Right this moment, as you are reading this, disabled mountaineer David Lim is 8,000 metres above the rest of humanity, making his attempt to reach the summit of Cho Oyu, in the final part of a unique expedition to climb two of Tibet’s highest mountains back-to-back, without the aid of bottled oxygen.

David walks - and climbs - with a limp after he was paralysed for 6 months in 1998, hit by a rare illness just days after he returned from leading Singapore’s first successful climb up Mt Everest. Despite his disability, he resumed mountain climbing a year after he was discharged from hospital.

Since April, David has been on Ascent 8000, an expedition which involves climbing two 8,000-plus metre peaks - Shishapangma (8,012 m) and Cho Oyu (8,201m). On May 6, he and his guide, MB, turned back from after reaching 7,600 metres of Shishapangma, because of dangerous ice conditions.

The duo originally planned to summit Cho Oyu today, but in his latest despatch dated May 16, David wrote:

“Woke up this morning and decided to take a break. The view here is just too good to waste, fresh air and the quiet sounds of the mountain. Resting in Camp 1 for the day before I make that excruciating climb up those two ice walls before reaching Camp 2. This means that MB and me will make a summit attempt on Sunday instead of Saturday.”

When he returns from this expedition, David will resume climbing a different sort of “mountain”, a challenge that will take years, or maybe even a lifetime, to accomplish.

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Like a Violinist

There is another face to this remarkable man that is little known: David Lim the entrepreneur. And in this role, David likens himself to a concert violinist.

“I need to internationalise myself,” he says. “I am like a concert violinist for whom Singapore is too small a stage.”

To globalise a business is a difficult task even for large corporations with multi-million dollar budgets for international marketing. How much more difficult it is for someone like David, whose businesses are essentially one-man shows.

David runs two businesses: Everest Business Consulting which offers motivational talks and corporate training, and South Col Adventures which organises mountaineering and other adventure expeditions.

Both businesses require an international clientele. There just isn’t enough local demand for motivational talks and mountain-climbing expeditions to afford David a reasonable livelihood, even though he is able to work out of home with minimal overhead costs.

Working with Apple computers and self-designed websites, David keeps touch with the world 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

It’s coming to three years since he left a comfortable marketing job with SPH newspapers in 1999 to focus on these two businesses. To an extent, he has already succeeded.

“I’ve been invited to speak globally, most recently in Las Vegas and Lisbon,” David reveals. “I have had to turn some offers down. I’ve been so busy engaged elsewhere.”

For David, “elsewhere” most probably means up a mountain. He averages two climbs a year, each trip taking him away for two to three months. As you read this, he is still somewhere in the Himalayas, attempting a unique back-to-back climb of Tibet’s two highest peaks, without the aid of oxygen!

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Reader's Digest

-You might think that his fame helps him make a business out of his passion. After all, David is one of the very few Singaporeans who made it to the front cover of Reader’s Digest as “Asia’s most recognised mountaineer”.

He has also written a book, Mountain to Climb, telling of his Everest adventures and his battle against Guillain-Barre Syndrome. He could have died from this rare disease, but recovered with permanent damage to his right foot such that he now walks - and climbs mountains - with a limp and needs to wear special shoes with orthotic braces.