I’ve been following Jason Black’s Everest expedition closely for the past few weeks.
If you don’t know Jason, he’s one of Ireland’s great mountaineers. I’m heading to Morocco with him in three weeks as part of the Dare to Explore expedition.
So I have a particular interest. But honestly, even if I’d never met him, this story would have stopped me in my tracks.
47 days in Nepal. A team of Irish climbers and Sherpas. One mountain.
Jason himself had to pull out at Camp 3. An ankle injury that had been building flared up at altitude.
After everything, the preparation, the waiting, the acclimatisation, he put the crampons down and made the call.
That alone says something.
The three climbers, Pádraig O’Hora, Éanna McGowan and Adam Sweeney, pressed on with their Sherpa team, Pemba, Milan and Sona. On their first summit attempt, they got to within 400 metres of the top before the fixed ropes turned out to be buried under ice.
Think about that for a second. You’re at extreme altitude. The air is thin. Your body is running on fumes. And the route to the summit is frozen shut.
The decision to retreat wasn’t failure. It was judgment. Clear thinking under the kind of pressure most of us will never experience.
Back at Camp 4, the team took stock. The Sherpas worked to free the ropes.
More oxygen, food and water was moved up through the camps. A quiet, enormous act of collective effort that doesn’t make the headlines but makes everything else possible.
Then a weather window opened.
And on Wednesday morning, three Irish lads stood on top of the world.
Adam Sweeney, at 22, became the youngest Irish man to ever summit Everest. Pádraig O’Hora, who gave seven years to Mayo football, made the climb in aid of Mayo Mental Health Services. Éanna McGowan completing the trio.
I found out yesterday morning. I sat there for a while before I did anything else.
Jason messaged on social media from base camp: “This journey was about far more than standing on a summit. It was about resilience, teamwork, belief and carrying the hopes of many people all the way to the top of the world.”
Hard to argue with that.
I’ve been thinking about that team over the past 24 hours.
Not because leadership is like climbing Everest. That comparison gets made too often and it usually flatters the leader.
But because of what was on display in that story.
When the route was blocked, they didn’t panic and they didn’t push recklessly. They reassessed. They communicated. They redistributed effort. They waited for the right moment.
Courage isn’t the absence of fear or the absence of setbacks. It’s the clarity to keep going in the right direction when things don’t go to plan.
And collaboration isn’t a soft word.
At altitude, in the death zone, it’s the difference between life and death. Real collaboration means everyone knowing their role, trusting each other’s judgment, and being willing to do the unglamorous work that makes the headline moment possible.
We all have our own mountains.
They don’t come with crampons and supplemental oxygen.
They come in the shape of a difficult conversation you’ve been avoiding. A decision that’s been sitting on your desk too long. A team that needs you to be more present and more honest than is comfortable.
The fundamentals are the same.
Clarity. Courage. Communication.
And the knowledge that very few meaningful things get done alone.
Safe descent to the whole team. And to Jason, I can’t wait to hear this story in person.