The Irish climber bidding to set a new world record for the fastest ascent of the seven highest summits on all seven continents, looked set yesterday to smash the current record by as much as 21 days.
Wicklow-based climber Ian McKeever had hoped to summit the final peak, Mount McKinley in Alaska, on his Ulster Bank Seven Summits Challenge yesterday, but dangerously high winds forced the 37-year-old Irishman and his British climbing partner Dave Pritt to turn back at 5,550m on the mountain.
An improved weather forecast for last night prompted the pair to regroup for a second attempt and they were hoping to summit this morning.
If McKeever is successful on the 6,104m peak, he will have sliced a full three weeks off the record of 187 days set in November last year by Canadian Daniel Griffith.
The clock started ticking for McKeever on January 25th, the day he reached the summit of the 4,897m Antarctic peak Mount Vinson. Aconcagua (6,959m) in South America followed on February 11th, then Kilimanjaro (5,895m) in Africa on March 3rd and Carstensz Pyramid (4,884m) in Australasia on March 16th.
An attempt on the highest European peak, Mount Elbrus in Russia, had to be aborted in mid-April when temperatures plummeted to -40 degrees, forcing the team to abandon the bid for the 5,642m summit just over 200 vertical metres from their goal. Plans had to be rapidly redrawn, but McKeever, who is raising funds for the Irish Osteoporosis Society and Sophia Housing, could not afford to miss the Everest climbing season, which ends in early June.
He headed for Tibet and reached the highest point on Earth on May 16th, just 25 days after arriving at base camp. If his bid on McKinley is successful today, McKeever will go into the record books for the fastest ascent of the Seven Summits.