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Once terrified of heights, Paul Devaney is living proof of the adage “feel the fear and do it anyway”. By 2012, this Engineering graduate had climbed five of the highest peaks in the world. To tackle the final two, he packed in his job in Berlin and returned to Ireland to train full-time at UL.

Today, Longford man Paul remains committed to the ‘Seven Summits’, a mountaineering challenge to climb the highest peaks on all seven continents. But taking on this huge challenge in the first place was astonishing to his family, given Paul’s complete lack of experience.

That first trek inspired a challenge which would take up every spare day, every vacation period and most euros earned over the following years”

The Seven Summits challenge began for Paul back in 2005. While working for Rolls-Royce in their aerospace division, he was assigned to work at Cathay Pacific in Hong Kong and at the end of that year, decided to trek to Everest Base Camp. “That first trek inspired a challenge which would take up every spare day, every vacation period and most euros earned over the following years” Paul reveals.

As part of the ‘Seven Summits’ challenge, Paul went on to conquer Kilimanjaro, Tanzania (2007), Mount Elbrus, Russia (2008), Aconagua, South America (2008 and 2011), Mount Kosciuszko, N.S.W, Australia (2010), Denali, Alaska (2010) and Vinson Massif Antartica (2013).

All that remained was Everest, the highest mountain on earth.

Altitude House

In April 2015, Paul – who graduated from UL in 2001 with a B Eng (Aeronautical) - had spent the bulk of his preparation for Everest by training and preparing back on the UL campus. “I had left my job with Rolls Royce and was training full-time in the UL Arena” he recalls. He was also living full-time in the Altitude House at UL’s Kilmurry Village. One of the only facilities of its kind in Ireland/UK, the Altitude House is capable of simulating an altitude of 4,000 metres.

Soon, all of that experience would be called upon, but not in the way I had imagined.”

Five years of building on experience, along with two years of dedicated preparation, both physical and mental, had led up to Everest. “Soon, all of that experience would be called upon” Paul states “but not in the way I had imagined.”

Earthquake

“Only Asia (aka Everest) was left to complete,” he says. And this was not Paul’s first time to attempt the mountain. In 2014, he and fellow UL alumnus Niall O’Byrnes, attempted to climb Everest, but an avalanche just below Camp 1 claimed the lives of 16 Sherpa and brought the season to a rapid and tragic close.

“So it was back to the drawing board, back to the UL Arena, back to the Altitude House” Paul says, and eventually back to Everest in 2015 to attempt to finally complete the Seven Summits challenge.

By late April 2015, Paul and his teammates had completed their 20+ days of adaptation climbs and were resting at base camp after climbing in the dark earlier that night through the famed ‘icefall’ between base camp and Camp 1, to familiarise themselves with the terrain and prepare for a move to Camp 1 later that day. “Shortly after 11 am, the ground suddenly started to move” Paul recalls.

A 7.8 magnitude earthquake rocked through the Khumbu Valley, moving the glacier that base camp was sitting on and moving the entire country along with it. The last big earthquake to rock Nepal had occurred during the 1930’s so there was no record in the long history of Everest mountaineering of an earthquake impacting an Everest season. Miles away from base camp, the quake had shifted large masses of ice and snow from the summit ridge of nearby mountains, and very quickly an avalanche had formed and was heading at speed towards Everest Base Camp.

Distress

“Within moments of the quake” Paul says “we were face to face with a wall of white bearing down on them, with little time to react or take shelter.” The team survived unscathed but emerged into the 1.5km span of base camp to discover a scene of mayhem and destruction. Camps and teams had been impacted by the full force of the avalanche, entire team encampments were gone, and a great many people were in serious distress.

That day turned into the highest rescue and recovery mission on Earth, as Paul and his teammates along with others at Base Camp carried injured climbers and workers to the edge of camp for on-site treatment and to await possible helicopter evacuation the following day.

As the team crisscrossed base camp with people and supplies, the number of fatalities grew and as darkness fell, 19 people had died, up to 60 had been seriously injured and in need of evacuation and more than 170 people were stranded at Camp 1 and Camp 2 with no way to return to Base Camp due to the destruction of the carefully constructed route through the icefall and it’s deadly crevasses.

Resilience

“What began as a mountaineering challenge had turned into a very different mission” Paul remembers. “But the skill amassed over years of expeditions, and solidified over countless hours of physical and mental preparation, gave myself and the team the resilience needed to confront our new and unexpected situation”.

Paul and his teammates overcame their fears to provide help and support to those who needed it and in the aftermath of the Nepal earthquake - with his Everest expedition now cancelled due to the avalanche and deaths at Everest Base Camp - Paul spent a number of weeks in Kathmandu assisting both Redpoint and Nepal Ireland Society in disaster relief work.

Motivation

While a student at UL, Paul was involved with the Aeronautical Society, the Society for Exploration and Development of Space, as well as the Gaelic Football Club. Today, he runs a micro business in London, providing digital design services to the aerospace industry.

Paul has put a lot on the line to try to realise his dream, spending over 100,000 euros of his own money on the Seven Summits Challenge, including 30,000 on Everest alone. “I don’t just want to climb Everest” Paul reflects “I want to create a bit of wonder in my life … when I go to these extraordinary places and have the privilege to do these extraordinary things, it motivates me to do things that are harder but better than the alternative”.

Fifteen years on from when he first began, this determined mountain climber also keeps up his training and trekking skills to enable another attempt on Everest. After two thwarted attempts in 2014 and 2015, Paul muses “Perhaps there is a chance in the near future to finally complete that elusive Seventh Summit?”

Fellow alumni can – and to his training camp back at UL - by tuning into this fascinating RTE audio documentary ‘The Seventh Summit’ by Killoe Sounds on SoundCloud.

You can also ’ (as part of the TedxTalks series) in which he talks about the incredible yet human reaction to fear of the known and the unknown.

of the other Summits on the Irish Seven Summits website.