A LONDON-IRISH mountaineer has made the first successful Irish ascent of the world’s third highest peak, Kanchenjunga.
Anselm Murphy (27) reached the 8,586m (28,170ft) summit late last week and returned safely to base camp in the morning.
Murphy, whose father is from Rosslare, Co Wexford, was the youngest Irish passport holder to climb Everest in 2008 when he reached the highest summit with a commercial expedition company.
On his return to base camp at 5,50pm yesterday, he described how the climbers faced winds of 100km on the southwest face.
The expedition was involved in the rescue of an American climber, Cleo Wiedlich, while another member of Murphy’s group was reported to be suffering from altitude sickness.
The “mountain of jewels”, as Kanchenjunga’s name translates, lies on the Indian-Nepalese border and was first climbed by a British expedition in 1955.
It is regarded as a serious technical challenge, similar to the world’s second highest summit, K2, and as a result there have been just over 240 ascents to date – compared with more than 4,000 ascents recorded for Everest.
The mountain has claimed many lives, including that in May 1992 of Wanda Rutkiewicz from Poland, regarded as one of the world’s greatest female climbers.
“It was very worrying waiting to hear if he had made a safe descent,” his father, Abban Murphy, said. “He couldn’t get through to his mother when he reached the summit, so he phoned his identical twin brother, Ronan, who also spends time at altitude as a pilot.”
Murphy undertook the expedition with British climber Ted Atkins (52), who was officer commanding Royal Air Force mountain rescue in Scotland. Atkins has been involved in several life-saving rescues on Everest. Sherpa leader for the group was Mingma Sherpa.
