Daredevil bids to be first Irish man up Everest without oxygen
AN elite climber is praying it’ll be third time lucky as he bids to make history by becoming the first Irishman to climb Mount Everest without oxygen.
James McManus, 41, was just hours from the top, without supplementary oxygen, on his previous expedition in 2023 when bad weather forced him to cancel his final push to the 8,850-metre summit.
Also, last year, an unexpected storm forced him to abandon the final part of another gruelling ascent without oxygen – this time to the top of the avalanche-prone Himalayan summit of Dhaulagiri, a mountain that has still yet to be conquered by an Irish national.
So it’s little wonder that the man from Roscrea, Co. Tipperary, said he’s taking nothing for granted as he landed in Nepal
‘I need to be as fit as I possibly can’
yesterday ahead of another sixweek expedition to conquer Everest without oxygen.
Mr McManus said he couldn’t feel more prepared this time round, after subjecting himself to a brutal training regime.
Along with a recent ascent of Aconcagua in Argentina – the highest peak in the Americas at almost 7,000m – his punishing preparations have also included a 100km ultra-marathon in Mexico and tailor-made tolerance and breath-holding exercises.
He spent the past nine weeks sleeping in an altitude tent on top of his bed to help him to acclimatise to the harsh conditions he faces.
If all goes to plan, Mr McManus – who runs Dublin-based adventure travel company, Earth’s Edge – is aiming to reach base camp on April 17 ahead of a push to the summit around May 23.
Accompanied by a Sherpa, he’ll be climbing from the lesser-visited Tibetan side of the mountain for the first time, which he says is technically tougher than going from the Nepalese side, but doesn’t carry the danger of ice falls.
However, a big disadvantage this time round is that he won’t be able to rest between rotations as he could two years ago due to the Tibetan base camp’s higher altitude of 5,500m.
He said: ‘I need to be as fit as I possibly can for this challenge, even more so than the previous two, because I’ll be above 5,500m all the time and that means that without oxygen my body will be constantly deteriorating. It’s a colossal test, and if I get one thing wrong then I won’t make it.’
Just 221 people have climbed Mount Everest without supplementary oxygen.
Before it was first achieved in May 1978 by Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler, most experts believed the human body would be unable to cope with the low oxygen level, which, near the top of the peak, is about 30% lower than at sea level.
Mr McManus added: ‘It’s a fantastic puzzle and I am looking forward to solving it.’