Visually-impaired Chinese climber aims to summit Everest

The mountaineer set out for the trek from Nepal on March 30

Kathmandu: Zhang Hong, a 46-year-old visually-impaired Chinese climber, is attempting to summit Mount Everest this spring, a company organising his expedition said. “If he manages to reach the top of Mt. Everest, he will be the first Asian visually-impaired person to scale the world’s tallest peak,” Dawa Steven Sherpa, chief executive officer of Asian Trekking, one of the leading expedition organising companies in Nepal, told Xinhua news agency on Friday.

Earlier, two visually-impaired mountaineers, American Erik Weihenmayer and Austrian Andy Holze, had reached the top of the world’s highest peak in May 2001 and May 2017, respectively.

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According to Sherpa guides, the Chinese mountaineer who arrived in Nepal on March 30, set out for Mt. Everest on April 3. He has been trekking to the base camp of the mountain and was expected to reach it on Sunday. “His team includes six Chinese and six sherpas. During the ascent of Everest, four sherpas will directly support him,” said the CEO Sherpa.

The world’s tallest peak has been a dream for many people with disabilities and some of them have already achieved their dreams by scaling the mountain. Its height was slightly increased to 8848.86 metres when Nepali and Chinese surveyors measured and jointly announced the new height in December last year.

Sherpa said that the Chinese climber had been training hard for the last three years. According to the Asian Trekking, he has already conquered Muztagh Ata, a 7,509-metre peak in China’s Xinjiang region two years ago. Zhang is one of the 244 climbers who got climbing permits for Mt. Everest from Nepali authorities.

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