14/05/2017 Meet Jules Mountain, the cancer survivor who conquered the Everest Avalanche

SPONSORED TOPICS

Best Hair Growth Hardwood Floor Online Fitness Accurate Psychic

Best Mascaras of 2017
Vitamins Cleaners Trainers Readings

 AdChoices

Meet Jules Mountain, the cancer survivor who conquered the Everest
Avalanche

The Telegraph
By Guy Kelly
4/30/2017

 SHARE  SHARE  TWEET  SHARE  EMAIL

 

1/5 SLIDES © Provided by The Telegraph 

Jules Mountain will never forget the feeling, the moment it hit. Two years ago this week, he was lying in his one‐man,
coffin‐like tent at Everest Base Camp, attempting to doze away a gently stinging hangover. “It was supposed to be a
rest day,” the 51‐year‐old recalls. “That seems absurd now.”

Without warning, the ground beneath him suddenly shifted leftwards before lifting him into the air, thudding him back
down again, then wrenching half a metre back to the right.

Dazed and confused, Jules poked his head out of the canvas door to look out over the landscape, including to Pumori,
an adjacent mountain known as ‘Everest’s daughter’. The entire sky was blanched and seemingly falling in.

“Everything, from the ground up, was snow. There was a wall of it rolling down Pumori, full of debris and seemingly
heading right for us,” he says. “I had seen a lot of avalanches in my time skiing and climbing, but never anything like
that.”

Nobody had. The earthquake, 7.8 in magnitude and its epicentre 140 miles away, had freed lumps of ice the size of
skyscrapers, sending them crashing to the ground on both Pumori and Everest. As it hit, thousands of tons of snow and
debris came hurtling towards Base Camp. Anything in its wake would be decimated.                      

https://www.msn.com/en­us/news/good­news/meet­jules­mountain­the­cancer­survivor­who­conquered­the­everest­avalanche/ar­BBAyKjT 1/5
14/05/2017 Meet Jules Mountain, the cancer survivor who conquered the Everest Avalanche

A few metres away, Jules’s nearest neighbours, two Polish climbers from the same expedition, looked over in disbelief
before racing for cover behind a rocky outcrop. Jules. who was only in his socks, didn’t have time. Diving back into his
tent, he put his head down and awaited the inevitable.

“I thought, ‘that’s it. I’m going to die,’” he says plainly when we meet in a West London cafe. ‘I thought of my
daughters, my girlfriend, my family. And then – bang. The noise and wind was incredible.”

All around the camp, debris destroyed whatever it encountered. Tent poles were sent into the air like rocket‐powered
spears, skewering whatever they landed on. Rocks flew like bullets – one passed straight through a nearby climber, who
was also huddling under canvas, killing him instantly. Jules’s tent began filling to the brim with snow. 

“It just kept coming in, covering everything. When it passed, I managed to heave myself up, then scrambled around,
digging like a madman and not looking outside yet. For some reason I was most concerned about recovering my
phone and laptop. It sounds ridiculous, but you don’t know what to do in those situations.”

Jules – whose surname is coincidental – was one of the lucky ones. The heaviest debris passed just to the side of his
expedition’s tents, avoiding his fellow climbers but clattering through support structures. Others either side weren’t so
fortunate. Together with its numerous aftershocks, the Nepal earthquake in April 2015 claimed nearly 9,000 lives,
costing the small country almost half its GDP and leaving the capital, Kathmandu, still in disrepair. Of those fatalities, 22
came in the avalanche on Mount Everest, including several foreign climbers, and most occurred at Base Camp. It was
the deadliest human disaster in Everest’s history. 

At 6’3 ins, broad‐shouldered Jules, a company director who lives with his two daughters from a previous marriage,
Steph, 13, and Lizzie, 11, on a small farm in Hertfordshire, has a stoic air. In Aftershock, his book about his experience
on Everest and the life building up to it, he details the absurd number of times he has come close to death. There was
the hepatitis A in his 30s; then liver failure; then a bad motorcycle crash; then Everest.

“Too many times,” he says, with a dark laugh. “It’s really unbelievable.”

Indeed, it was his closest brush with death that inspired him to tackle Everest.

In2007, after selling his consultancy business, an itch behind his ear turned out to be a lump. After a visit to a head and

neck consultant, the lump was diagnosed as a malignant tumour. It was non‐Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

“They operated a week after, for seven and a half hours,” he says, turning his head to show a large dent and scar. “They
had to cut in and move my jaw to get to it. My daughters were three and one at the time. I was petrified.” 

After several rounds of chemotherapy, Jules began to recover and felt desperate to prove the treatments hadn’t left
him weaker. A keen adventurer, and a leader with Ski Club Great Britain, he signed up to do the Haute Route, a famous
ski tour in the Alps, despite being unable to feel one side of his head ﴾even today, he has no sensation in his right ear.﴿

 “I was determined to do a challenge of some kind and test myself, to show I hadn’t been diminished by the illness. I
was proving it to myself as much as anyone else.”

 Escalating those challenges, he later climbed Mount Blanc, and then, a few seasons later, had the opportunity of
Everest dangled before him when a friend offered him a spare place on a 2015 expedition.

