"I realized if I kept going, I wouldn't be able to come back alive," the 33-year-old Kuriki, who lost nine fingers to frostbite in a 2012 Everest attempt, posted on Facebook. "So I decided to descend."
Kuriki, who was making the last push from the final camp, said that "it took too much time to move in deep deep snow."
Challenge upon challenge
With a success rate of just 29%, and when one in 10 people die trying to do it, ascending the 29,035 feet to reach the summit of Mount Everest is a monumentally difficult task under the best of circumstances.
Kuriki, however, had to cope with additional challenges that made a difficult task a seemingly impossible one. Despite the loss of his fingers, he made this latest climb by himself, and without oxygen.
