Mike Trueman has been to the top of the world, and come down again. The first Hong Kong resident to reach the summit of Mount Everest is also the first to make it back to the safety of Base Camp, and for this ex-soldier that was the hard part.
He was involved in perhaps the worst tragedy on the world's highest mountain in 1996 when eight climbers were killed and others left with horrific injuries amid a sudden and terrifying storm. He helped co-ordinate the rescue of people who lost their hands, feet and noses to frostbite, and, a year later when he went back to Nepal, his friend and leader died on the same unforgiving slopes.
But the 47-year-old divorced father of three knew he had it in him to climb to 8,848 metres above sea level - roughly the cruising altitude of a jumbo jet - and so he tried a third time earlier this month.
Conditions on the mountain, which claims one life for every four it allows to the top, were good and when the sun came up on the morning of May 13, Mr Trueman knew he and climbing partner Pawang Dawa Sherpa would make it to the top. Fifty metres before hitting the highest point on Earth a sense of elation ran through his body. But at 9.26am, when he sat down with the world literally at his feet, his thoughts were not on his achievement.
'You are so focused on staying alive you are aware that a lot of people die on the way down,' he said after returning to Hong Kong and life at sea level.
Even with a 360-degree view, Mr Trueman does not remember looking at much apart from seeing how far down he had to go.
