Madrid Mountaineer trains to climb Himalayas at 81-years-old to commemorate COVID victims

AN 81-year-old man from Madrid is training to climb the Himalayas in tribute to those that have died from coronavirus.

Carlos Soria will climb the 8,848 m peaks and dedicate his journey to the elderly people who lost their lives to COVID-19.

At time of writing, there have been 40,105 deaths from coronavirus in Spain.

More than 20% of these deaths have occurred in the over-80s demographic.

Soria has been training in the Sierra Guadarrama mountains next to his home just north of Madrid in preparation for his trek.

After the Himalayas he hopes to climb Tibet’s Shishapangma and Dhaulagiri in Nepal.

If Soria climbs all of the world’s 12 highest peaks as he intends, he will be the oldest person ever to have completed the feat.