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Irish climber Rory McHugh completes summit of Mount Everest

Irish Times columnist reached summit at the second attempt on Friday morning

Rory McHugh (second from right) pictured at base camp with fellow Irish climbers (from left) Cian O’Brolchain, Terry Kelleher and John Burke

Fri May 26 2017 - 18:04

Irish mountaineer and Irish Times columnist Rory McHugh completed his summit of Mount Everest overnight at the second time of asking.

Thwarted on their first attempt earlier this month by rope issues, McHugh’s climbing team were forced back down the mountain to regroup.

Their second summit attempt began early last Sunday morning, with the final push for the summit getting underway in the early hours of Friday morning local time to take advantage of lighter winds.

McHugh tweeted ’Summit!’ at 5.24am Irish time (12.24pm local time), close to the planned summit time of noon.

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Later on, McHugh tweeted that the three-man team that also included Australian Blake Penson and American Jonathan Guidry faced “rapidly deteriorating conditions” on their ascent but that they were able to descend down 2,500 metres to Camp II.

McHugh is climbing Everest in aid of Rory’s Nepal School Project with Child Rescue Nepal, to build schools in off-the-beaten-track villages not yet recovered from the 2015 earthquake.

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