Chapter 1: What recent achievement did the Irish climbers accomplish?
Last week we heard about the team of Irish climbers which reached the summit of Mount Everest, the top of the highest mountain in the world. The group's extraordinary achievement has put the famous peak back in the forefront of many Irish minds. My next guest wasn't aiming for the summit, but he recently achieved his goal of making it to Everest Base Camp, just over 3,000 metres below the peak.
Let's take a listen to that exact moment.
Guess what? We did it! We made it to Everest Base Camp! The summit is a bit of an anticlimax. It's just a big rock beside a campsite. It's a finicky key.
Dermot Whelan, comedian, broadcaster, author.
Chapter 2: What did Dermot Whelan experience at Everest Base Camp?
Thank you so much for joining us. That sounds amazing. Now, I know you're at pains to point out that you didn't make it to the summit.
You're not in that league, but it just sounds... I was doing keepy-uppies in my front garden while other lads were doing Premier League stuff. I loved your intro. It's like, we heard about the people who went to the top and now someone who walked to the bottom.
LAUGHTER
But walking to the bottom, it's still a hell of a long way up. It is. It's 5,364 metres. So that's over 17,000 feet. So, I mean, altitude is an issue. And it is a kind of a strange one because I trekked to Kilimanjaro a couple of years ago and that is a freestanding mountain. So there's a top and you're always working towards that. Whereas base camp...
As you heard in the little clip there, you are literally walking to the foot of Everest and that's where those real climbers begin their journey. So when you do get there, it is just kind of a rock and you can see into base camp and they don't really welcome in randomers like the rest of us because you're bringing in all your... germs and you could be putting their expeditions at risk.
So you're kind of outside and then you go, okay, we might as well go back down now. But it is an incredible experience and Nepal is a beautiful country.
We'll get into that in a second. Have you always been a hiking enthusiast, a climbing enthusiast?
Not always, but I think I found myself going away on little silent retreats for myself down to Glendalough in Wicklow when I was feeling a little bit stressed out. I wanted to, I just felt a natural kind of urge to get into the countryside and into a bit of silence and serenity. And I found myself down at Glendalough a lot and it's always a magical place down there.
So I was in the woods and walking around and, you know, hiking and doing a bit of trail running and things. And I think that's kind of about 10 years ago where the bug sort of got planted. OK, now that I've conquered Glendalough, it's time for Kilimanjaro. Well, that's the funny thing, because, you know, people go, what's the training like? What do you need to do?
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Chapter 3: How does altitude affect hiking and climbing experiences?
So you're trying to hike as well on very little sleep.
Okay, so you're hiking on very little sleep and because of that lack of oxygen, presumably you're not getting a full lungful of air every time. So any kind of physical exertion must be 10 times harder or five times harder, whatever.
Yeah, it's funny because you forget sometimes. In the other way at home, you might just sort of bound up a few steps, you know. And when you do that there, you're sort of grabbing onto the wall. I think I should actually take it easy and just walk slowly, you know. So you're walking slowly for nine hours? That's one of the things that you really have to make yourself do.
And I guess these are some of the lessons that you learn on these walks, the ability to slow down. Because, you know, I would be the same, you know, weekend warrior hikers. We love bounding out of the car and then trying to do a personal best on our trek. and walk as fast as we can. But actually, it's the opposite.
Anywhere, anything to do with altitude, you're trying to conserve energy the whole time. You're trying to make it easier for your body to do more with less oxygen. So you really walk at a pace that feels completely alien. I likened it to, you know, if you're recovering from an operation and the nurse lets you walk down the corridor to the vending machine, you know, that kind of...
hospital shuffle pace. It's kind of like that. And you realise that it's quite hard in today's busy world to slow down, to actually just make yourself walk slowly. And there's all those kinds of lessons about, you know, it forces you into a situation where you
have to be a little bit more mindful and move a bit slower and be OK with not reaching your destination because, you know... You might not make it. You might not make it, you know, and there were certainly people in our group. There was only six of us in our group, plus a doctor. And one chap just got very, very ill near the top and he had to... head back down.
Another chap made it to base camp, but then immediately had to be helicoptered off because he felt so bad. So it's quite possible you won't get there. So you really have to enjoy the journey, you know, and there's all these kinds of wonderful, slightly cliched, I suppose, lessons, but they are real, you know, and it does. Cliches are a cliche for a reason. Yeah, I mean, look at it.
A mountain is the biggest sort of physical cliched representation of challenge that we have. You know, we all have our mountains to climb, etc. But they are a beautiful reset, you know. Tell me about the journey to get to
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Chapter 4: What personal journey led Dermot to become a hiking enthusiast?
And you hope that the plane just continues to fly.
Yeah. Yeah, a track like this, I mean, where are you sleeping? What are you eating? What are the toilet facilities like, if I dare to ask?
Yeah, not bad. Again, like these things, because supplies, you know, are brought by yak and mule and things like that, and any electricity above a certain point is generally solar powered. The higher you go, the worse the facilities are, the more humble they get. So... Toilet wise, I always get asked that. They're okay. There's an interesting, they don't have proper flushing.
So there's a big barrel of water, basically. And then you scoop jugs of water out into the toilet. I don't want to get too detailed this hour of the morning. But that's one of the reasons why, you know, germs spread with those kinds of things. The food is pretty good. Again, the higher you go up, the worse it is. But also you kind of lose your appetite the higher up you get as well.
So you really have to force yourself to eat. I know that Padraig O'Hara, the Mayo footballer, was talking about how much weight he lost on his Everest trip. I was only there for two weeks. I certainly didn't go as high as him and I lost like six kilos. So the weight, at altitude, you just burn through fat and then it starts having to go up muscle.
So you really have to try and force the food into yourself. Although when I got home, I was telling my wife, I've lost six kilos. And she's like, God, maybe I should do a track. There's a lot of people thinking, maybe that's the weight loss program that I needed. Not that my wife needs to lose weight.
It's possible there are easier ways of losing weight. I think so, yeah. And I know on the climb there is a memorial to fallen climbers and it is a very, very, very dangerous place, as you've adverted to.
Yeah, it is an interesting place. This strange juxtaposition between sort of happy trekkers all taking selfies because it is at a beautiful place, you know, the... And it's very hard to describe how stunning the Himalayan mountain range is. You know, when you're up there, obviously you want to take pictures and enjoy it and leave all those beautiful, colourful prayer flags fluttering in the wind.
So it is beautiful. But at the same time, this place is... is filled with little stone monuments that look a little bit like our Irish cairns you might find on top of a hill. And they have plaques and little detailed information about the climbers.
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Chapter 5: What challenges do hikers face while climbing to Everest Base Camp?
And I should mention as well, your new series Museum of Me is starting soon.
Yes, next Sunday at half past eight, Museum of Me, where we well-known Irish people tell their life story through objects that shaped them. And it's a really lovely series. It's at half eight, which is the old Glenrow slot. So hopefully we won't, you know, give people as much fear as the Glenrow music did. One of my guests actually is Mary McAvoy, aka Biddy from Glenrow.
So she's back in her rightful place at half eight on a Sunday evening.
And it's starting off with Brian Dobson on Sunday. Yes, yeah. Look forward to that. Dermot Whelan, thank you so much for coming in and telling us all about that. Thanks, David.