Was a seasoned British climber who died on Mount Everest this week aware of his grim fate? In a final message posted to his Instagram account on May 19, Robin Haynes Fisher, 44, wrote that it was extremely crowded on the mountain and that he was very aware of the deathly challenge he faced.
On Saturday, the 44-year-old British climber perished in the mountain’s “death zone,” an area infamous for its low oxygen levels due to its altitude.
“He was descending with his sherpa guides from the summit when he suddenly fainted,” Murari Sharma, an employee of the Everest Parivar Treks expedition company that organized Fisher’s trip, said of the climber.
In his final Instagram post, Fisher wrote that he was “hopeful to avoid the crowds on summit day and it seems like a number of teams are pushing to summit on the 21st.”
“Around 100 climbers did summit in those 2 days with sadly 2 deaths, an Indian man found dead in his tent at camp 4 and an Irish climber lost, assumed fallen, on his descent. A go fund me page has been set up for a rescue bid for the Irish climber but it is a well meaning but futile gesture,” Kulish grimly wrote of the conditions.
Kulish, who was aware of how crowded the summit climb had become, decided to try and head toward the summit on the 25th in order to try and avoid the crowds that he suspected would make the climb on the 21st.
“Condolences to both their friends and families. Both deaths happened above 8000m in the so called death zone where the majority of deaths of foreign climbers happen. Around 700 more people will be looking to summit from Tuesday the 21st onwards. My revised plan, subject to weather that at the moment looks promising, is to return up the mountain leaving basecamp Tuesday the 21st 0230 and, all being well and a lot of luck, arriving on the summit the morning of Saturday the 25th,” he added of his revised plan.
“My cough had started to return at altitude so I couldn’t wait with them at altitude for the window to open without the risk of physically deteriorating too much. Furthermore as I had missed due to sickness the earlier camp 3 rotation best practice was for me to descend to allow my body to recover from the new altitude high so I could come back stronger. This was not an easy decision as the 13 hours climbing from basecamp to camp 2 in a day was the hardest physical and mental challenge I had ever done, now I have it all to do again,” he added.
Sadly, this video and message was the final message from the climber wgo passed away on his descent from the summit of Mount Everest. Fisher had been battling health issues, which he wrote about in his message.
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