MOUNT EVEREST – Chinese mountaineer Zhang Hong has become the first visually impaired person in the Asian continent to summit the world’s tallest peak Mount Everest.
Hong, who suffered visual impairment due to glaucoma, has scaled the tallest peak in the world from the Nepal side. The 46-year-old becomes the third around the globe to hold the title as he completes the 8,849 meter-high Himalayan feat on May 24.
Following the record to climb 8,848.86 meters peak, the fearless hiker eyed to scale seven peaks as a part of Seven Summit Treks.
Taking to his official handle on Twitter, he wrote ‘I summited Everest, I would like to thank my family, my guides, the folks at Fokind Hospital, and asian trekking who have been extremely supportive of my journey’.
I summited Everest!
I would like to thank my family, my guides, the folks at Fokind Hospital, and @asiantrekking who have been extremely supportive of my journey.
This is only the beginning as I would like to climb the #SevenSummits #Everest2021
More pictures coming soon! pic.twitter.com/RlpFH29DoP
— Blind Mountaineer Zhang Hong 张洪 (@Zhang_Hong_76) May 25, 2021
Hong while speaking with an International news agency told that ‘No matter if you’re disabled or normal, whether you have lost your eyesight or you have no legs or hands, it doesn’t matter as long as you have a strong mind, you can always complete a thing that other people say you can’t’.
#Everest2021 Climbing – Day 28
I’m blind, but at least I‘m not afraid of heights.
This our 15th day at Base Camp and we are about to set off to camp 3 through Khumbu Icefall so that we acclimate before the final ascent on Everest.
I have already checked my equipment 5 times! pic.twitter.com/3CscxvMZB8
— Blind Mountaineer Zhang Hong 张洪 (@Zhang_Hong_76) April 28, 2021
Narrating his motive to climb the top peak with impairment, he mentioned Erik Weihenmayer as his role model. Erik is a blind American mountaineer who scaled Everest in the year 2001.
‘I was still very scared, because I couldn’t see where I was walking, and I couldn’t find my centre of gravity, so sometimes I would fall but I kept thinking because even though it was hard, I had to face those difficulties, this is one component of climbing, there are difficulties and dangers and this is the meaning of climbing’, he told the news agency.
