Carlos Mendez is 42 years old and teaches Spanish at a secondary school in Seville. But when he is not in the classroom, he is somewhere far above it. He has been climbing mountains for seventeen years — since his first expedition to the Atlas Mountains in Morocco at the age of 25 — and he has no plans to stop.
Since that first climb, Carlos has reached the summits of some of the world's most famous peaks. He has stood on the top of Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Africa's highest mountain. He has climbed Aconcagua in Argentina, the highest peak in South America. He has also reached the summit of Elbrus in Russia, the highest mountain in Europe, and has completed two ascents of Mont Blanc in the French Alps. Each expedition has required months of physical preparation and careful planning.
The physical challenges have been considerable. He has trained in extreme cold and altitude, and has experienced altitude sickness above 5,000 metres on more than one occasion. He has slept in a tent at -20 degrees Celsius, woken to find his water frozen, and climbed through whiteout conditions where he could barely see the person in front of him. 'The mountain does not care how prepared you are,' he says. 'You have to stay humble.'
Carlos has not yet attempted Everest, which remains his great ambition. 'I have thought about it every year since 2018,' he says. 'But I believe you should only go when you are truly ready. I am not there yet.'
In recent years, Carlos has led groups of teenagers on beginner climbs in the Sierra Nevada. He has taken over sixty young people to their first summit, and he says this has been the most rewarding experience of his entire climbing career. 'When a young person reaches the top for the first time and looks at the view — I have never seen anything like the expression on their face.'
Since his first climb in 2009, he has never lost his love for the mountains. 'The higher I go,' he says, 'the more clearly I see.'