 by summitting peaks in the Drakensberg. In 1999, he summitted Kilimanjaro and went on to the Himalayas in 2002, successfully climbing Pokalde, Lobuche, and Island Peak, all of which are over 6,000 metres high, as part of his training for the Mount Everest expedition.
In March 2003, Vilane set off for the Himalayas again in his quest to be the first Black African to summit earth's highest mountain, Everest. He reached the summit on May 26th 2003.
On that day, South African President Thabo Mbeki congratulated him on his achievement. "In this, he has shown the heights we can all scale in life if we put our shoulder to the wheel and work at things without flagging. Sibusiso, you have done us proud!" In 2006, Vilane was awarded the Order of Ikhamanga (Bronze) by President Mbeki.
In 2005, Vilane reached the summit of Everest again with Sir Ranulph Fiennes and Alex Harris after accessing the peak from the North Ridge – the more difficult and statistically less-successful side. This achievement meant that he is the first black African to climb the world's highest peak twice and by two different routes. Three children's charities benefited from his climb: The Birth to Twenty Research Programme at Wits University, the Africa Foundation and the SOS Children's Village in Swaziland.
Since this climb, Vilane has completed all Seven Summits. In late 2007 Vilane and fellow climber, Alex Harris, embarked on an unsupported and unassisted trek to reach the South Pole which, when they completed the expedition on 17 January 2008, made Vilane and Harris the first South Africans to walk to the South Pole and Vilane the black person to do so.[1]
Vilane arrived at the geographic North Pole on 12 April 2012. This is the final hurdle to becoming the first black person to complete the Three Poles Challenge. This expedition was dubbed The Goliath Challenge and sponsored by Virgin Money Insurance. In completion of the Three Poles Challenge and the Seven Summits, Vilane is also the first African to have achieved the Explorers Grand Slam.
Humanitarian work
As a professional speaker, his message is simple: every person has their own "Everest" to climb. Whether you're prepared for it or not, it's there – challenging you to reach the top and if he can do that in the most dangerous and inhospitable of conditions and against all the odds so, he suggests, can others.
Since 2006, Vilane has been the African ambassador for Lifeline Energy (formerly the Free Play Foundation). He dedicated the 1,113 kilometres he trekked to the South Pole to the children of South Africa. In May 2008, as a result of this act and hundreds of sponsors supporting Vilane, Lifeline Energy was able to provide 300 Lifeline radios to children from the Nkomazi district, where Vilane was born. In 2013 Sibusiso became an official Ambassador to the Mandela Bangle programme, which benefits the Mandela Day School Library campaign through funds raised from bangle sales and donations to his "Participate for Good Expeditions".
"The future entirely depends on the education of children, their access to information to broaden their thinking and understanding of the ever-changing and challenging world" says Vilane.
Vilane is also a patron of the Global Offering (GO) projects and is an eco ambassador for Indalo Yethu, a government organisation which strives to raise awareness about the environment.
Vilane founded a running club called Born to Win. He has also hosted a radio show My Climb, Your Climb on 1485 Radio Today in which he interviewed black achievers about the challenges they faced and overcame in their careers and lives. He is patron of the Endangered Wildlife Trust's Conservation Leadership Group and currently shares his time between work at a private game reserve in Limpopo and his family in Nelspruit, Mpumalanga.
In December 2013, he was appointed Chief Scout of Scouts South Africa,[2] a position he held until 2017.
From 4 to 23 January, Vilane led his first out of Africa climbing expedition and guided a team of eleven South Africans up Aconcagua. This is the highest mountain in the southern hemisphere, the highest in South America and one of the Seven Summits. He helped five of the team members to the summit of this mountain including South Africa's youngest person to summit Aconcagua, Jayson Funnell (at age fifteen).
In 2012, Vilane became a fully-fledged member of the British Alpine Club.
Vilane has become the only Black South African to complete the Explorers Grand Slam known as the Three Poles Challenge: reaching the summit of Everest, South and North Pole. Vilane's last achievement of the three, the North Pole, took place in April 2012.
Controversy
During July 2016, Sibusiso Vilane was the expedition lead, guiding a party of 40 climbers to the summit of Kilimanjaro. During the summit attempt a well known South African race and rally driver, Gugu Zulu, succumbed prior to reaching the summit due to unspecified illness.
"I asked him how he was, he said, 'I'm ok... I suspect there is some flu creeping in'." With tears rolling down his face, Vilane said he did not see any signs of an illness. "For me he was still cheerful."[3]
Related Research Articles
The Seven Summits are the highest mountains on each of the seven traditional continents. On 30 April 1985, Richard Bass became the first climber to reach the summit of all seven.
