True Summit Adventures

On the summit of Mont Blanc, July 2020 At the summit of Kilimnajaro with Paul and Christian Oberschneider, June 2022

Ice climbing above 5000m, Illiniza Sur, Ecuador, March 2021

In 2022 Oliver Browne launched his own adventure business and recently returned from Kilimanjaro, where he with many polo players, including Paul and Christian Obershneider, James McBride and Harry Zurcher, reached the summit. Polo Times spoke to Oliver to hear more about his move from polo into adventure business

I started playing at Inglesham when I was at Radley. I left Radley in 2000 and I continued playing at Inglesham while I was studying at the Royal Agricultural College in Cirencester (which I moved to from Newcastle to be closer to). I became great friends with Roddy Williams and his family who really got me going and who sold me my first horse, Picallili. When I graduated I went to work with Henry Brett. We had a business offering horses for rent and sale, lessons, polo holidays in Argentina. We owned the Royal County of Berkshire Polo School at RCBPC for a period of time also.

While working for Henry Brett, I met Gary Shepherd whom I ended up working for full time. I played many seasons at Guards Polo Club with him, playing in and managing his team, The First Group. Our best year was 2011, when we won 44 of 47 games played including five Finals, including two on the same weekend; The 8 goal Town and County on the Saturday and the 12 goal Duke of Wellington on the Sunday beating a combined 32 teams. We were unbeaten in the 12 goal that year, also taking The Phoenician Trophy. Max Charlton was a bandit off 4 goals, I was 2 and we had

James Beim off 7. It was a brilliant time. We won “Most Successful Team of the Season” that year also. It was great. I was also a Member at Cowdray Park Polo Club that season, where I played for Tom Swerling, another ‘home grown’ patron from the polo school I had with Henry. I remember winning a 4 goal Final at Cowdray with Tom in the morning and an 8 goal Final at Guards with Gary on the same day. That was special and my late father, who was a big supporter of mine, came in the car with me for the day. We had fun. Gary and Tom were great to me and both remain close friends. I did nearly 10 years at Guards. My last season was 2014. Last year, a horse I produced and sold to Max Charlton won Best Playing Pony in The Royal Windsor, so that was a nice bonus and trip down memory lane. Maybe I sold her too cheap, but a few of the big guns tried her and didn’t want her, but she was the best horse I had, Jeanie was her name. A bay mare by Elusive Quality I bought in Yorkshire off a great guy called Olly Yeo who had got her started. Since then, I have worked (with varying degrees of success) in finance, but recently I have decided to focus full time on my adventures.

I started climbing in 2017. I wanted to celebrate two years tee total (now over five years) with a physical challenge, so climbed Kilimanjaro and fell in love with high altitude mountaineering. I climbed many of the European classics including Mont Blanc and Grand Paradiso. In 2021, I spent three months in Ecuador climbing exclusively, summiting many 5000ers and the 6,000er in good style. My favourite mountain there is Antisana for its technical complexity, altitude gain from the basecamp and material risks. I also climbed Illiniza Sur via the ice climbing route which was fun – ice climbing above 5,000m!

