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Southsider comes agonizingly close to Everest summit

Wednesday, 04 June 2008

A mountaineer from the Southside came agonizingly close to reaching the summit of Mount Everest recently but was prevented by injuries that had plagued him for weeks.
Dún Laoghaire man Graham Kinch (29) was forced to scrap his bid to become the first Dubliner to reach the world’s highest peak just 250 metres from the summit.
Kinch and his friend Ian Taylor - also 29 - from Leixlip in Co Kildare were attempting to climb the 8,850 metre high mountain in Nepal.
Taylor went on to reach the summit at 12:02am Irish time on Friday, May 23. In doing so he has become the youngest Irishman and the first Kildare man to stand on top of the world.
However, tragically for Kinch, he was forced to turn around just above an area of the mountain known as ‘the Balcony’ at 8,600m, finally giving in to a torn chest muscle that had plagued him for weeks.
The pair returned to base camp on Friday, May 23 after 10 weeks climbing on Everest.
But while Kinch was disappointed, he selflessly did not detract from the towering achievement of his fellow climber.
He said: “We've been thinking and planning for this trip for over two years. I'm disappointed I didn't get to the top but we always said that if one of us got to the top that would be a success.
“On summit night, I knew I was running low on energy and while I might have had enough to get to the top I wouldn't have had enough to get back down.”
He added: “I think it's better to know your limits than to be shown them, and unfortunately in this year alone Everest has shown several people their limits."
The two braved the dark, high winds, and temperatures of -35C on their summit push. A little over eight gruelling hours after leaving an area called the South Col, Taylor found himself on the summit, but not without incident.
“As I rounded the South Summit at 8,820m just before the Hillary Step, I saw Martin, a climbing buddy of ours in trouble,” said Taylor.
“I heard him shout 'It's Martin, I'm blind’. His oxygen mask had frozen, leading to hypoxia and blindness. I grabbed his foot, preventing him from stepping off the knife-edge ridge and down the 8,000ft South West Face to certain death. This left me pretty shook up.”
Kinch added: “It became very evident to us that this is not a place where man is meant to be or where you mess around.

Continents
“When you pass bodies, see people with snow blindness and avoid frost bite you realise that someone is looking out for you.”
The two set themselves the target of climbing four mountains on four continents in one year in aid of the Irish charity Fields of Life. They plan to raise e85,000, or e1 for every foot they climbed during the year.
They began their year by climbing Mount Blanc last June, followed by Kilimanjaro in September and a visit to the Kitandwe school project in Uganda that they are hoping to raise the funds for in partnership with Fields of Life.
They then went on to climb Aconcagua in January and now Mount Everest.
“We may have completed the climbing side of the project,” added Taylor, "but we are only halfway through our fundraising. We will spend most of the summer continuing to fundraise and people can still donate online at www.everest2008.ie”

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