If you thought Kiama’s hills were difficult to climb, how would you like to traverse 8,848 metres to the top of Mt Everest? Well, one Kiama resident has done just that.

John Dover reached the summit of Mt Everest on 17 May after a one-and-a-half month journey, but his obsession with climbing the world’s tallest mountain started in earnest back in 2017.

Kerry brought husband John on a trip to Nepal to travel to the Everest Base Camp, a 12-day round trip and the final stop before mountaineers make for the summit. Once they arrived, John told Kerry, “Well, that’s great that we’re here but if I’m standing here, then really I want to be at the top.”

John, who is a helicopter pilot Lieutenant Commander in the Australian Defence Force, signed himself up for all the mountaineering and climbing courses he could as soon as the couple returned home.

Over the next few years, he took on climbing some of the world’s tallest peaks in preparation, including Mt Cook in New Zealand, Aconcagua, the tallest mountain in South America, Mont Blanc in the Alps and Nepal’s Ama Dablam, known as a “mountaineers mountain.”

John went back to the Everest Base Camp as soon as he could, and spent two weeks with Kerry trekking to acclimatise to the high altitude. Before climbing Everest, however, the group climbed a 6,119 metre mountain called Lobouche as additional training. Talk about a warm up!

After a second acclimation mission through the Khumbu icefalls, the group, which included two Americans, a Cuban, lead guide and three sherpas, had to wait for a 7-8 day gap of clear weather before they made the ascent safely. Such a gap appeared on 12 May, and the group set off at midnight.

While the Cuban mountaineer became the first from his country to climb Everest, not everyone in the group was so lucky. One of the other climbers, one of the Americans, suffered a stroke at 8,000 metres on the way back down, and was carried back to camp before being helivaced to a hospital in Kathmandu. Thankfully, he is doing fine now, and is waiting to fly back home when he can.

While surviving relatively unscathed, even John still suffered from a small bout of frostbite on his feet but feels fortunate to have made it without anything worse happening.

This year has been particularly deadly for Everest climbers, with 12 reported deaths and five others still missing, along with the countless rescue missions that take place.

So, if you’re a Kiama resident thinking of making the climb, stay safe and rug up!

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