80 Year-Old-Man Climbs Everest; Gets Cell Phone Reception
Can you hear him now? An 80-year-old man set a new record as the oldest man to climb Mount Everest yesterday.
When the octogenarian adventurer reached the summit of the Mount Everest, the world’s highest mountain, he called his daughter: “This is the best feeling in the world. I never thought I’d reach the summit at 80 years old. This is the happiest moment of my life.”
Yuichiro Miura started the climb last Thursday from a base camp situated at 5,300 meters last Thursday. The team set out for the “death zone,” the last and most dangerous part of the ascent, at around 2 a.m. local time. They made the final 1,140-foot summit in about seven hours. Miura reached the summit of the world’s highest mountain around noon, Japanese time, yesterday. The intrepid adventurer conquered the mountain’s summit two times before, when he was 70 and 75 years old.
Tibet’s Mount Everest which is known as the “Goddess Mother of the Mountains,” has a peak of 8,848 meters.
The first people to reach the summit were Sir Edmund Hillary, from New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay, from Tibet, in 1953. The previous record-holder was Min Bahadur Serchan, a 76-year-old Tibetan man. On May 19, 2012, Tamae Watanabe became the oldest woman to conquer the imposing mountain.
Miura said, “I’m very tired, but even at 80 years old I feel I can keep on going.”
Miura was part of a nine-person team that used the same route that was pioneered by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norway 60 years ago. Miura was joined by his 43-year-old son, two other Japanese, and six Nepali sherpas. The adventurers climbed up the southeast ridge.
Every step of the climb was chronicled on Facebook. Miura's Tokyo office was packed with reporters and his family who were waiting by the phone for news. When the call came in, even the reporters applauded.
Miura broke his pelvis and fractured his thigh in a skiing accident in 2009. He has had four heart surgeries to treat recurring arrhythmia. He had his last surgery just two months before he set out on his latest sojourn. At 8,848 meters (29,030 feet), oxygen concentration at the mountain’s peak is a third of that at sea level. The physical condition of the body ages 70 years at such high altitudes, which would make the climbers' aerobic capacity 150 years and older.
In a statement posted on his website Miura said "It is to honor the great Mother Nature. Hoping to raise even an inch of human possibility."
Miura was 70 when he made his first attempt to climb to the top of Everest in 2003. He set the record at that time. He climbed with his with his son, a former Olympian. Miura set another record five years later when he was again the oldest climber to successfully scale the mountain at 75 years old.
Nepal's Min Bahadur Sherchan was 76 years and 340 days old when he broke Miura’s records in 2008.
Sherchan who is now 81, is going to attempt another trip to beating the record Miura set today.
Yuichiro Miura was filmed for the 1975 Oscar-winning documentary "The Man Who Skied Down Everest" when he skied down Everest's South Col. In his fifties, Miura summited and skied down all seven summits of the world. Miura next plans to ski down the Himalayan mountain of Cho Oyu, which is the sixth highest mountain in the world, in five years. He will be 85 years old.
More than 200 people have died trying to make the climb since Sir Hillary’s first successful climb in 1953.
by Tony Sokol