Donegal mountaineer Jason Black hoping to push Everest team to top of the world
The South Route Expedition Black’s team is following the historic path of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay - the same route that first conquered Everest in 1953
Donegal mountaineer Jason Black is hoping to shake off an ankle injury and lead his team to the top of the world.
Jason Black is a professional mountaineer from Letterkenny, who first summitted Mount Everest in May 2013.
He was the first person from Donegal to reach the peak and famously unfurled a Donegal flag at the summit. He then reached the 8,611m summit of K2 in 2018, becoming only the second Irishman ever to do so, following on Limerick’s Ger McDonnell, who tragically died on the descent.
Mount Everest is the highest mountain on Earth above sea level, reaching a height of 8,848.86 metres (29,031.7 feet) and is located in the Himalayas on the international border between Nepal and the Tibet Autonomous Region of China.
The South Route Expedition Black’s team is following the historic path of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay - the same route that first conquered Everest in 1953.
The team was expected at Everest Base Camp on Friday, May 1, where they were three weeks ago, before being forced to drop back to Dingboche when one of the members was suffering from altitude sickness.
Nepali mountaineers have cleared a route past a huge chunk of ice that has blocked climbers from moving up past Base Camp for two weeks. Ram Krishna Lamichhane, Nepal's director general of tourism, told the BBC that icefall doctors had now fixed ropes up to Camp 2 - located at roughly 6,400 to 6,500 metres (21,000 to 21,325 ft) high.
Teams began fixing ropes last month for the spring season, but they were forced to wait for a huge 100-foot-high (30m) ice block, known as a serac, to start melting.
Everest has been climbed 84 times by 65 Irish climbers (nine women and 56 men) since the first Irish success in 1993. The first Irish climber to reach the summit of Everest was Dawson Stelfox from Antrim, followed by Pat Falvey two years later.
"It’s been 20 years since an Irish team has been back on Mount Everest and it’s great to be here to follow in the footsteps of Dawson Stelfox in 1993, Pat Falvey in 2003 and myself, Jason Black,” Black said with his team. “I’m extremely proud as an Irish mountaineer to be leading the Irish team in 2026.”
Black’s team includes Eanna McGowan from Dublin; Adam Sweeney, a Waterford man, and Padraig O’Hora, the former Mayo Gaelic footballer.
“I’m the expedition leader for 2026 in this all-Irish team and I’m a Donegal man and a very proud Irish man,” Black added. “Now that you’ve met the team from Ulster, Munster, Leinster and Connacht, we just want to say to you guys back home, I hope you’re proud of our efforts. We’re proud to be out here representing Irish mountaineering and get behind us, give us a push, give us a nudge and we’ll do you proud on the summit of Mount Everest in 2026. Up the boys!"
Paul Devaney, on irishsevensummits.com, is keeping track of the Irish expeditions and said: “Icefall was finally opened on April 28, the latest point it has been opened in recent history.”
He added: “Padraig reported in his Irish Times diary that team leader Jason Black is suffering from a serious ankle injury, which might put him out of action in terms of climbing higher on Everest. If he is unable to ascend above a certain level this would mean the four clients being guided to the summit by their respective 8K Expedition Sherpa, with Jason in a monitoring role from afar. What happens there will become clearer as time moves on.”