In March 2003 Sibusiso Vilane became the first black African to summit Mount Everest. This year, at the age of 52, Vilane sets his eyes on the next peak with plans to become the first black African to conquer four of the world’s 14 highest mountains.
Sibusiso Vilane became the first black African to summit Everest in March 2003. PHOTO: Supplied/ Sibusiso Vilane.
“Climbing Mount Everest had never been my childhood dream or ambition. So when I left home, I had one thing in mind: ‘get to the top’ and never bother to climb any mountain again,” explained Vilane in a virtual interview with MatieMedia’s Téa Bell.
For the next few months, following his March 2003 expedition to the Himalayas, 32-year-old Vilane would make good on his promise. After all, he had made history: he had become the first black African to summit Mount Everest, the world’s highest peak. Any other achievement would pale in comparison and be little more than white noise in his eventual obituary.
Chasing an ever-moving target
“Sibusiso has set a standard for Africa, he has shown the world that Africans can attempt the near-impossible and triumph,” announced Nelson Mandela, former president of South Africa, in an address to the media 6 months after Vilane’s return.
These were the words that would change the seemingly set-in-stone trajectory of Vilane’s future.
At the time of Mandela’s speech about Vilane’s expedition, South Africa was nearing its tenth year since the end of Apartheid. But the dawn of democracy did not mark the end of South Africa’s racial struggles. The country still had a long way to go if the inequalities left behind by the regime were to be undone.
The message that Vilane wanted to send to other young Africans was not one of ephemeral achievement but one of long-term dedication to making his country and continent proud.
“I realised that there was a responsibility on me to inspire a generation of Africans to believe in themselves and to believe in the continent,” recalls Vilane.
Everest marked the first of many firsts that Vilane would go on to achieve in his career.
In 2005 Vilane summited Everest a second time, this time from the mountain’s North Ridge. This made him the first black African to summit the peak twice using two different routes.
Two years later, in 2007, Vilane embarked on a trek to the South Pole with fellow mountaineer Alex Harris, securing Vilane and Harris’ spots in history as the first South Africans to complete the expedition- and Vilane as the first black person to do so. Having ticked off a subsequent trek to the North Pole, Vilane became the first black person to have completed the Three Poles Challenge: trekking to both poles and summiting Everest.
Having summited Everest and hiked to the North Pole and the South Pole, Vilane secured his spot in history as the first black African to complete the Three Poles Challenge. Supplied/ Sibusiso Vilane.
Vilane later hiked Denali Mountain in Alaska, making him the first Black African to have reached the seven highest peaks on seven of the world’s continents.
For the next few years, Vilane would become a nomad, drifting between his home in Mpumalanga and a tent pitched somewhere along the slope or plateau of a mountain, a thin layer of canvas separating him from lacerating winds, piercingly cold snowstorms, and assailing rain.
To Vilane, the idea of climbing and being close to nature became intoxicating.
“It’s brought out this spiritual connection within me, I can never fully articulate the feeling… When I discovered that inner drive, I took off and have never had my feet on the ground since,” says Vilane.
Great success requires greater sacrifices
Vilane is a father of four children. Most of them are now grown.
When he first set off for the Himalayas in 2003 to begin his journey up Everest, his son, Bavukile Vilane, was two years old. Vilane would only return to Mpumalanga 60 days later.
Today, a 52-year old Vilane sits on the edge of his couch, his fingers loosely interlocked and his arms resting comfortably on his knees as he reflects on memories of returning home to his children after extensive periods abroad.
“You do notice these changes in them and they see the changes in you as well,” explains Vilane.
Flashing a faint smile, he recalls a time that his children hesitated to run into his arms and embrace him after he returned from an expedition.
“The children stopped, they were in doubt, they were like, ‘no that’s not him’
“During some of these expeditions, you grow out your hair and you lose weight. When I came back from Antarctica, I had lost so much weight that I looked like an old man. By that time [my son] was about two and a half years old,” explains Vilane.
To be a mountaineer is to accept the ever-looming possibility of death. A report published by the World Economic Forum in 2021 predicts that If one hundred people attempt to summit Everest, it is likely that fourteen of them will not return.
“I’m fully prepared for the possibility that I might not come back to my family when I say goodbye to them,” he says, explaining that it makes him value every minute that he gets with them all the more.
Sibusiso Vilane’s wife, Nomsa Vilane, does not share her husband’s sentiments. It has been almost twenty years since her husband first summited Everest and began taking his mountaineering career seriously, but the topic of his high-risk expeditions and the possibility of his death is not something that Nomsa Vilane has come to terms with.
Whilst Vilane was away, his wife took sole responsibility for the children’s daily needs,
“I tend to not want to talk about it because I was so alone at the time with no family. Just me and the kids,” says Nomsa Vilane.
It is not death that scares Sibusiso Vilane but the prospect of not being able to support his family financially. In speaking about providing for his family, Vilane displays a grievousness that seems at odds with his usual serial optimism.
“I think my family knows that if I don’t go on an expedition then it’ll be difficult for us to live. I probably don’t mind dying, as long as I’m able to provide for my family,” says Vilane.
When he is not receiving sponsorships from his mountaineering expeditions and training, Vilane earns an income by giving motivational talks to students and businesses.
Sibusiso Vilane, the first black man to summit Everest, has set his eyes on a new goal: Become the first black man to conquer four of the world’s 14 highest mountains. Supplied/ Sibusiso Vilane.
During the 2020 and 2021 Covid-19 Lockdowns, Vilane came face to face with his fear, “For the whole year in 2020, I didn’t have an income. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to serve my family to the fullest.”
With the border closures, the mountaineer was limited in his movements and the national shift to remote forms of work and schooling dampened the demand for his inspirational talks.
Vilane hopes that 2022 will continue to bring new opportunities.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained
Despite the risks involved, Vilane’s family remains supportive of his career and his eldest daughter, Setsabile Princess Vilane, shares her father’s deep affection for the natural world. Setsabile Vilane has accompanied her father on a number of his expeditions.
“I think going hiking with my dad is what actually made me fall in love with hiking. He’s an exceptional leader,” says Setsabile Vilane.
Setsabile Vilane fondly remembers hiking the Drakensberg mountains with her father in her matric year.
“I wasn’t that fit at the time and was having knee problems. He stayed by my side for the whole seven days that we hiked the mountain. He would tell me, ‘people can go, you don’t have to feel like you’re slowing them down. Look at the scenery, when else will you see anything like this?’”.
Sibusiso Vilane avoids forcing his passion for mountaineering on his children and instead encourages them to pursue their dreams with the same vigour that he pursues his own.
That being said, Vilane hopes to embark on two specific expeditions with each of his children: reaching Everest’s base camp and summiting Kilimanjaro.
Vilane resides in Mpumalanga with his wife, Nomsa. He has four children Bavukile Vilane, Setsabile Princess Vilane, Siphosethu Vilane and Bhekiwe Vilane. Supplied/ Sibusiso Vilane.
After Everest
Sometimes, a sobering realisation sets in for Vilane: he will never be able to climb every mountain in the world. He tries not to let this discourage him and instead opts to, “focus on the next step, and then the next”, the same mentality that he maintains when he is about to plant his final step atop a snowy mountain peak.
As for this year’s next step, Vilane hopes to add another first to his repertoire of pioneering achievements, “I would like to try and climb four of the eight-thousanders [mountains above 800 meters high] because there is no black African who has summited more than one of them.”