TAMWORTH — Tamworth's Russ Staples has had a lifelong love affair with the mountains, and despite having undergone a bypass operation in 2010, he still gets out to hike easier routes in Zealand Valley and Mounts Paugus and Chocorua.
But, fresh out of college, he and a fellow University of New Hampshire grad (who like Staples was serving in the Peace Corps in India) made the trekking trip of their young lives to Everest Base Camp in Nepal.
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