A Word from Kevin
"Taking people into the mountains as a career was an easy choice. Watching sunrise through breaths of thin air, pulling on crampons in bitter cold, carving out an ice cave at 12,000 feet — all of it forms a unique perspective that you simply can't understand unless you have experienced it for yourself."

Biography
Kevin Mahoney, 38, has climbed for 16 years and has been a guide for 12 years. Climbing has taken him to five continents in search of the most challenging and exhilarating peaks in the world. Mahoney currently resides in his hometown of Madison, New Hampshire, with his wife Claire and daughter Annika. Mahoney is a UIAGM-certified mountain guide (UIAGM is the International Federation of Mountain Guides Association) having earned his American Mountain Guide Association Rock, Alpine and Ski Guide certifications.

"I joined the Big Expedition because it is an opportunity to climb with a great team on unexplored peaks in an area I have never been to. It also touches me personally to heighten awareness for the need for cancer research.

"Cancer has touched my life in many ways. I have lost an aunt to breast cancer. My grandmother, at age 94, is a breast cancer survivor and a close friend is a breast cancer survivor - five years out - at age 36. My mother has survived breast cancer 8 years out and is now fighting pancreatic cancer. She is one year out of surgery, but still fighting with chemo as cancer cells have found their way into her lymph system.

"To me the challenges of fighting cancer are similar to mountaineering because of the unknowns. Cancer strikes without warning or prejudice. You can live a healthy life and do all the right things and it can still strike. Fighting cancer takes everything you have and more, it takes luck. The fight is personal, but a support system is critical. Even with your best effort and all the help in the world it can take your life as indiscriminately as the wind. In mountaineering one can train and pick appropriate objectives and watch the weather but when it comes down to the final summit push it may take all you have and all the support to get there and yet you may still come up short. There is the real risk of life and constant analysis of conditions. You pick the right time to strike but in the end luck has the upper hand and without it there is little success."

SEE ALSO:

Matt Farmer
Dawn Glanc
Bayard Russell Jr.