 “I felt a tingle through me when he said it. I was hesitant because of my daughters, but I couldn’t think of a real reason
why I shouldn’t do it,” he says. “Everyone knows Everest is dangerous. My family were concerned, but they were excited
for me and they understood. If you stay in your comfort zone your whole life, you waste your potential, and I didn’t
think I’d climb Everest, even then. I thought I’d try and climb Everest.” 

With just weeks to prepare, Jules joined a group of 16 climbers and set off for Nepal, intent on conquering a mountain
that claims the lives of one in 60 who dare try. He acclimatised well, spending five weeks climbing peaks around Everest
before settling at Base Camp to wait for the big push. Then the earthquake came.

“It was total chaos in the aftermath,” he says. “Not only were so many people’s expeditions destroyed and lives lost, but
rescue efforts were made impossible by the conditions. I saw some horrible things, a lot of bodies and bad injuries. In a

https://www.msn.com/en­us/news/good­news/meet­jules­mountain­the­cancer­survivor­who­conquered­the­everest­avalanche/ar­BBAyKjT 2/5
14/05/2017 Meet Jules Mountain, the cancer survivor who conquered the Everest Avalanche

way I was amazed by the lack of preparation there, given they had been expecting an earthquake for 20 years. The
scale was extraordinary.”

A lot of locals left the mountain in fear of further quakes, but unlike many other climbing groups, Jules and his
expedition team stayed at Base Camp in the days afterwards, both to assist the emergency services and to see if it was
still possible to ascend. But the icefall had wrecked many pre‐planned routes and five days after the avalanche, the
climb was called off.                             

“We all wanted to carry on. Those 22 people didn’t die in vain, so we felt it would be right to try, but they stopped
anybody attempting it,” he says. “There is a psychology about Everest. I met one American woman who had waited 14
years to climb it. It had become my life’s ambition, and getting so close meant I just had to go back and finish the job.”

The following year, he did just that. Despite fearing that returning to the scene may trigger latent trauma from the
horror of 2015, Jules joined another expedition and set about raising money, as he’d done before, for Haemotalogy
Cancer Care. He conquered Everest on Friday May 13th, 2016.

“Climbing Everest is 50% your feet and 50% your loaf,” he says, tapping his temple. “The avalanche was devastating, but
I wasn’t going to let it put me off. I had a goal, and I wouldn’t stop until I’d achieved it.”

Aftershock by Jules Mountain ﴾Eye Books, £9.99﴿ is out now

SPONSORED TOPICS

 
Best Hair Growth Vitamins Hardwood Floor Cleaners Best Mascaras of 2017

MORE FOR YOU Promoted Links by Taboola   

What Are Binary Neural Networks ﴾BNNs﴿ and Why Are They Important?
Intel

Why Is Japan's Beef Arguably the Best in the World?

CNN International for Taste of Japan

Best Tracking Device Ever is Selling Like Crazy

TrackR Bravo

Dancing Mom Out Does Her Daughter

Viral Clips Daily on MSN

Celebrity chef refuses to cook with Paul Ryan on Fox News: report
The Hill on MSN

Florida Teen Who Threw 68‐Year‐Old Into Pool Turns Self In

https://www.msn.com/en­us/news/good­news/meet­jules­mountain­the­cancer­survivor­who­conquered­the­everest­avalanche/ar­BBAyKjT 3/5
14/05/2017 Meet Jules Mountain, the cancer survivor who conquered the Everest Avalanche
NBC News on MSN

How this app teaches you a language in 3 weeks!

Babbel

Flight Prices You're Not Allowed to See

Save70.com

Cop Finds Baby In Dumpster: But 25 Years Later, This Happened...

LifeDaily.com

Scientists in South Africa reveal more on human‐like species

Associated Press on MSN

Mystery girl found in coffin beneath SF home is identified

San Francisco Chronicle on MSN

8‐year‐old's suicide: Video shows incident in bathroom

USA TODAY on MSN

End Your Nightly Snoring Nightmare With This Simple Solution

My Snoring Solution


Most Dangerous Dog Breeds in the World 
PressRoomVIP

Why weight loss often follows divorce for older women

Futurity.org

Shannon Sharpe reveals the one stat that shows why Colin Kaepernick may have played his last down
FOXSports on MSN

Is Katy Perry Really JonBenet Ramsey?!

E! Online on MSN

Deputy AG Rosenstein denies he threatened to quit over Comey dismissal

CNBC on MSN

Get that special someone the PC they’ve always wanted. PCs on sale now!
Microsoft Store

Closeout prices! Save big on select Xbox games, toys and more!
Microsoft Store

https://www.msn.com/en­us/news/good­news/meet­jules­mountain­the­cancer­survivor­who­conquered­the­everest­avalanche/ar­BBAyKjT 4/5
14/05/2017 Meet Jules Mountain, the cancer survivor who conquered the Everest Avalanche

Surface Studio is great for unwinding after long workdays

Microsoft Store

 Go to MSN Home  Go to MSN News

 JOIN THE CONVERSATION 

 

https://www.msn.com/en­us/news/good­news/meet­jules­mountain­the­cancer­survivor­who­conquered­the­everest­avalanche/ar­BBAyKjT 5/5