Jake Julian Barrington Meyer is a British mountaineer and adventurer. He achieved fame by becoming the youngest Briton to climb Mount Everest in 2005, aged 21 years 4 months. In doing so, Meyer also became the youngest man in the world to climb the Seven Summits. More recently in 2018 he summited K2, the second highest mountain in the world, and climbed Everest a second time. He has taken part in over 30 expeditions around the world.
Naomi Uemura was a Japanese adventurer who was known particularly for his solo exploits. For example, he was the first person to reach the North Pole solo, the first person to raft the Amazon River solo, and the first person to climb Denali solo.
Jaime Viñals Massanet is a Guatemalan mountaineer, the first person from Central America and Caribbean region ever to climb the Earth's highest peak, Mount Everest, after reaching the summit together with the American Andy Lakpass and the Danish Asmus Noreslet on an expedition from New Zealand organized by Russell Brice, Since then, he became one of the few people to have reached the Seven Summits - the highest mountains of each of the seven (sub-)continents. also he has finished to climb the Seven Islands of the World.
Tomas Kenneth Olsson was a Swedish adventurer and ski mountaineer. He was born in Kristinehamn but grew up in Borås. He took an engineering degree at Linköping University in 2001, after which he moved to Chamonix in France to focus on skiing. He specialized in skiing down some of the world's highest and steepest mountains. He had gone from the top of Aconcagua in Argentina, Lenin Peak in Kyrgyzstan, Muztagh Ata and Kuksay Peak in China and Cho Oyu in Tibet.
Pat Falvey is an Irish high-altitude mountaineer, expedition leader, polar explorer, entrepreneur, author, corporate/personal trainer/coach, and motivational speaker. He was the first person to complete the Seven Summits (Bass) twice, with the summiting of Mount Everest reached from both the Tibetan (1996) and Nepalese sides (2004). He was expedition leader of the team that saw Clare O'Leary become the first Irish woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest (2004). Other extreme expeditions that he has made include walking to the South Pole, crossing South Georgia Island, and traversing the Greenland ice cap. He started his first business at 15 years of age and has since had businesses in property development, finance, construction, insurance, tourism, and film production. He has been a motivational speaker since the 1990s.
The Explorer's Grand Slam is an adventurer goal to reach the North Pole and South Pole, as well as climb the Seven Summits.
William H. Cross is an American mountaineer.
Kenton Edward Cool is an English climber and mountain guide. He is one of Britain's leading alpine and high altitude climbers and has reached the summit of Mount Everest 18 times, including leading Sir Ranulph Fiennes' 2008 and 2009 Expeditions.
Alison Levine is an American mountain climber, motivational speaker and leadership consultant. She is the author of On the Edge: The Art of High Impact Leadership and the executive producer of a documentary, The Glass Ceiling. She has ascended the highest peaks on every continent and also skied to both the North and South Poles. In 2010, she completed the Adventure Grand Slam by reaching the summit of Mount Everest.
George Atkinson is an English climber. At the age of sixteen he became the youngest ever person to complete the Seven Summits Challenge by climbing to the summit of the highest mountain on each of seven continents. He completed the challenge on 26 May 2011 when he reached the summit of Mount Everest.
The Indonesian Seven Summits Expedition Mahitala Unpar (ISSEMU) was a team of four mountaineers from Indonesia that successfully climbed the Seven Summits (the Messner version) between 2009 and 2011. The last peak of their expedition was Denali in Alaska, which they reached on July 7, 2011. This marked the first time a team from Indonesia had completed the challenge.
Rhys Jones is an English mountaineer and was the youngest person to climb the Seven Summits, and reached the summit of Mount Everest.
Julian Evans is a British adventurer and fund-raiser. Born in Leicestershire, and educated at Oakham School, he is a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, Fellow of The Royal Geographical Society, member of The Explorers Club and Alpine Club. He grew up in Lyddington, Rutland but now lives in Great Easton, Leicestershire.
Samina Khayal Baig is a Pakistani mountaineer who climbed Mount Everest in 2013, all Seven Summits by 2014, and K2 in 2022. She is the first Pakistani woman to climb Everest, K2 and the Seven Summits. She climbed Mt. Everest at the age of 21.
Tyler Robert Armstrong is an American mountain climber who became the youngest person to climb Aconcagua in Argentina at the age of 9.
Mostafa Salameh, is a Jordanian - Palestinian mountaineer who has completed the Seven Summits, including Mount Everest in 2008.
Saray Khumalo is a Zambia-born, South African explorer and mountaineer. In May 2019, she became the first black African woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
Carina Dayondon is a Filipina mountaineer, adventurer, and Philippine Coast Guard officer who was the first Filipina to reach the Seven Summits, the seven tallest mountains in every continent in the world, and the second Filipina to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
Fahad Abdulrahman Badar (born 1979) is a Qatari banker & mountaineer. He is the first Arab to summit Mount Everest and Lhotse, in a single expedition.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
