Meet Riky Bains: The Man Climbing Kilimanjaro To Change Lives Around The World

“You're really low on sleep, you're really low oxygen and you have to go and it's freezing, it's about probably about minus 25 [degrees Celsius]…it's pitch black, it's about five [maybe] six hours of really slow marching in those conditions and all your body wants to do is just go to sleep.”

Climbing a mountain is an adventure that proudly takes a spot on the bucket list of many, particularly those who are in a pursuit of a life-changing experience.

For 29-year-old brand strategist Riky Bains, climbing Africa’s highest peak was just that, the ultimate push he needed to trigger a true light-bulb moment.

Bains, from Blackheath in London, founded the XP Club back in 2017 alongside his brother and two cousins. He has dubbed the initiative “a travel company with a conscience.”

The organisation aims to revolutionise the way people travel, allowing them to tick of bucket list items - such as taking on Mount Kilimanjaro’s 5,895m elevation - whilst actively bettering the lives of the local community on the ground.

In an interview with Awallprintss, Bains revealed that the idea initially started out as a joke.

“It just started out as a joke really, between myself, my brother and my cousins. Typically we're not outdoorsy kinds of people, we all live in and around London so hiking and things like that were never really things that we did. Then, just for joke we said, ‘wouldn't it be cool if we just we went and climbed a mountain because we're not those kinds of people,’” he said.

Bains explained that he was approaching his 24th birthday at the time and felt like he lacked exposure to transformative experiences.

“I felt like I wanted to do things that would give me a learning curve,” he said. “I wanted to step out of my comfort zone. And so I thought, we were messing around about climbing a mountain, why don't we look into it? Obviously Everest is a bit of a death wish, especially for a beginner. Then I saw Kilimanjaro...so it started out as just the four of us.”

After committing to the climb, the foursome looked into bringing a charity on board so their friends and family could sponsor them. That is, crucially, when they discovered the Born Free Foundation, who the XP Club would later go on to work with closely.

The charity works to protect the welfare of endangered animals and aim to combat the exploitation of animals held in captivity.

After getting in touch with the Born Free Foundation, the charity sent a team member to join the team on their climb. The move prompted Bains to open up the climb to their wider network and resulted in 14 people joining them on their first trek.

Recalling the 2018 trip, Bains candidly told how the experience has changed his outlook on life forever.

“On the summit day, you get up at midnight in order to try and get to the summit by sunrise,” he recollected, adding: “You’re really low on sleep, you're really low oxygen and you have to go and it's freezing, it's probably about minus 25 [degrees Celsius].

"So, you have to go really slowly, it's pitch black, it's about five [maybe] six hours of really slow marching in those conditions and all your body wants to do is just go to sleep - even though you're standing and you're walking, you want to sleep right there.”

He added: “...My mind's ability to overcome that taught me that I can persist through most things and eventually the sun will come up, you'll get warm, there'll be daylight, you'll get closer to the top and things will get better if you just persist. It taught me that I’m capable of a lot more than I thought I was and I think a lot of people will have a similar experience when they go.”

Speaking about the process of bonding with strangers during the climb, Bains joked that “despair has a funny way of bringing people together.”

“We might not have known each other for too long but in those moments standing on ceremony doesn't really matter,” he explained.

“So you help each other out as much as possible. There's a kinship that gets kindled from these kinds of experiences because you know that you could be in that position yourself and you're going to want their support as well.

"You rally round, you’re altogether, the slowest person goes at the front, so nobody's quicker than the slowest person. It's a real unifying experience.”

Since the XP Club’s 2018 trek, the group has gone on to partner with other organisations such as the Kilimanjaro Childlight Foundation who work to get deprived children into education and completed Peru’s Machu Picchu in 2019.

Bains went on to express hopes to scale up the project and eventually curate programmes which teach entrepreneurship to young people in the countries the group visits.

Bains said: “In Tanzania, for example, we do a lot of work with orphanages, schools and individuals as well. I really want to scale that up. I really want to have programmes out there, which are funded by the XP Club, that teach entrepreneurship to kids and teenagers and really equip the people out there with the tools they need in order to sustain themselves and not [have to] rely on handouts.”

Whilst leaving a positive mark on the people on the ground is a priority for Bains, he acknowledged that there is also a lot for the people actively embarking on the climbs to gain too, particularly as they’re typically coming from the West.

“More often than not, they're going through some challenges in their own lives,” Bains said.

“These expeditions are physically, mentally [and] emotionally challenging journeys. By the end of it, they come out stronger, more stable, more self-aware and more in tune with who they are and what they're capable of.

"There's the mental health element as well, which I'm really aware of because I've seen the impact of it first hand. So the purpose is really twofold. It's [improving the lives of] the people that we go and see and the people that we take with us.”

As with much of the world, the XP Club’s adventures were pulled to a halt in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. However, Bains noted that COVID-19 also brought about an influx of interest in the climbs, something he put down to the uncertainty of when the next lockdown could be.

“There's this real insatiable appetite for adventure now and people that were on the fence before are now eager to go and jump out of a plane or climb a mountain - so there's no time like the present,” he said. “I think the pandemic has sharpened everybody's mind a little bit in terms of, if you want to do something, you've got to do it sooner rather than later.”

Bains said the club hopes to expand into other countries with a wider variety of adventures and experiences in the near future.

The XP Club’s next Mount Kilimanjaro climb is set to take place on August 2022.

For those doubting if they’re the right candidate, Bains assures that makes them all the more “ideal” as they will likely find it even more “rewarding”.

He added: “You’re going to go from a state of not being sure to being ultimately really proud of yourself and confident and then you can take that confidence, pride and empowerment to other areas of your life. And voila - the next chapter begins and now you have more steam and you find you can go further in whatever pursuits you might have.”

Find out more about the XP Club’s next climb here.