What Mountain Are you Climbing?
New Zealander becomes the first double amputee to haul himself up to the summit
This week, a middle-aged man from New Zealand called Mark Inglis painfully hauled himself up the last few feet to the summit of Mount Everest.
Nothing so unusual in that -- after all, climbing Everest has become so popular its slopes are often crowded, and more than 100 people have scaled the mountain already this year. Except Inglis is different: he has no legs.
Inglis, who lost both his legs to frostbite more than 20 years ago, is the first double amputee to reach the top of Everest. On Monday night he telephoned his wife, Anne, in their New Zealand home from the 29,035-foot summit to let her know he had made it safely.
During his climb, Inglis has been raising funds to provide artificial legs for disabled Tibetans, who live under the shadow of Everest. He made his own ascent on carbon fibre artificial legs specially adapted for climbing.
At one point, one of them snapped in a fall at 21,000 feet, and Inglis had to make running repairs on the mountainside before he could struggle back to his fellow climbers and rebuild it with spare parts.
He joins a small list of climbers who have overcome disabilities to conquer Everest, including a blind American and a Sherpa whose hands had been amputated and who used hooks to climb.
But Inglis insisted that was not what was important to him. "I'm not doing this to be the first double amputee," he told reporters before setting off. "If I am then it's the icing on the cake -- but it's more about I've been climbing most of my life and Everest is the achievement really."
Late on Monday night Inglis's wife answered the phone to hear his voice from Everest.
"I'm at Camp 4. I made it. I did it," he said before the line went dead.
"He's incredible," she said yesterday. "He's dreamt of this all his life, probably. He's over the moon. They didn't expect to be this early, they thought maybe mid to late May, so Mark will be stoked. I imagine they'll be having a few whiskies."
New Zealand has always had a special relationship with Everest, and Sir Edmund Hillary-- together with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay the first to scale Everest-- hailed his countryman's achievement.
"Quite obviously a remarkable effort to actually climb Mt. Everest with a couple of artificial legs. And I have to admit that I admire his considerable effort ... he's done a pretty good job," he told the Sydney Morning Herald.
Inglis lost his legs in his 20s, when he was working as a mountain rescue guide. He and a fellow climber, Phil Doole, were climbing New Zealand's Mount Cook and got caught in a blizzard. They were trapped in an ice cave for 14 days, and the effort to rescue them became a major news story.
When the rescuers finally got through, Inglis and Doole were barely alive, and both men's legs were so badly affected by frostbite they had to be amputated below the knee.
But he refused to let it stop him climbing -- on his website, he describes the loss of his legs as a "very public hiccup to my climbing profession."
He is also a winemaker, a professional ski guide, and a competitive cyclist -- he won a silver medal in the 2000 Paralympic Games in Sydney.
During his Everest ascent, he has been trying to raise funds and awareness to provide artificial limbs for the disabled in Tibet.
"Disabled people are a rare sight in Tibet, the environment so harsh that few survive," he says on his website. "By creating an opportunity for them to effectively work by sourcing limbs we can give back to them their lives."
The expedition is also hoping to raise money for a centre for landmine and polio victims who have lost their legs in Cambodia.
Inglis' ascent comes amid the annual rush to conquer Everest while the spring sun lasts -- before the onset of the monsoon makes climbing perilous.
Even as news of Inglis' ascent came in, another expedition announced that a Swede and a Norwegian had reached the summit of Everest, and were planning to ski back down.
Justin Huggler
The Independent(May 17, 2006)
This week, a middle-aged man from New Zealand called Mark Inglis painfully hauled himself up the last few feet to the summit of Mount Everest.
Nothing so unusual in that -- after all, climbing Everest has become so popular its slopes are often crowded, and more than 100 people have scaled the mountain already this year. Except Inglis is different: he has no legs.
Inglis, who lost both his legs to frostbite more than 20 years ago, is the first double amputee to reach the top of Everest. On Monday night he telephoned his wife, Anne, in their New Zealand home from the 29,035-foot summit to let her know he had made it safely.
During his climb, Inglis has been raising funds to provide artificial legs for disabled Tibetans, who live under the shadow of Everest. He made his own ascent on carbon fibre artificial legs specially adapted for climbing.
At one point, one of them snapped in a fall at 21,000 feet, and Inglis had to make running repairs on the mountainside before he could struggle back to his fellow climbers and rebuild it with spare parts.
He joins a small list of climbers who have overcome disabilities to conquer Everest, including a blind American and a Sherpa whose hands had been amputated and who used hooks to climb.
But Inglis insisted that was not what was important to him. "I'm not doing this to be the first double amputee," he told reporters before setting off. "If I am then it's the icing on the cake -- but it's more about I've been climbing most of my life and Everest is the achievement really."
Late on Monday night Inglis's wife answered the phone to hear his voice from Everest.
"I'm at Camp 4. I made it. I did it," he said before the line went dead.
"He's incredible," she said yesterday. "He's dreamt of this all his life, probably. He's over the moon. They didn't expect to be this early, they thought maybe mid to late May, so Mark will be stoked. I imagine they'll be having a few whiskies."
New Zealand has always had a special relationship with Everest, and Sir Edmund Hillary-- together with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay the first to scale Everest-- hailed his countryman's achievement.
"Quite obviously a remarkable effort to actually climb Mt. Everest with a couple of artificial legs. And I have to admit that I admire his considerable effort ... he's done a pretty good job," he told the Sydney Morning Herald.
Inglis lost his legs in his 20s, when he was working as a mountain rescue guide. He and a fellow climber, Phil Doole, were climbing New Zealand's Mount Cook and got caught in a blizzard. They were trapped in an ice cave for 14 days, and the effort to rescue them became a major news story.
When the rescuers finally got through, Inglis and Doole were barely alive, and both men's legs were so badly affected by frostbite they had to be amputated below the knee.
But he refused to let it stop him climbing -- on his website, he describes the loss of his legs as a "very public hiccup to my climbing profession."
He is also a winemaker, a professional ski guide, and a competitive cyclist -- he won a silver medal in the 2000 Paralympic Games in Sydney.
During his Everest ascent, he has been trying to raise funds and awareness to provide artificial limbs for the disabled in Tibet.
"Disabled people are a rare sight in Tibet, the environment so harsh that few survive," he says on his website. "By creating an opportunity for them to effectively work by sourcing limbs we can give back to them their lives."
The expedition is also hoping to raise money for a centre for landmine and polio victims who have lost their legs in Cambodia.
Inglis' ascent comes amid the annual rush to conquer Everest while the spring sun lasts -- before the onset of the monsoon makes climbing perilous.
Even as news of Inglis' ascent came in, another expedition announced that a Swede and a Norwegian had reached the summit of Everest, and were planning to ski back down.
Justin Huggler
The Independent(May 17, 2006)
posted by Dr. Joe at 4:40 AM
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