The articles below were featured in the 2026 edition of Panorama: Adventure. Click here to read the full Panorama magazine.

 

Eric Illick '14: WALKING THE KNIFE EDGE


There's a bench somewhere in the Swiss Alps. Eric Illick is certain of it. Pristinely carved, perfectly lacquered, positioned at just the right spot with a magnificent view. “I am 99% sure there is a secret society in Switzerland dedicated to placing really nice benches in beautiful spots in the mountains,” he says with a laugh.

The Mountains That Changed Everything

The turning point came when fellow LAS alum Arshia Soltani^'15 asked if Eric wanted to join a team to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. At that moment, he needed it more than he realized. "Between leaving LAS and starting this training, I had forgotten my love of the mountains. Or perhaps, I had just pushed it aside for material things that brought little to no lasting joy."

After nine months of preparation and a ten-day expedition in Tanzania, five LAS alumni (Eric, Arshia, Arshia’s sister Elnaz^'10, Leandro Zarate^'15, and Eduard Mazhinov^'15) stood together on Uhuru Peak, the highest point in Africa. "That adventure reignited my love of the mountains. Alpine climbing became a focal point of my life."

A Sport He Didn't Know Existed

That Christmas, Arshia gave Eric an ice axe. They moved to Leysin for the winter, teaching themselves to lead climb ice.

Later, while pursuing graduate studies in Colorado, a random Google search for indoor ice climbing led him to competitive dry tooling, a sport he'd never heard of. "The feeling was somewhere between a martial art and a dance." After three years of training, he earned a spot on the U.S. Ice Climbing team, traveling to South Korea and Canada to compete. "It was a dream come true, the culmination of a passion I'd first discovered at fourteen, in a way I didn't even know was possible."

The travel brought its own rewards, with new foods, cultures, and people. But the most significant growth was internal. "I have become better at assessing risk, more comfortable with being uncomfortable, and more excited by the possibility of making a new plan on the fly."

Full Circle

It was an LAS school trip to the Moiry Glacier with Sion Brocklehurst and Roger Payne in 2011 that first introduced Eric to ice climbing. In a fitting turn, he has since helped develop what is now the Alpine Leadership Program for Summer in Switzerland, inspiring the next generation as he was inspired. He's also pursuing a teaching credential in secondary computer science, with the goal of transitioning into international education full-time.

"I have yet to find a cooler feeling than having a student come back, excited to share an adventure they've been on because they were inspired to find their own."

His advice for anyone wanting to step outside their comfort zone: "Do it. Failure will happen. It's part of growth and part of life, and without that failure, there would be absolutely no chance of adventure. Walking the knife edge and finding out what you can achieve on the other side is what really makes us grow as people."

 

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Arshia Soltani'15: ETERNAL STUDENT OF THE MOUNTAINS

When Arshia Soltani was six years old, his aunt gave him a canvas for his birthday, and he filled it with an image of Mount Damavand, the snowy, semi-active volcano that rises above Tehran. Something about the Alborz mountain chain called to him even then. By sixteen, he had made up his mind to summit it. He did, carrying the LAS flag, and he has returned five times since, from different approaches taken in summer and winter. It’s “a snowy, glorious semi-active volcano that I consider my Mountain Mama,” he says with affection. Decades later and thousands of miles from Tehran, Arshia lives in Bogotá, Colombia, surrounded once again by mountains. They still offer him the same things they always have: consistency, persistence, and the courage to approach the unknown with pure passion and intention. “Mountains make me feel at home wherever I am in the world.”

When You Can See Every Summit

The idea for Kilimanjaro started with a challenge issued to Eduard Mazhinov'15 one night, a commitment so serious that Arshia had him sign a paper. He still has it. Eric Illick'14 also welcomed the idea. They all knew each other from LAS and were now living in Lausanne. They would stand by the lake and gaze toward the Alps, what Arshia calls “the entrance to a magical world,” with Leysin at its threshold and Valais stretching beyond. They began exploring those mountains one by one, learning pace, managing pack weight, and figuring out what they were capable of. “When I commit to a project,” Arshia says, “I do so spiritually, mentally, and physically.” What followed was what Arshia calls “some of the best times of my life.” Three nights a week, they ran through a cemetery, sprinting the final stretch shouting “Kili” at the top of their lungs. The training was deliberate, and the philosophy behind it even more so: conquer the intimidating things in your mind first, and the mountain becomes possible. When they finally stood on Uhuru Peak, Arshia practiced the ritual he still keeps today: a heartfelt hug with his climbing partner at the summit. “I take that chance to express my genuine gratitude for my climbing friend, the mountain that welcomed us, and through that, for life as a whole.”

The Matterhorn in a Day

After Eric left for graduate school in the United States, Arshia kept climbing, joining a mountaineering email list and saying yes to every opportunity he could. The Matterhorn came through a chance connection, a fellow climber looking for a partner. They met in Zermatt at 11:30 p.m., took the Hörnli ridge to the summit, and after more than twenty hours on the mountain, Arshia had to sprint to catch the last train out of Zermatt. "Unplanned opportunities like that sometimes appear in life, but you have to be prepared to grasp them. I do believe that luck strongly favors the prepared."

The LAS Family, Everywhere

For Arshia, the greatest adventures have always been shared ones. That belief has followed him from the mountains of Switzerland to the streets of Bogotá, where the friendship forged on Kilimanjaro became a professional partnership. He sees his LAS classmates not as former schoolmates but as fellow travelers, people bound together by shared summits and shared trust. From a six-year-old painting of Damavand to building a startup in the Andes, his path has been defined by one principle: approach the unknown with pure passion and intention.

 

 

  

 

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