Everest team makes progress

An Irish climbing expedition hoping to place the first Irishwoman on the top of Everest reports steady progress in spite of bad weather.

The six-strong team led by a Cork man, Mr Pat Falvey, has established Camp 2 at 22,000 feet, still some 7,000 feet short of the summit of the world's highest peak.

Severe snowstorms have cut off the team's route back down the mountain, but support staff say the group has all the supplies it needs to survive until local sherpas establish a new route up from base camp.

The team, all of whom are said to be feeling "strong and well," plans to strike two further camps on the mountain before making a final push for the summit. If all goes to plan, they will reach the top around May 13th.

The two women on the team are Ms Hannah Shields (38), a dentist from Kilrea, Co Derry, and Ms Clare O'Leary (32), a consultant who specialises in gastroenterology at Cork University Hospital.

Their attempt comes 50 years after the first ascent of Everest by Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund Hillary, and 10 years after the first successful Irish climb by Belfast architect and mountain guide, Mr Dawson Stelfox.

Mr Falvey (45) became the second Irishman to climb Everest in 1995.

The other team members are Mr Mick Murphy (43), a teacher from west Cork who was part of the 1993 expedition; Mr George Shorten (41), an anaesthetist at Cork University Hospital; and Mr Gerard McDonnell, an automation engineer from Kilcornan, Co Limerick, who is working in Alaska.

Mr Falvey hopes to become the first Irishman to ascend from both the north and south approaches, and the team hopes to record the first Irish climb from Nepal.

Currently, 22 different teams are attempting to climb Everest. The bad weather and severe conditions have taken their toll on other climbers.

A number have been airlifted off the mountain with medical problems, and one French cameraman died last week of altitude sickness.

The Irish team was accompanied to base camp by a group of support trekkers.

A second group will leave Dublin on May 9th and hope to rendezvous with the climbers on their descent.

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