Six years ago this spring, a thirty-something Dublin woman called Marcella Dunne took a flight to Nepal with a group of people she barely knew. Accompanying her was her husband, Karl Flynn, who was just as apprehensive about the journey as she was. The company was jovial, but with a serious intent. No drinking holiday, this. Lots of walking, and chilly nights under the stars, on a passage into Tibet. The aim was to catch a glimpse of Chomolungma - Mount Everest.
This was, to quote the old cliche, to have been the experience of a lifetime; and for many who signed up to the treks supporting the 1993 Irish Everest Expedition, it proved to be. Marcella was a long, lean triathlete; she should have had no bother with the acclimatisation in Nepal and the long haul by road over the Tibetan border. Instead, she was struck by dysentery and giardia, every Asian traveller's dread.
Sick and very tired, Marcella continued on, when many in her condition would have preferred to lie down and weep. She was determined not to hold her companions up. It was only when she returned to Kathmandu from Everest Base Camp that her condition was diagnosed. She and her fellow trekkers were back in Ireland when, to their great satisfaction, Dawson Stelfox from Belfast reached the 8848-metre summit.
Winter training
Marcella overcame the debilitating illness and was soon out training again from her home in Howth, but there was one infection that she could not shake off. No antibiotics would treat it. Worse still, her husband was also afflicted - with an uncontrollable urge to return to altitude.
The couple's lives have not been the same since. Now, the breakfast conversation is not about Marcella's triathlons - or the League of Ireland football and power lifting at which Karl won awards - but about spending all their spare time and disposable income in high regions, ranging from Scotland, where they completed winter mountaineering training, to the summit of Mt Elbrus in the Caucasus, Mt Aconcagua in the Andes, Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Denali in Alaska, and our own Lugnaquilla, Croagh Patrick and Carrauntouhill.
Last June, while hill-walking in Howth and talking about final plans for an expedition to the Pamirs in central Asia, Marcella made her mind up. It had always been at the back of it; she knew what she really wanted to do. At this stage, the Irishwoman Josie Kieran had just failed to reach Everest's summit on a commercial expedition, but it had been close. Marcella decided it was time she tried herself.
"Financial ruin was discussed," Marcella says, describing her husband's reaction. However, he agreed. They cancelled further trips, sent out begging letters seeking support and remortgaged their home. They reserved two places with a British expedition company to tackle Everest's South Col route, from the Nepalese side, this spring.
Not "commercial"
They leave Ireland this month, and hope to record two firsts: first Irishwoman on the summit, and first married couple there also. Marcella is keen to stress that this is not a "commercial" effort, though they are paying a commercial company to look after them on the mountain. "We have both acquired a lot of experience, but as we are both working, we don't have the time to organise porters and food and all those logistics." In other words, she does not see herself as one of those self-seekers with plenty of money and no expertise, described so candidly in Jon Krakauer's classic mountaineering book, Into Thin Air. Recently, the pair could be seen carrying 20 to 26 kilo rucksacks up and down Howth hill on their way to and from work. They have been busy raising funds though pub quizzes and even a children's dance marathon. Both now in their early forties, they know only too well that it takes more than fitness and psychological maturity to climb a mountain. They must be able to acclimatise; to deal with objective dangers such as the notorious Khumbu ice-fall; and to face the fact that, ultimately, the weather will decide.
When asked why they do it, Karl prefers to quote an American mountaineer, with whose words they can both identify. "It has no intrinsic purpose; it is of no earthly good. There is no one to watch, no adoring public, no accolades. . .The spirit of mountaineering is the need to sustain the soul through adventure. It is not the summit; it is the journey to the summit that is the prize. . ."
Peruvian Andes
If paradise is somewhere in the Himalaya for the Howth pair, it is in the Peruvian Andes for Brendan Donegan, a Dublin advertising agency director. In July, he and three other climbers intend to climb six major peaks in the Cordillera Blanca, culminating with an ascent of Huascaran, which, at 6768 metres, in the highest peak in Peru and the third highest in South America.
The expedition, entitled the Irish Inca Skywalk, comprises experienced climbers who have previously climbed routes of Scottish grade two and Alpine standard. Derek Thompson is a postal worker from Bray, Co Wicklow, and both he and Donegan are members of Club Cualann, affiliated to the Mountaineering Council of Ireland (MCI). The two other climbers are Dermot Meagher, a sports store manager from Co Kildare, and Andrew McDaniel, who was on Denali in Alaska last year.
The trip has a strong cultural dimension, according to Donegan. The group aims to explore similarities between pre-Christian Celtic culture and Inca art, music, language, and sun worship. They are reading up on the role played by Irish revolutionaries in the history of South America; and they aim to make contact with Irish missionaries who have been working in Peru for many years.
Such is the taste for adventure now among Irish walkers, sailors and climbers that the Mountaineering Council of Ireland intends to form a new branch for explorers. Frank Nugent, deputy leader of the 1993 Irish Everest Expedition, co-leader of the 1997 South Aris Shackleton adventure and current chairman of the MCI, says that the branch will hold annual winter schools.