Scripting history of sorts, 46-year old Chinese national Zhang Hong achieved the remarkable feat of scaling Mount Everest from Nepal side becoming the first visually impaired man in Asia and the third in the world to accomplish this daunting task.
He completed the 8,849 metre-high Himalayan feat on May 24 along with three high altitude guides, and returned to the base camp on Thursday, May 27.
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
“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,” Zhang told news agency Reuters.
Born in the southwestern Chinese city of Chongqing, Zhang became visually challenged at the age of 21 due to glaucoma.
Erik Weihenmayer, a blind American mountaineer who conquered Everest in 2001, inspired Zhang and he began training with his mountain guide and friend Qiang Zi.
After being closed to foreigners due to the COVID-19 outbreak last year, Nepal reopened Mount Everest to international visitors in April.
“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,” he told the media.
Determined not to give up, Zhang is now eyeing to scale the seven summits. “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,” Zhang was quoted as telling the media.