Adam Hodges still plans to climb Mount Everest, but those plans have been postponed due to both China and Nepal closing down access to the world’s tallest mountain.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, expeditions to Everest’s peak have been shut down indefinitely. Hodges, the general manager of Anderson’s Health and Fitness Center in Meridian, has been training to climb Everest since late last year. He implemented the Rock Steady Boxing program at Anderson’s, which works with Parkinson’s Disease patients to help them fight the effects of the disorder. Once he decided to climb Everest, Hodges founded his Ascent for a Cure program, which raises money for the fight against Parkinson’s.

After planning to climb Everest from the Nepal side, Hodges said the permits and deposits for the expedition will roll over to next year, so he still plans to climb it in 2021. Hodges plans to climb the tallest mountain on each continent — he’s already scaled Denali in North America, Aconcagua in in South America and Elbrus in Europe — and if the COVID-19 pandemic gets under control later this year he would like to climb one of the other mountains left on his list.

“It’s kind of hard to make plans right now,” Hodges admitted.

Still, Hodges plans to keep training as much as he can while following social distancing protocols recommended by health officials. 

“It doesn’t change anything other than putting things on hold for this season,” Hodges said. “The plan is to continue with Ascent for A Cure and do one of the other seven summits, and that would be in the fall or the first of next year. We just have to wait for things to calm down.”

While he was looking forward to the Everest expedition, which would have taken place in late April or early May, Hodges said he understands the need for people to follow health officials’ advise and not take trips.

“It’s disappointing, but at the same time the larger picture is potentially having people in our area becoming really ill from this, so we have to put it in perspective,” Hodges said. “The main thing for me is my family stays safe and we can hopefully keep it out of the community. I can always do Everest next year.”

While he hasn’t decided on which mountain he can potentially climb once things settle down, Hodges said Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa in December might be doable, and the cost to climb it is lower than some of the other peaks on his list.

“It’s hard to get any information right now, and even the guys don’t really know what it looks like for the next few months, so no one can really commit to anything,” Hodges said. “We’ll have to wait until the spread gets under control, and then I’ll make my decision.”

Watching everything unfold over the past few weeks has been surreal for Hodges, and it slowly began to dawn on him that the Everest trip would be delayed.

“I don’t think I took this thing seriously enough at first,” Hodges said. “You base your awareness on what you’re hearing, and if you look at the last three weeks, it’s changed every week in terms of what the national media is reporting. Here we are today, and businesses and schools are shut down, and (Thursday) our kids began online schooling at Lamar, which basically means doing a lot of homeschooling. We don’t mind doing it, but it changes the way we’ve been doing things for sure.”

With Anderson’s Fitness shut down due to the pandemic, Hodges said he’s been unable to work with the Parkinson’s patients in the Rock Steady Boxing classes. It’s frustrating, but Hodges’ priority is preventing potential exposure to COVID-19. Members of the class range the mid 50s to 88 in age.

“The biggest concern is their safety, because the older population is more at risk than others,” Hodges said. “We’re not able to offer the program right now, and we’re trying to work through what we can do for them in the meantime. We may try to come up with some online instructions for them as far as training.”