The "Zack Martin Breaking Barriers" Grant

Zack Martin died just before his 25th birthday on Thanksgiving Day 2002. He was a recipient of American Alpine Club grants, the Anatoli Boukreev grant and others. Zack was concerned about the general arrogance and self-serving aspirations of climbers and explorers.

His climbing resume reads like an adventure novel. His playground was the world, and included climbs in Spain, Peru, Mexico, Canada, Kazakhstan and most of the United States.

He committed that on all future expeditions he would not only climb and explore but more importantly he would perform humanitarian service in the local community. His plan was to “break a barrier” in the alpine environment, and “break a barrier” in the heart of man.

As Zack often said “The only barrier holding you back is yourself.”

In his memory, The American Alpine Club, a sponsor of The Mountain Fund, has created The Zack Martin Breaking Barriers Grant (ZMBB). This is a grant fund with a dual purpose.

The grant supports climbing and exploration in the alpine environment and coincidentally sponsors humanitarian and community outreach activities. Alpine proposals that focus on unclimbed or unexplored alpine terrain will receive special consideration especially lightweight and unsupported teams. Repeats of difficult or historic routes will also be considered heavily. However, the alpine objectives do not need to be at the leading edge of alpinism to receive this grant. Of equal or greater importance is the proposal for humanitarian activity. The primary consideration will be humanitarian and community outreach activities that meet the greatest human need in the local area of choice. It is not required that the alpine and humanitarian activities be in the same immediate local but in the same region is desirable.

This year, Fabrizio Zangrilli was the recipient of this award. He recently attempted a new route on K2 and though he was unsuccessful he (and Girls Educational International, another partner of The Mountain Fund) was successful with starting a school for girls in the Khane Valley in Pakistan.

Dougald MacDonald has written an article about Fabrizio's journey and you can find it by clicking HERE or use the URL: http://americanalpineclub.org/pages/story/5/62