Chinese climber 3rd blind person to scale Mt Everest
KATHMANDU: The 46-year old Chinese Zhang Hong has scaled the tallest peak in the world from the Nepal side, becoming the first blind man in Asia and the third in the world to climb Mount Everest.
“No matter if you’re disabled or normal, whether you have lost your eyesight or you have no legs or hands, it doesn’t matter as long as you have a strong mind, you can always complete a thing that other people you can’t,” Zhang told Reuters.
Zhang completed the 8,849 metre-high Himalayan feat on May 24 along with three high altitude guides, and returned to the base camp on Thursday.
Born in southwestern Chinese city of Chongqing, Zhang lost his sight at the age of 21 due to glaucoma. He was inspired by Erik Weihenmayer, a blind American mountaineer who scaled Everest in 2001, and began training under the guidance of his mountain guide friend Qiang Zi.
Nepal reopened Mount Everest in April for foreigners after it was shut last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“I was still very scared, because I couldn’t see where I was walking, and I couldn’t find my centre of gravity, so sometimes I would fall,” said Zhang.
Oldest American, fastest woman return safely
A retired attorney from Chicago who became the oldest American to scale Mount Everest, and a Hong Kong teacher who is now the fastest female climber of the world’s highest peak, on Sunday returned safely from the mountain where climbing teams have struggled with bad weather and a coronavirus outbreak.
Arthur Muir, 75, scaled the peak earlier this month, beating the record set by another American, Bill Burke, at age 67.
Tsang Yin-hung, 45, of Hong Kong scaled the summit from the base camp in 25 hours and 50 minutes, and became the fastest female climber. The record of 10 hours and 56 minutes is held by a Sherpa guide, Lakpa Gelu.
An outbreak of the coronavirus among climbers and their guides at the Everest base camp has forced at least three teams to cancel their expeditions. But hundreds of others have pushed through attempting to scale the summit, at a time Nepal is in lockdown battling its worst surge in Covid-19.