I never thought I would get as much pleasure from anything as polo. I don’t think climbing is better than polo, they’re different. Lower cadence also, but the feeling is more deep-felt joy as opposed to the adrenaline fuelled pleasure I got from polo. Regardless of that argument, I feel very grateful to have been involved in two phenomenal sports and I am excited to see where I can take the climbing. The 8,000ers (mountains above 8000m) are my main goal and the raison d’etre behind everything else. Certainly, if you loved polo and are looking for a new challenge or something to do alongside polo, I can recommend climbing and high altitude trekking wholeheartedly. After winning Why did you want to set up the Noman an adventure business? Barcelona From Ecuador I went to to Ibiza race in Ibiza, July 2021 Nepal for Everest. The expedition was amazing, but I didn’t summit. 2021 was very challenging with Covid and bad weather. Only 14 of 40 members reached the summit which was very poor – something was amiss as this included several elite climbers. Kilian Jornet was in the tent next to me. We lost two people to ‘exhaustion’ which was sobering. Whatever people say about climbing Everest, it is still a wild place. All this while I was in touch with Paul Oberschneider, who had been a medium and high goal patron for many years in the UK, US and Argentina, owning La Golondrina there. In October I took him and some guys who work for him to the Cairngorms on a climbing trip. My plan was to pitch him this real estate deal I had been working on, but before I could start he said, “Whatever you are working on, drop it and focus on climbing.” The following week I was in the Lake District working on the Mountain Leader qualification which I got in April. Henry Brett was another guy who pushed me to follow this dream, he even helped fund the Everest ascent. Sometimes you need people like this to push you through the door so to speak. Now here I am running an Adventure business! I was encouraged to do so by Paul and Henry. I thought, well, I’m working in finance without much joy, and my goal is to make enough money to go to the mountains. So, I thought let’s just remove one of those steps and go straight to the mountains and take other people with me to share the magic with them. Climbing is transformational. It really is the greatest thing and is in many ways a metaphor for life. There is struggle, elation, despair, etc and the lessons you learn you can apply throughout your life – endurance, patience, empathy, collaboration etc.

We are called True Summit Adventures. The ‘true summit’ is a long held debate in mountaineering over where the actual top is. Most famously in the case of Manaslu people climbed to the commercial or foresummit. They claimed a summit but it wasn’t the true summit. The true summit was some 5m higher along an exposed ridge so at some point commercial operators said, let’s just climb to here and call that the summit! The true summit is the actual top but it’s also your best self and your best effort. I am interested in what this can mean to people and what they can take from it. We started in March this year. I am based in London.

The focus is on high altitude stuff – climbing and trekking, but I am going to offer horse bound adventures also, starting in Argentina, but with the idea to add Botswana and Mongolia. I hope Henry will be a guide. Not only is he a great horseman, he is one of the greatest story tellers I have ever met. Endurance cycling will be another thing we offer.

The first big trip was this summer to Kilimanjaro. Paul came with his son Christian who plays at Beaufort Polo Club. Christain is a serious athlete and has a big future in climbing and polo. We also had the legendary James McBride who owns the Nihi resort in Sumba where they host the British Polo Day, Indonesia. He started playing polo in South Africa but has done polo in more places than possibly anyone I have ever met. A true gentleman and a legend. The other polo player was Harry Zurcher from Costa Rica. He and his father have 100 horses there! I am looking forward to visiting.

We are doing everything and everyone. Families – we had two father-son combos on Kilimanjaro (which might just be the best family bonding trip out there), individuals, people that want to push themselves, groups (I have a Birthday trip to the Alps coming up soon for a client), for corporates we do a weekend in the Lake District or Cairngorms. You name it and I can take them or design an adventure for them. I can even see a time when we have clients going for 8,000ers in conjunction with my Nepali partners.

With such a variety of adventures on offer the prices range from trip to trip, but as an example Kilimanjaro is $3000 (excluding flights) for a seven day ascent.

I am focusing on the Atlantic row at the moment and the training takes up a lot of time. I train for two hours minimum a day. I am going to Chamonix soon for one of my personal projects, a solo single day ascent of Mont Blanc from Les Houches and back in one push, no lift or train. It will take 16 to 18 hours and is 8,000m of vertical.

Later in the summer I have some client trips in Europe and then next year we start in Ecuador in February with some high altitude climbing. Then it’s on to Nepal for Everest Basecamp treks and also a Lobuche (6,300m) ascent. I will try to go for Everest again (sponsors most welcome). Then it’s back to Tanzania for Kilimanjaro in June and on we go. We will keep adding trips as long as people want to take them!

www.truesummitadventures.com @truesummitadventures @lettersfromoliver Email: oliver@truesummitadventures.com

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