Bottomless family fortune does not back Dean Cardinale, nor did he strike it rich on Wall Street or in Silicon Valley. Yet, despite his lack of personal wealth, he has found a way to positively impact thousands of lives while building a business centered on his passion for adventure. His strategy boils down to this very simple, but effective premise: “I found that the easiest and best way to impact a community is by investing in its children,” he says.
As such children are at the heart of every decision Cardinale makes on behalf of Human Outreach Project (HOP), a now 18-year-old nonprofit with reach in three countries, as well as here in Utah, that he founded at the same time he launched his adventure travel guiding company, World Wide Trekking (WWT).
Cardinale’s affinity for mountain adventure was seeded on the mom-and-pop ski resorts’ slopes near his childhood home in Catskill, NY Ski racing led him to New Hampshire’s Keene State College. He then moved to Albany, N.Y., where he intended to put his business degree to use. “I lasted six months,” Cardinale says. “And then I got in my car and drove to Snowbird.” There he worked his way from restaurant prep cook to the Snowbird Ski Patrol and eventually avalanche forecasting. Building his mountaineering skills along the way, Cardinale began his guiding career in the early 2000s, first in his adopted Wasatch Mountains’ backyard, then elsewhere in North America, and finally, among the world’s highest peaks.
In 2005, Cardinale first trekked to the top of Mt. Everest, which unknowingly set him on the path to founding HOP.
“I was working as a guide for Mountain Madness and my friend, Ang Pasang Sherpa, was critical in helping me and my clients get to the top,” Cardinale says. “Unfortunately, just a few days after we summited, Ang was killed in an avalanche.” Cardinale returned to Nepal for the climbing season the following year, but before he headed to the mountain, he paid a visit to the orphanage in Kathmandu where Pasang Sherpa’s three children lived. “I took them to lunch and bought them a few things they needed. When we returned, all the other kids there were waiting for me to take them out, too,” he says. “I knew I needed to do something.”
So, with the mission that “trekkers could—and should—give back to the communities in which they travel,” Cardinale established Human Outreach Project. In the beginning, it was just him getting sporting goods and medical supplies donated through his connections at Snowbird to orphanages in both Katmandu and communities near the other highest peak he guided, Tanzania’s Mount Kilimanjaro. It was also at that time that Cardinale learned a hard lesson about volunteerism in parts of the developing world. “There’s lots of corruption,” he says. “I realized we had to do it ourselves and do it from the top on down.”
Cardinale purchased four acres in Tanzania to build the Kilimanjaro Kids’ Community (KKC). On what was once a barren patch of ground, is now a leafy campus where 35 orphaned children, aged 1-18 years old, live, learn and recreate.
The KKC, however, is just the beginning of the impactful projects Cardinale has spearheaded and continues to nurture through HOP. At two primary schools near the KKC, HOP has built kitchens, employs staff and covers food costs to provide lunch for more than 1,000 students every day. “The [school lunch programs] have brought attendance, and therefore grades, way up at both schools,” Cardinale says.
In Nepal, following the devastating 2015 Gorkha earthquake, HOP rebuilt two medical clinics within the country’s mountainous Khumbu Region: the Pheriche Medical Clinic, located along the route to Everest Base Camp, and the Manang Medical Clinic, which serves more than 2,500 people during the three month climbing season, most are support workers. “Many of our programs focus on reaching people off the beaten path where people are struggling,” Cardinale says.
Here in Utah, Human Outreach Project Outdoors introduces local at-risk adolescents to hiking in the Wasatch Mountains, and HOP’s Veterans Outreach Project provides support to local retired servicemen and women during the holidays.
Last year, Cardinale launched HOP’s latest endeavor, Keep Mount Kilimanjaro Clean. “When I started climbing Kili 20 years ago, 20,000 people per year climbed the mountain,” he says. “Now more than 55,000 do so every year.” During one of WWT’s last trips there in 2024, Cardinale noticed much more trash along the trail to the summit than he had observed on previous visits. Rather than ignoring the problem, or just reminding his clients to clean up after themselves, he organized four cleaning missions, each made up of 25 to 50 workers, who removed more than 6,000 pounds of trash. “When they see trash on the ground they are more likely to leave trash themselves,” Cardinale says.
Like HOP’s other efforts, Keep Mount Kilimanjaro Clean is not a one-and-done proposition. Following last fall’s cleanup missions, Cardinale is aiming to get Kilimanjaro’s visitors to help keep the mountain clean through HOP’s “1Kg Challenge.” At the trailhead, Cardinale has installed bins for climbers to deposit filled provided biodegradable bags as they leave the mountain. Cardinale also had signage placed reminding visitors to pack in and pack out everything. For his efforts, the Tanzania National Park Authority named him an official ambassador of Mount Kilimanjaro National Park.
Throughout his almost two decades of philanthropic work, Cardinale remains actively involved in every Human Outreach Project undertaking by spending a day or two before or after his WWT guests arrive or leave for a trek to visit one of HOP’s schools or clinics in Nepal, Tanzania and Peru. And he always makes time to visit the now-adult children of his late friend, Ang Pasang Sherpa—Lhakpa Dhen Deh, Dawa Gylasten and Pasang Maya. “They are my family,” Cardinale says. “and I am happy to report that they are all doing great.” For more visit humanoutreachproject.org.
Read more stories like this and all of our Community coverage. And while you’re here, subscribe and get six issues of Salt Lake magazine, your curated guide to the best of life in Utah.
