Climber who lost fingers in Everest forced by conditions to abandon new attempt

Mount Everest's summit will once again remain elusive for Nobukazu Kuriki. The tenacious Japanese climber was nearly a month into his fifth attempt to scale the world's highest mountain when perilous conditions on Saturday forced him to abandon his latest quest.

Japanese mountaineer, Nobukazu Kuriki, who had previously lost nine fingers to frostbite

Said Kuriki, who lost nine fingers to frostbite in a 2012 Everest attempt,

“I realised if I kept going, I wouldn’t be able to come back alive. So I decided to descend.”

Kuriki was following the same route used by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay when they became the first people to reach the summit in 1953. He took the decision to stop after attempting a final push to reach the 8,848m summit. It took too much time to move in the “deep deep snow” and he decided to abandon his attempt after leaving the final camp on Saturday evening (26 September).

Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay

With a success rate of just 29%, and when one in 10 people die trying to do it, reaching the summit of Mount Everest is a monumentally difficult task under the best of circumstances. Kuriki, however, had to cope with additional challenges that made a difficult task a seemingly impossible one. Despite the loss of his fingers, he made this latest climb by himself, and without oxygen.

Mount Everest from base camp one

It was also the first attempt anyone has made since a devastating April 25 earthquake killed 19 people and injured 61 at the mountain's base camp, the deadliest accident in Everest's history. The Nepalese government closed Everest for the remainder of the spring climbing season after the earthquake.

A powder snow avalanche in the Himalayas near Mount Everest

By making this latest attempt in the colder months of autumn, Kuriki was making it all the more challenging. Kuriki seems to thrive off challenges, however, and hopes to inspire others with his extraordinary perseverance.

A yak on Mount Everest, at around 4790 m altitude, just above the halfway mark to the summit

Said the determined mountaineer,

"I believe everybody in the world has his or her own mountain in life. I want to tell people that we can try together and share our adventures in life so they can keep trying for their dream."

(All images - credit: Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons licence)