WATCH - First blind mountaineer to summit Everest - 46 year old Chinese

KATHMANDU: Chinese mountaineer Zhang Hong, 46, became the first Asian mountaineer to reach the summit of the 8,849-meter Mount Everest, the world’s highest peak located in Nepal.

The historic ascent despite visual impairment makes Hong the third person around the globe to finish the Everest expedition. He has reached the Earth’s highest mountain from the Nepal side.

Reports in International media cited that the 46-year-old completed an 8,849 meter-high Himalayan feat last Monday along with three high altitude guides. He then returned to the base camp late on Thursday.

He took to his official handle on Twitter that goes by the name of @Zhang_Hong_76. ‘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’, the caption reads.

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

The valiant hiker doesn’t seem to quit hiking after the recent feat as he eyes seven summits of the world. ‘This is only the beginning as I would like to climb the #SevenSummits #Everest2021’, the tweet further added.

Speaking with an international news agency, after becoming the first Chinese blind mountaineer to summit Everest, he said ‘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’.

Hong told that he got inspired by a blind American mountaineer named Erik Weihenmayer, who scaled Everest back in the year 2001. He started training under the supervision of his mountain guide friend Qiang Zi.

Hong’s summit to the top peak is what is being seen as a great moment of breaking the barriers. He hailed from Chongqing, a southwestern Chinese city. Glaucoma, a disease that damages your eye’s optic nerve, makes him visually impaired at the age of 21.

Narrating his inability to see anything, he said ‘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, adding that 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’.

Meanwhile, the landlocked South Asian country reopened Mount Everest last month for foreigners after the hiking got suspended last year after the Covid-19 resurgence.