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

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

Jules Mountain, 2 years ago this week, was lying in his one-man, coffin-like tent at Everest Base Camp, trying to sleep. Suddenly, the ground below him unexpectedly shifted to the left before lifting him into the air, thumping him back down again, then pulling him half a meter back to the right. Shocked and confused, he pushed his head out of the canvas to observe the landscape. He states that everything from the ground up was snow and there was a wall of it rolling down Pumori mountain, full of debris.

Shocked and confused, he pushed his head out of the canvas to observe the landscape. He states that everything from the ground up was snow and there was a wall of it rolling down Pumori mountain, full of debris.

Jules was one of the lucky ones to survive in his camp. 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.

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 tumor. It was non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Following various rounds of chemotherapy, Jules began to recover and felt desperate to prove the treatments hadn’t left him weaker. Despite being unable to feel one side of his head, 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.

Despite fearing that returning to the scene may trigger latent trauma from the horror of 2015, Jules joined another expedition and conquered Everest on Friday, 13th May 2016.