Climb every mountain

Alan Hinkes set himself the challenge of scaling each of the world's 14 peaks over five miles high. Now he has achieved it.

Climbing history has been made by a former geography teacher who is the first Briton to overcome all 14 of the world’s mountain peaks over five miles high.

Alan Hinkes is only the 13 th climber in history to complete the feat as he reached the top of Kangchenjunga, in Nepal . This is the world’s third highest peak and is also one of the most dangerous.

He described the ascent yesterday, which he finished by himself after his climbing partner Pasang Gelu turned back only 15 minutes from the summit, he was suffering from exhaustion, he said "without doubt the hardest climb of my life".

When he got to the summit is lashing wind and snow. When coming in the dark, he first thought that Mr Gelu, a Nepalese Sherpa had died.

When thy made it back to their bivouac camp at 24,000 ft, in the early hours of Tuesday, both had been climbing for 27 hours non-stop. They left at 1am on Monday and got to the summit at 7pm .

At the base camp Mr Hinkes could communicate his success as his satellite telephone was too heavy to carry for the final ascent.

"The final summit push was without a doubt the hardest climb of my life,'' he said. ''Risk of avalanche was incredibly high and every step of the way was a matter of physical and mental endurance. It was the worst summit conditions I can remember.

"Getting back to base camp was one of the best feelings of my life. I sat down in my tent and thought, 'I've finally done it'."

Mr Hinkes described that he had an emotional time when he and Mr Gelu both thought that the other had died, saying: "With no head torch, it was difficult to locate him and I honestly thought he was dead. It was with great elation that I found him and we got back to the bivvy site around 27 hours after setting off."

It was the conclusion of over 15 years of effort and a lifelong dream of Mr Hinkes’s that was inspired by the teenage walks on the North York moors.

He is now included into the “8,000 club”. This has come after all of the 14 mountains that are above that height in metres and came after two attempts prior on Kangchenjunga in 2000 and 2003 had failed. His success has been confirmed as an “astounding” by the supporters that illustrated that lots of people have landed on the moon as have made the 8,000 club.

Mr Hinkes and Mr Gelu, had been set back by the appalling weather once, on the day before the climb up to the summit. When he got to the summit he got out a picture of his daughter, Fiona 21 and grandson, Jay, and had a photograph of him taken with them instead of the normal flag. This has been his ritual for when he completed every summit that he has reached.

In truth, he stopped just short from the actual peak. Locally the mountain is thought of as being a deity, and the Government of the Indian state of Sikkim has requested that climbers respect that belief of not touching or standing on the summit.

It is this year that we commemorate the 50 th anniversary of the first ascent of Kangchenjunga, by Britons Joe Brown and George Band. The mountain, Kangchenjunga is thought of as being one of the more difficult climbs, less than 200 have reached the peak, and 40 have died trying to complete it, in contrast to 1,500 that have ascended Mount Everest . It wasn’t until 1977 that the second ascent of Kangchenjunga by the Indian army.

Mr Hinkes go to the summit in a short break in the weather that makes the Himalayan peaks accessible at the end of May. When he finally got to the top, all this season’s other expeditions had given up and gone.

That expedition took him over a month. He left Kathmandu in mid April and spent weeks getting used to the climate at an array of stages of the ascent. Mr Hinkes’s friend Sir Chris Bonington, who is one of Britain ’s most celebrated mountaineers spoke yesterday "It's a fabulous achievement.

"Alan is a good old Yorkshire climber, full of grit and understatement, but he said it was the hardest thing he had done.

''It required terrific determination, focus and superb mountaineering skill.

"We are all very proud of him. I'm looking forward to meeting him for a celebratory day's rock climbing in the Lake District and to sink a few pints of beer when he gets home."

Mr Hinkes has one daughter and one grandson, and now lives alone close to where he grew up in Northallerton, North Yorkshire .

It was in 1975 that he qualified as a teacher and left to become a full-time mountaineer in 1984. He always videos his ascents as he is an accomplished cameraman as well.

For ITV, he has made 11 documentaries so far, and there is planning for another of his latest expedition.

A friend said: "Alan is a typical Northerner. He likes real ale, chips, eggs, chapattis and cups of tea. They are the first things he eats when he comes off a mountain."

He even finds time to write a column for a climbing magazine.