Hayes elated over conquest

Dubai: "It's an absolute killer. I am absolutely, totally exhausted. It really was a case of digging deep," said an overwhelmed Adrian Hayes yesterday.

The 46-year-old Briton conquered Mount Everest at 7.20am UAE time following a gruelling overnight climb.

In a satellite telephone interview with Gulf News yesterday, Adrian thought to be the first-ever UAE resident to climb the 8,850-metre Himalayan peak said he was happy but very tired. "I always thought I would do it, but I was worried to say that to people. It is a mental fear more than a physical thing

"I'm elated now. You cannot describe what it's like. You cannot compare it to anything else.

"We spent an hour on the summit and it was a glorious day. We were looking on top of the clouds. The view really was fantastic better than I thought it would be. It was cold but there was sunshine," he said.

On the summit, Adrian inflated a model of the A380 superjumbo aircraft that is made by Airbus, for whom he works as regional sales director.

He feared he might not make it after glitches with his mask cut his oxygen supply for several hours of the final overnight climb.

"The climb was going well for the first five hours and I was feeling great, but then problems with the mask meant I wasn't getting the oxygen flow I should have been getting.

"It was looking very, very dodgy but suddenly the mask started working again and for the last few hours I was feeling good again. The descent back to camp I did without oxygen," he said.

Adrian was part of a group of five climbers accompanied by five Sherpa guides.

"From the age of 18 or 19 I have always wanted to climb Everest, but I had to put it on hold for various reasons. Three years ago I thought: That's it, I'm going to go for it," he said.

Climbing Everest is an expensive business and Adrian thanked his sponsors, Al Tayer Motors/Land Rover, Rolls-Royce PLC and Shell.

"I wouldn't have been able to do it without them," he said. Whilst on the summit, Adrian spoke to his family by satellite phone.

Wife Dawn said: "He had a tough time on the way up and when I spoke to him he was really puffing and panting.

"Now he's done it, I'm relieved and really, really excited. He's achieved something he's wanted to do for many years."

She said the couple's children, Alexander, seven, and Charlotte, five, were "absolutely ecstatic" about their father's success.

"Alexander is so over the moon. He's talked about it at school and all his friends think it's brilliant his dad has got to the biggest mountain in the world. For him it's the best news ever," she said.

Next feat: Race to North Pole

Adrian Hayes, a former British Army officer who has lived in the UAE for more than a decade following stints in Hong Kong and Oman, has climbed some of Nepal's other major mountains including Mera Peak, which is 6,654-metres high, and the 6,828-metre Ama Dablam. He has also conquered Africa's highest peak, Mount Kilimanjaro, and the tallest mountain in Japan, Mount Fuji.

The first people to climb Everest were Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay in 1953.

A total of about 2,000 people have reached the summit, although since the first expeditions in the 1920s there have been about 200 deaths of those who tried to reach or descend from the peak.

Hayes has plenty of physical challenges ahead of him but spending time climbing the world's tallest peaks is not one of them. Next year he plans to take part in the Polar Race 2007, a gruelling 400-mile contest to reach the North Pole.

"I'm doing the North Pole race. It's going to be the world's toughest race and probably we'll get a team together from the UAE," he said.

He added that he would continue with "more technical" rock climbing and ice climbing.

"When it comes to 8,000-metre peak, that's my last. I am very keen to do smaller climbs, but not the big ones."