Breathless from the gruelling climb and battered by the strong winds, intrepid mountaineer Gregory Attard called his girlfriend yesterday morning from the highest point on earth – Mount Everest, towering 8,848 metres above sea level.
An ecstatic Sharon Zahra told Times of Malta the 37-year-old doctor was proud to fly the Maltese flag on the world’s highest peak for the second time in the space of four years.
He was joined on the summit by Matthew Xerri and Douglas Barbaro Sant, who were new to the feat. The fourth team member, Raphael Fenech Adami, was 250 metres short of making it to the summit. At an altitude of 8,600 metres, he felt sick and Dr Attard advised him to turn back with his Sherpa.
The wind is high but so is the team’s morale
Crippled by exhaustion, the team was forced to spend the night at Camp 3, located at a highly-uncomfortable altitude of 8,300 metres above sea level.
The team scaled the mountain from the northeast ridge route in Chinese-ruled Tibet. In 2010, Dr Attard had summited together with Marco Cremona and Robert Gatt from the southeast ridge route in Nepal.
“I was rather anxious because I had calculated that he would summit at about 3 or 4am,” Ms Zahra said. “I lay awake all night. I couldn’t sleep. Then the much-anticipated satellite phone call came at 6.20am.
“It was difficult to hear him properly because the wind was blasting the phone but, from what I could make out, he sounded well considering the exertion.
“This time, apart from a mountaineer and medic, Greg was also the group leader, so he obviously wouldn’t be trudging on ahead of the other team members on his own.” Ms Zahra had been feeding the team members with constant weather updates since they had no access to the internet.
On Saturday, winds were raging at 35 kilometres an hour.
“On Saturday, Greg told me: ‘Sharon, you saved us.’ They were planning a further ascent but changed their minds when I informed them of the terrible weather ahead.”
On Saturday at 3am, Dr Attard messaged Times of Malta: “Officially, the worst night of our life. Blizzard raged all night on Everest. We’re at 8,000 metres. Now waiting for a break in the weather.”
This message was followed by another at 1pm: “All Maltese team successfully reached Camp 3 at 8,300 metres.
“In approximately two hours, we leave for our decisive summit bid. The wind is high but so is the team’s morale.”
Everest summiteer and blogger Alan Arnette reported that the first summits of 2014 came unexpectedly from the Nepal side.
While all the commercial teams and most of the independents left after the April 18 deaths of 16 Sherpas, a few teams remained at the Everest base camp, trying to find a way to climb.
Chinese Jing Wang and her five Sherpas summited on Saturday. Yesterday morning also saw the youngest female to summit the mountain: 13-year-old Poorna Malavath from India.
The Maltese team is expected back home on June 4.