Former Scottish Marine relives terrifying attempt to scale Mount Everest

Edinburgh Live

2 days ago

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A Scottish man who attempted to climb Mount Everest as a tribute to his late dad had to turn back within sight of the summit after coming face to face with climbers who had died while trying to reach it.
Adventurous Tony Smith, 55, travelled to Nepal to try and scale the world's highest mountain, but the former Royal Marine and retired firefighter was forced to turn back just 800 metres from the hard to reach summit, reports The Daily Record.
Tony said: "Several avalanches had raised concerns by the time I got closer to Camp Four, 800 metres short of the final summit.
"There had been five fatalities – two of whom I encountered going up – and extreme weather conditions and I had to cancel the attempt. I saw a gentleman crouched down as if he was taking photographs and I thought he was getting some nice pictures.
"But as I got closer I could see that he wasn't moving. He was dead, frozen and still attached to a safety line, perfectly preserved in a crouched position.
"That startled me. I also passed a gentleman and a lady who were going up and he was concerned and I thought he was helping with his oxygen tank. Later I heard the woman had died.
"Another person had reached the summit but died on the way back down and there had been five fatalities."
Mount Everest stands at 8848.86 metres. In total, around 350 people have died attempting to climb Everest and the death toll continues to rise each year.
Tony flew out on April 7. His trek to the Everest base camp took eight days before he started the climb, which took five weeks.
The dad-of-three said: "I had been saving up for 10 years and I had a little money from my dad's inheritance. I saw my dad take his last breath and it made me realise life was short. I thought: 'What am I waiting for?'."
Recalling one of the scariest moments of the climb, he said: "On one occasion I put my foot through a crevasse and I went through and plummeted down and fortunately my fall was broken by rocks below.
"If you fall into one of those crevasses you're not coming back. There was nothing beneath me other than a 40ft dip. I'd been scaling a cliff face that was 200 metres vertical and I was done in.
"I had no oxygen left, the sun was going down and I thought, 'I'm done here'. Fortunately one of the guides came and supplied me with a fresh oxygen tank and pulled me out of the gully.
"If he hadn't come and got me I would have been one of those fatalities. That is why I didn't go for the summit." The climb was so. arduous and harrowing that Tony says he has no intention of reliving the experience.
Tony, from Ayrshire, added: "The risk while climbing Everest far outweighed my time in Northern Ireland or Iraq. The slopes, the lack of oxygen, getting through some of the rock faces.
"I felt like there was more opportunity for me to not return from Everest than from Northern Ireland or Iraq and I wouldn't want to experience that again. If you said, 'Tony, I'll pay your expenses and give you £10,000,' I'd say no thank you!"
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