Il 69-anno-vecchio a doppio amputato scalatore cinese Xia Boyu tenta scalata su roccia a una scogliera montagna nella città di Taizhou, est della Cina di provincia dello Zhejiang, 14 Januar
69-year-old double-amputee Chinese climber Xia Boyu tries rock climbing at a cliff mountain in Taizhou city, east China's Zhejiang province, 14 January 2019. In 1975, the Chinese climber Xia Boyu, then 25 years old, was attempting to summit Mount Everest with a team of his countrymen when things turned south. Boyu and his teammates got stuck at 8, 600 metersªfirmly in the "death zone"ªfor two days. Recounting the experience in 2007 during an interview with ExplorersWeb, Boyu said, "The following night, at 7, 600 [meters], I gave my sleeping bag to one of them, and thus suffered from frostbite in both feet. Back home, they gave me medals, but my frozen feet wouldn't heal. I finally had amputated." Forty-three years later, on March 14, 2018, at 8:26 am Nepal time, Boyu took the final steps up to the summit of Everest on his state-of-the-art prosthetic legs. He is the third double-amputee to reach the summit: the New Zealand climber Mark Inglis was the first, in 2006, and Santiago Quintero, of Ecuador, was the second in 2013. After his initial ill-fated expedition in 1975, Boyu¯s Everest aspirations lay dormant for many years. Then, in 2014, at 65 years old, buoyed by the successes of climbers like Inglis and Quintero, Boyu decided to give Chomolungma another go. He signed onto expeditions in three consecutive yearsª2014, 2015 and 2016ªonly to have fate conspire against him again: an avalanche and an earthquake curtailed the climbing seasons in the first two years, respectively. In 2016, Boyu turned back just 94 meters shy of the summit as weather started to deteriorateªan all too familiar memory of 41 years before.
