Inishowen boys climb any mountain

Three Inishowen mountaineers have scaled the dizzy heights Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in the Alps and in Western Europe. On their third attempt, Buncrana brothers, Ashley and Dylan Waldron, joined Tooban man, Paddy McCabe on his second effort and Donagh Reynolds, from Thurles, on his first and they all reached the majestic summit. Ashley said the weather conditions were perfect, however, although the climb itself is not very technical is it extremely demanding physically. “Although it is frequented by many people every year we’re always aware that we always pass people who have underestimated the difficulty and who pay the price of feeling absolutely awful,” he said. “We started off with a good pace until we reached the Tete Ruse Glacier which is where we then set up our first camp so we could sleep for the night and get used to the thinner air. We need to do this as we do not take the usual time to acclimatise when we’re climbing.” Ashley said he and the others felt good apart from the odd minor headache and set off the next morning on the Goutier Ridge. “This is the part of the mountain which has the most actual climbing and is very enjoyable to do,” he said. “We were careful to keep our ascent slightly slower than on the previous day as the higher altitude would be affecting us more and we didn’t want to go too fast and burn out too quickly.” They set up camp again at the top of the Goutier Ridge which stands at 12,540 feet. “At this stage we were all feeling pretty good – tired but positive,” said Ashley. “The weather was still holding out and we had some stunning views over the side of the Massif and up to the Dome du Goutier.” The crew then treated themselves to some dehydrated food, which Ashley described as ‘boring but very appreciated’, before bedding down at 9.00pm for a 2.00am start. “I’ve had better sleeps on mountains than the one I got that evening, the night was cold but it would be worth it, plenty of time for sleep when we’re back on the ground,” he said. “The trek up to the top of the Dome is, quite simply, really not a very enjoyable ordeal, it never seems to end. “I remember this fact from the last time we were up but it seemed even longer this time. It’s made even harder by the fact that you’re doing it in the dark so there are no nice views of alpine scenery to take your mind off the fact that your heart is pounding at about 170 beats a minute!” At 5.00am the men could just make out the shape of the Mont Blanc massif as the sun was coming up and at 9am, all four had reached the summit. “We were exhausted but the view was worth it, absolutely amazing, crystal clear sky and we had a complete panoramic view of the Alps,” he said. “This makes everything worth it.” The men stopped on their ascent to take some amazing pictures of the mountain in the midday sun and camped on the mountain another night to help acclimatisation for the next climb we had to do then celebrated in true Irish style. “The next day we arrived back in Chamonix and celebrated the climb with a healthy Irish dose of beers and some nice cigars,” said Ashley. “Overall the experience was brilliant and we’re all looking forward to another big climb next year.” Two days later the lads went to Zermatt, where the adrenaline junkies set off and trekked up the base of the Matterhorn, however, the weather didn’t hold out. “We found that out at midnight when we were woken up by the tent being filled with blue light and what basically sounded like an explosion going off right beside it,” said Ashley. “That was that, the weather had taken a turn for the worse and we had gotten caught right in the middle of a thunderstorm, the worst of the storm lasted for an hour.” Nevertheless, the boys are undeterred and will return again to scale another of the highest peaks in the Alps. “The next morning we packed up and set off back to Zermatt to have some beers and schedule our next trip back there for attempt number two.”