Scaling New Heights

Injured Iraq war veteran Major Phil Packer was told he’d never walk again after suffering a spinal injury in a rocket attack in Basra in February 2008. His response? Pulling himself up the 1,800 feet of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. That’s the equivalent of doing about 4,254 pull-ups, he estimates on his website.

Packer, 36, of the U.K.'s Royal Military Police, has completed a series of grueling and inspirational fundraising challenges for Help for Heroes, a British charity that supports the country’s wounded veterans. Others include walking the London Marathon on crutches in April (it took him two weeks), and rowing the English Channel in February. He’s surpassed his goal of raising $1.5 million for the charity.

“My shoulders are sore but the sun is still out,” Packer blogged from El Capitan just yesterday. “We are very high now.”