I DIDN’T SLEEP MUCH THAT WEEK
AOIBHIN GARRIHY has always supported her husband John in his personal and business endeavours but her loyalty was tested to the limit when he announced he wanted to climb Everest.
Having ascended to base camp with him, she had an idea of the scale of the task he faced but no sooner had she left him than news broke of deaths on the mountain and she realised just how enormous an undertaking it was.
‘We met mountaineer Ueli Steck on the way up and we got photos with him, then news of his death came through,’ says Aoibhin sadly. ‘You think, if the mountain took him and he is so experienced...
‘I panicked then and I was texting John and asking, “why are you out there?” He just shut me down and reassured me that he was with a great team and just couldn’t deal with any negativity.’
While they had some contact as he ascended the lower part of the mountain, Aoibhin faced a further scare as she attempted to follow her husband’s final push through satellite trackers and trekking company updates.
‘When he went for the summit, it was six or seven days when there was no communication and that was difficult,’ she admits. ‘I was just glued to every spot tracker and blogger and every bit of news I could get. I probably didn’t sleep much that whole week and certainly not the night he went for the summit.
‘Then three hours before they were due to make the summit his battery died and I wasn’t sure if they had just vanished off the face of the mountain or not. But John had warned me that these batteries can die due to the cold, so I remained calm enough. I wasn’t panicking, I was just frustrated. In fairness to the company, as soon as they got word, they contacted me. I was so relieved.’
Aoibhin admits that her own experience to Everest base camp was scary and gave her an insight into what John was facing.
‘It’s a mad place. We could hear avalanches throughout the night, it feels unsafe from start to finish.
‘It doesn’t feel like a place humans should be, there are just big blocks of ice everywhere. Then when I came back, even though my body was here, my mind was over there with John. But I knew that he had to do it.’