Pretoria - Saray Khumalo is possibly the unluckiest mountaineer in the world.
For the second year, the South African mother of two’s dream of becoming the first black woman to summit the world’s highest peak has ended in tears. First, it was an avalanche, and just 10 days ago it was an earthquake that stood in her way.
Khumalo arrived in Nepal early last month to prepare to climb Mount Everest. Her mission came just a year after she failed to reach the summit last year due to the worst Everest disaster.
Climbers pay $11 000 (R132 000) each to climb Mt Everest, and 357 were registered for this climbing season. Last year, the government extended permits when teams abandoned their expeditions after an avalanche killed 16 Sherpa mountain guides. On April 25, Khumalo was climbing a glacier between camp one and two of the mountain when her second attempt was brought to an abrupt end by a 7.8-magnitude earthquake which rattled Nepal and killed more than 7 200 people.
She was terrified when she felt the Earth shake and the glaciers cracked beneath her feet.
“We got lost in poor visibility. Everything was white (with snow) because of the quake and we were struggling to find camp two. Eventually we did.
“But we were shaky and scared,” she said from the Gift of the Givers camp at Kathmandu on Tuesday. Khumalo said she felt as though she was “out of her body” when the tremors occurred.
Khumalo, who was climbing for Multiply to raise funds for libraries for children in South Africa, has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Elbrus, as part of her goal to scale the world’s big seven summits.
She described this latest failure as dream-shattering, but said she would not be deterred.
“Last year it was the avalanche, now it is the earthquake. I will continue to attempt again, but I am not sure when,” Khumalo said.
However, Khumalo did have the chance to get to the mountain, using a helicopter to get slightly higher up before continuing on foot. But she turned it down.
“By Friday, our team made the decision to not take the option of hiring a helicopter because there seemed to be a shortage due to the earthquake. And that’s when we decided to call the expedition off.”
Khumalo said her attempt to climb Mount Everest last year had been intended to raise funds for a feeding scheme, and this year it was to raise funds to build libraries at five schools.
The 43-year-old began mountaineering in 2012 when she visited a friend in the US who asked her why she had not climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. “When I returned to South Africa, a few friends and I decided to climb Kilimanjaro.”
Pretoria News