North Pole Trip Canceled; Reston Man To Climb Mount Everest Instead

RESTON, VA — Len Forkas will not be traveling to Norway in April as part of a planned skiing trip to the North Pole for charity. Instead, he is going to Nepal in order to climb Mount Everest.

This won't be the first mountain the 63-year-old Reston businessman has climbed. He's already scaled the tallest mountains on five of the seven continents, so.Mount Everest is just another item to check off on his to-do list.

Forkas began climbing mountains, running marathons and doing other physical challenges to raise money for Hopecam, a nonprofit he started after his son Matt was diagnosed with leukemia 20 years ago.

“Every time I run a marathon or climb a mountain or do a race, I always honor a child from Hopecam,” he said. “I call the kids. I give them the medals. I send them the shirts and I tell them, ‘Hey, when I was running, I was thinking about you and how brave you were.’ What it does, it really helps me. These kids motivate me, they hold me accountable to finish.”

Hopecam provides connective technology to children stuck at home while going through cancer treatment. This helps them livestream with their friends and classmates, so they won't feel forgotten or alone.

Originally, Forkas told Patch that this Friday he was going to fly to the remote Norwegian village of Longyearbyen, where he'd meet renowned polar guide Doug Stoup and the rest of the North Pole expedition team.

After a few days of preparation, a Russian jet was going to fly the group 600 miles to Barneo, a temporary camp established on a large piece of ice in the Arctic Ocean. A helicopter would then shuttle the three expedition members and two guides to another piece of ice, where they would ski the remaining 60 nautical miles to the North Pole.

Related: Reston Man Plans To 'Stay Frosty' Skiing To North Pole For Charity

But all of those plans had to be cancelled once the Civil Aviation Authority of Norway denied the expedition's request to fly an estimated 35 trips by jet between Svalbard and Barneo in April.

"Svalbard is a small and remote community with infrastructure designed to handle a certain number of persons and their activity, this makes it vulnerable to unforeseen events where a lot of people get an unforeseen delay," CAA said, in a letter to the expedition's organizers.

In addition to the effect on a remote Norwegian community, CAA's letter expressed concerns about the impact the flights would have on the environment.

"The flights are to be carried out in a highly vulnerable area with regards to the environment, the Arctic is greatly affected by the ongoing changes in the climate, flights in this area would entail further emissions in a very vulnerable area," the letter said.

CAA wished to avoid setting a precedent of allowing large groups access to such an environmentally vulnerable area.

"The area is of great national interest and is vulnerable both in with regards to the environmental and with regards to the community's ability to handle the potential ramifications of the activity," the CAA said, in its letter.

With his North Pole trip canceled, Forkas will instead leave on April 10 for Kathmandu, Nepal and travel with a guide to Mount Everest base camp, according to WTOPNews.

After preparing himself at base camp for three weeks, Forkas told WTOP that he will then climb to the top of the mountain, which he estimated would take about a week.